Week 11: Big, Black Train
We’re gonna do this fast. Monday was a lost day due to home repair and Tuesday was wall-to-wall writing for other, less meaningful outlets. So we’re going to do the old deadline blitz. I’m going to write as much as I can in 90 minutes, and when the timer goes off, it’s pencils down. If I don’t get to you, I apologize, but it’s important to test oneself.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnd go!
Music tastes are a funny thing, given that they are fairly fluid for like 25 years, then calcify at an alarming rate around age 30. Now in my late 30s, I pretty much listen to the same stuff over and over. New music’s only entry point into my life is through Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist, and even then I never bother remembering the artist or song title. But recently, I’ve found myself in a situation for which a particular genre, one I never really had much time for, is perfectly suited to make things more tolerable.
That situation is DIY home projects, and that genre is Country.
I’ve dabbled in the twangy waters before, and have great affection for certain artists (Ryan Bingham leaps to mind), but on the spectrum of music, I just never responded much to country as a whole. I don’t dislike it, it just isn’t my brand of bourbon. But the last couple weeks, it’s been in heavy rotation around the house.
There’s something about working with your hands that makes country music like five times better. A song that rolls right off your ears in the car is an absolute banger when you’re covered in plaster and paint and tearing out walls. It makes the work better. It makes you better AT the work. You welcome the dust and stains. You don’t mind the occasional cut- the blood adds to the ambiance.
My son is super into the Luke Combs song from Twisters, and when it came on shuffle Monday, I damn near built us a whole new house. I don’t care if the true country fans among us think it’s “pop” country or whatever. When you’re in the middle of demolishing shit, that song fucking GOES.
I’ll come help you with any project if you promise to put that on and guarantee I get dirty enough to look cool and manly in front of my wife.
Villian Corner:
In celebration of our own villains, this week kickers for missing goddamn everything, each dispatch we will take a moment to appreciate a great villain from entertainment history.
The Wolf from Puss in boots: the last wish
A few things here. One: this movie rules and was deservedly nominated for an Oscar. The story is great, they stacked the plot with super compelling characters, and then they cast the shit out of the voices.
Two: the animation style is very cool, to the point where that alone is worth putting it on.
Three, and most germane: It has a top-notch villain.
It’s important to understand that our movie finds Puss In Boots having died eight times, so his next fatality is his last. The legendary scoundrel becomes aware of his mortality, and realizes he was so good for so long precisely because he didn’t fear death. What is he now that he has that fear?
Enter Death, who is in the form of a hulking, red-eyed wolf and voiced to perfection by Wagner Moura. Their first meeting, Puss thinks the Wolf is another in a long line of bounty hunters who have tried to catch him. But it’s clear in seconds he’s fucking with something different this time:
That scene handles the two most critical aspects of establishing a great villain. It demonstrates that the wolf a legitimate and possibly insurmountable threat, and it gives him a signature trait.
That whistle? SICK. There is nothing cooler than when a villain so overmatches everybody they can afford to be leisurely. The wolf just whipped wholesale ass, and instead of giving it 100 percent and finishing off Mr. In Boots, he strolls calmly after him while filling the air with a haunting tune.
His use of it throughout the rest of the movie is SO effective. Now having established that little refrain is his, he haunts the shit out of PIB with it. Whenever he’s close, he uses it to announce himself, even when he hasn’t been seen yet. He could have snuck up on our hero, but he chose instead to taunt him- reminding PIB that though he’s run far and wide, death is always coming. Those few notes are simply “I seeeee youuuuuu” and it’s awesome.
The best usage is in the midst of a great action sequence, when both the hero and audience have completely focused their attention elsewhere. It’s a chilling reminder that whatever victories are achieved come with an asterisk, because the real villain is still waiting and the final fight only ends one way:
He hits him with the COINS IN THE EYES. God damn, dude. Using his big heroic move against him like that? Top tier villain swagger.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better animated villain out there, and honestly hard-pressed to find a better human one in the last couple years.
