Well, we made it! One more week (weekend, really) and our 16th regular season will come to a close. Holy shit that’s a long time. Apart from people, I don’t think there’s anything other than this fantasy league that was a significant part of my life in 2009 and remains one today.

I love this thing so much. I used to feel silly that I cared so hard about it. I’d cringe thinking about how I’d get legitimately nervous before a critical matchup, or anxious about a waiver claim. When I lost a close game, some part of my brain would roll its eyes at the other part of my brain that was taking it so hard. It’s Wednesday, dude, I’d say to myself. How are you still this bothered by a fantasy football loss?

I think a portion of me viewed this as immaturity; an overinvestment of mental and emotional resources in frivolity when they should be directed toward more serious matters.

This season, though, I put all that shit to bed.

I unabashedly love our fantasy league, and I love how much it means to me and everyone else. It’s goddamn fun. There’s plenty of time for me to care about serious shit. Like 85% of our awake time is spent doing that. Here we get to have a good time. We get a little mini-universe with its own rules and stakes and rewards. Here, strangers are rivals and friends can be foes depending on the year. We have our own history and legends, our own bits and running gags. That’s awesome, and I don’t feel the least bit bad about taking it so seriously. We built something unique over a decade and a half, and it’s because we all cared that it managed to last.

I think this season was the best in our history. I know the last couple years it felt like the league had lost some of its punch, and a lot of that was me letting myself drift. When I was recharged this year, building the site and doing all our historical research, I wondered if I was too late. I wanted to get the juice back, but I didn’t know if everyone would still be up for it.

Luckily reports of the league’s demise were greatly exaggerated. This year not only felt like the old days, it set a new high water mark. We had 18 trades, the most ever in a season. Everyone had at least seven acquisitions, which had never happened before. Trends went out the window, as teams with long-standing playoff droughts clinched the playoffs early or are playing for their entry ticket in the final week.

Titans fell, new heroes rose. In Week 13, only two teams were out of the playoff race, and one of those was on a historic losing streak that captivated a nation before I ruined it. Even now, despite us missing out on full-blown chaos for the final week, we still have drama.

Four teams are eligible for the playoffs with a win. Munson and DeWitt are each 7-6, and Jimmy and Will are 6-7. Will and Jimmy both have considerably more points than the other two. Munson and DeWitt play each other, with the winner locked in and the loser set to be bounced by the winner of Jimmy/Will because of the points tiebreaker.

It’s win-and-in for both matchups. Atop the table Justin has things sewn up, but the second bye is up for grabs. Micah and Andres are fighting for it, and If Micah wins he gets the bye, where Andres needs to win and have either Micah or Justin lose. Compelling stuff!

It’s great to be back and better than ever, is what I’m saying. I’m bummed I missed the playoffs, but I also managed my team better than I have in YEARS. I botched some pretty critical start/sit decisions, but from a front office perspective, it’s a new era. I look forward to the playoffs, and I already have thoughts for next year (divisions, anyone?).

But before we get there, thank you all for a fun-ass season. You might not be as maniacally passionate as I am about all this, but you’re still here, so I know you got that dawg in you. This is the best league going, and it’s because we have the best crew.

Villian Corner:

In celebration of our own villains, this week me for ruining a historic streak, each dispatch we will take a moment to appreciate a great villain from entertainment history.

Craig Mazin, Writer of Episode 3 of The LAst of us

WARNING: Yes, this is very much a “one for me.” I’ve had this chambered for a while, and I go long on it. If you enjoy these, dig in. If you don’t or don’t care about TV writing, skip on by!

The Last of Us, on HBO, is a wildly successful show based on the wildly successful video game of the same name. By my estimation, it is one of only two successful attempts to turn a video game into another form of entertainment (Fallout being the other one), largely because the source material is so good.

But the best episode of the show is one where they stepped outside the game almost entirely. They took two very minor characters, who you meet very briefly, and decided to build them out and focus one of the show’s 12 hours of runtime completely on them. It was a surprising and brilliant choice because even if you’d played the game 2-3 times like me, you had no idea where the episode was headed