SEASON POWER RANKINGS
Using all the info at hand for the current season (points, points against, averages, schedule, roster depth) here are our league power rankings through 11 weeks
| Rank | Team | Change |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | Justin Childs | --- |
| #2 | Micah Thoman | --- |
| #3 | Will Armistead | --- |
| #4 | Jimmy Slater | --- |
| #5 | Kyle Luke | --- |
| #6 | Andres Santana | --- |
| #7 | Andrew DeWitt | ↑1 |
| #8 | Ryan Munson | ↑1 |
| #9 | JJ Bailey | ↓-2 |
| #10 | Chris Bailey | --- |
| #11 | Steve Keers | --- |
| #12 | Lee Morehouse | --- |
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE
| Rank | Team | Change |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | Jimmy Slater | --- |
| #2 | Will Armistead | ↑1 |
| #3 | Justin Childs | ↓-1 |
| #4 | Micah Thoman | --- |
| #5 | Lee Morehouse | --- |
| #6 | Ryan Munson | ↑1 |
| #7 | Steve Keers | ↑2 |
| #8 | Andrew DeWitt | ↓-2 |
| #9 | JJ Bailey | ↓-1 |
| #10 | Chris Bailey | --- |
| #11 | Kyle Luke | --- |
| #12 | Andres Santana | --- |
PLAYOFF ODDS
| Team | Odds | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Micah Thoman | 99.54% | ↑2.62% |
| Andres Santana | 99.54% | ↑2.62% |
| Justin Childs | 93.83% | ↑12.15% |
| Will Armistead | 67.73% | ↑19.12% |
| Kyle Luke | 67.73% | ↓-13.95% |
| Ryan Munson | 67.73% | ↓-13.95% |
| Andrew DeWitt | 67.73% | ↑19.12% |
| Jimmy Slater | 30.22% | ↑11.94% |
| JJ Bailey | 30.22% | ↓-18.39% |
| Steve Keers | 30.22% | ↓-18.39% |
| Chris Bailey | 5.81% | ↓-12.47% |
| Lee Morehouse | 0.00% | ↓-1.29% |
THE
GAMES
THE GAMES
Andres vs. Kyle (101.6-99.3)
These goddamn receivers are gonna kill Kyle, man. He might never win again if he can’t crack this sad-ass Rubik’s Cube. This time he would have won with either Watson OR Hill in instead of Flowers. I’m kind of shocked he didn’t trade away as many of those problem children as he could. Just package three of them for a TE or something and take the guesswork out of it altogether. Speaking ofTEs, how’s the Mark Andrews experience now? Two of the last three weeks Kyle got to see why the rest of us broke up with him. It was all a blast when you were going out and partying, but he’s not nearly as fun to spend a night on the couch with, is he?
Kyle has now lost four straight and is somehow in danger of not making the playoffs despite my iron-clad, locked-and-loaded endorsement a few weeks ago. Turns out I might not be the soothsayer they pay me to be. It’s amazing what Andres’ defensive tactics can do to a man.
At 8-3, Big ‘Dres has second place all to himself again is tied for first place thanks to sucking the absolute life out of any team he crosses paths with. He has the fewest points against by 20, and made it through 11 weeks without giving up 1,300 points. For contrast, Jimmy will end Week 12 with more than 1,500 points scored against him.
Only three teams have scored 120 or more against Andres, and the average was pulled WAY up by Justin’s 183-point explosion. He’s an impenetrable wall, and I’m genuinely afraid of how low my score might go when I play him this week. His team is the glue at the bottom of a rat trap, and my ass is a sucker for that cheese.
Dewitt vs. JJ (109-80.7)
What the fuck was that? This was projected to be a dogfight in the 130s, and what we got instead was a colossal waste of everyone’s time. I had Jared Goff in my lineup until 11:58 AM, so I think I’m entitled to at least some of his points because I almost started him. I was honestly afraid of a blowout, because the last few times, Goff did fuck-all when the Lions were rolling. The game started with three straight Detroit rushing TDs, and when Drake Maye was the leading QB at halftime of the noon games I was ready to throw myself a parade.
What a big, smart boy I was! Look at that, Kyle! Making fun of my Drake Maye attachment now?! HAHAHAHAHA I alone have cracked the fantasy football cypher!
Goff then threw for 400 yards and four touchdowns. Super neat.
DeWitt still needed a charge to get past my heroic 80-point effort, but luckily for him his last three players were also his highest-scoring ones. Thanks to the Cowboys’ relentless efforts to pioneer new ways to fail, he had nothing to worry about.
That’s so bumblingly embarrassing it defies words. Dallas football is a stupid and pointless endeavor. They should show a movie instead of broadcasting their games. Twisters is streaming on Peacock, just pump that in for two hours and let us look at handsome Glen Powell instead of this shitbox Cowboys team.
Micah vs. Lee (145-138.7)
0-11, and tied for the longest in-season losing streak! Records continue to tumble for Mr. Morehouse. Taysom Hill damn near spoiled everything, and he would have been the perfect guy to do it. Hill is present only to ruin things. His value is only as a chaos agent, stealing touchdowns from more interesting and relevant players and dragging fantasy owners through hell while doing it.
Announcers love to call him the “do-everything guy,” and salivate when they get to proclaim he doesn’t have a role, he’s just a team player who will do anything asked of him. But that’s bullshit. He has a role. It’s to be the guy on waivers that everyone stares at and ends up bidding on at least once per season. He’s the restaurant that makes one good sandwich but has a D health rating. Lee got the one good sandwich, but given that he was chosen to have the cursed season and Micah was chosen to have the blessed one, even 45 points from that glorified Tim Tebow wasn’t enough.
Micah got Josh Jacobs to put up his second 20-point week and just his third above 15, because Jacobs only does that when Micah desperately needs him to. Cooper Kupp did most of the rest, while CeeDee Lamb contributed just enough to close the deal despite being outscored by Jauan Jennings on Micah’s bench.
I know Lamb is WR#4 on the season, but this, THIS, is the Lamb experience in 2024. He had eight catches and 93 yards, and 14.6 points is pretty good! But it doesn’t FEEL good, does it? When CeeDee Lamb catches eight passes, you expect more. You expect 100 yards, or at least a touchdown, if not both of those things.
He outscored plenty of other receivers, but there’s something deeply unsatisfying about 14.6 points from the guy who was the consensus number one fantasy wideout on draft day. Seeing him in your lineup gives you a different type of optimism compared to other guys, and he is not giving equitable returns on the emotional investment. If I buy a Ferrari and the speedometer only goes to 140, I’m pretty pissed. It still looks cool in the driveway but that’s not why I bought it.
But is he hot?
On draft night, Micah demonstrated comprehensive knowledge of the aesthetic hierarchy of white players in the NFL. After rigorous scholarship, he is prepared to defend his dissertation asserting Aiden O’Connell is the ugliest of the NFL’s caucasian offerings. This season, we endeavor to test this theory.
Daniel Jones’ M.C. Escher face didn’t scare you off, huh? OK. I guess being demoted to third-stringer and being supplanted by a guy named “Tommy Cutlets” is enough suffering for one week.
I give you Mr. Driskell, who looks like the lead thumbnail in every Mugshots Of The Week slideshow on local news websites.
Kicker watch!
I’m on a deadline so researching this is gonna be the first cut. But I do know that Sunday saw the most missed kicks in a single week in more than 10 years. My guy had two of them, so I was acutely aware of just how bad the day was going.
Jimmy vs. Munson (157.7-127)
Jimmy Weekly High Score
Finally, Jimmy got to take out his rage on someone. That poor, handsome asshole. He’s been absolutely dog-walked by the league this year. Jimmy has the third-most points and is on playoff life support because he’s the cosmic opposite of Andres. Only two teams have scored less than 120 against him and all but four opponents have put up at least 130 points.
But it was no matter this week, because where I was devastated by Goff’s tremendous output being wasted, Jimmy had the foresight to start at least one of his Lions. ASB got him 35, and while he could have had 28 from Williams, he still got 11 from his chosen replacement in Davante Adams. Joe Mixon, who has to be on some sort of regenerative drug cocktail 24 hours a day when not playing, is legitimately in contention for the RB 1 on the year. Joe Burrow would be a lock for the MVP if the Bengals record wasn’t ass. The Lions offense is pure unleaded adrenaline.
He has a good team, is what I’m saying. If he could just get SOMEBODY’S bad day down the stretch, he has a real shot at doing playoff damage. If not, he’ll have to settle for being a handsome, in-shape family man with a fulfilling life and friends who universally love him. God, fuck Jimmy. I hope he never wins again.
Munson’s Mystery Wagon did that thing again. This time he started SPEARS at running back, and seemed to only have one player with a good day, yet still scored nearly 130 points. I don’t care anymore. I CAN’T. If I think about this any longer I’m going to end up in a Denny’s booth scream-whispering nonsense at 1 A.M. while scrawling “THe KEY iS Ra-cHaAd wHItE?!?!?” into the tabletop with my fingernails.
Bo Nix is the best pickup of the year, and I was furious when I didn’t get him from the wire because Munson struck first. He looked REAL bad early, but flipped a switch around Week 5 and absolutely has a case for Rookie of the Year. I know everyone gave it to Daniels already, but go look at their stats. I don’t have time to post them, but I’ll just say in a blind taste test, you’re picking Nix. You think you’ll be able to know who is who, but you’re wrong. Good job Munson. Please do something about the rest of your roster. It’s unsettling me spiritually.
Justin vs. Chris (133.7-132.9)
I know that we have had a season where someone lost by one point multiple times. I think it was Will, and I think he either lost two tiebreakers, or lost by one point and then lost a tiebreaker. Maybe it was Steve? This is where I would normally look through my records, but there’s no time.
Anyway, I would hazard a guess that this is the only time we’ve had someone lose by LESS than a point multiple times in a season- and certainly the first time it’s happened back-to-back. Chris’ last three weeks are absolutely crushing. She lost by five points, .8 points, and .8 points. 6.6 points is the difference between 7-4 and where she’s at now. I know I said Jimmy has had it rough, but this is worse.
Even Lee has it better in a perverse way. If he loses out it’s darkly funny, and if he gets a win, he gets to stain whoever he defeats as the only team to fall to the White Sox of our league.
But Chris? Chris is experiencing the type of punishment only this pretend sport can deliver. Have a good team, watch it get hurt, then hang in anyway through clever maneuvers, only for fate to make things personal. These are three losses that were essentially determined by where refs spotted the ball. Not on any one play, but across all the games her guys were in. A yard here or there, or a single whistle on a borderline hold. That’s the margin determining her season. She absolutely should have beaten Justin, but Evan McPherson decided now was the time to start shanking field goals. If he makes either of those two botched kicks, down goes The Point Gawd. Now she’s not out, but no longer in control of her destiny. Her postseason hopes are in luck’s hands, and apparently luck has a very serious grudge against her.
Time is of the essence, but I would like to remind Justin of the full-on glam campaign he mounted for Russell Wilson when trying to get a trade out of me.
This was the hardest of hard sells, I tell you. Talks of Russell being the missing piece for my playoff push, comparisons to Justin Fields, slander of Jared Goff, the whole works.
It was the most affection I’ve ever seen Justin show another living thing outside of his wife and dogs. I ultimately declined, mainly because I didn’t think Wilson was all that different from what I had and Justin was working suspiciously hard to sell me on him. Wilson isn’t a Chicago Bear. The amount of shameless glazing just didn’t compute.
I didn’t think Justin liked him that much, but there he was this week in the starting lineup while Jordan Love got 20 on the bench.
Wilson had 23 completions for 205 yards and a pick, which was good for 6 points. Either I misread things and Justin really does care that passionately about a 35-year-old QB on the Steelers, or he was willing to die with the lie to throw me off the scent. I must investigate further.
Can’t Bear It
Did Justin start a Chicago Bear when he shouldn’t have?
He did not! Thank goodness for bye weeks
Who was it?
No one
Who should he have started in his place?
N/A
How many points did it cost him?
Zero!
Examination
The Bears Justin did start were necessary, since he had a WR on bye and Kittle was injured. The one choice he could have made, to start D’Andre Swift, running back for the Chicago Bears in his flex instead of Mooney, he stayed away from. Mooney got hurt, so Swift outscored him, but Justin smartly avoided having three shares of the Bears offense in his starting lineup against Green Bay.
Season impact:
70.7 lost points
Will vs. Steve (154.2-133.9)
Sigh. Didn’t I say it?
When Will reached 3-5, I ran from village to village trying to give people a chance to evacuate. The almanac had told us all that this year was different. Milder, even. Everyone bought beach houses and didn’t bother weatherproofing a damn thing. But no one was watching the radar, and now the hurricane is here.
Here are his scores from Week 8 on:
149.2
153.8
142.8
154.2
That’s a nice, even 600 points in the last four weeks, which is more than every other team. Even Justin, who put up 180 in that stretch, hasn’t outscored Will. I hope those villagers got out because his team has demolished everything in its path since the light came on. Will is the wolf from the villain segment. No matter what your record or how stacked your roster, just sit quietly for a moment and you’ll hear that fucking whistle.
He’ll beat you then toss your phone, already open to the waiver wire, at your feet.
“Pick it up,” he’ll say. “Pick. It. Up.”
My timer just went off, so I’ll say for Steve that he got 12 of the funniest points I’ve ever seen from Zach Ertz on Washington’s final possession, Travis Etienne is the new Leonard Fournette (I had a great bit about this that’s now cut for time), and Tee Higgins is the NFL’s greatest part-time employee.
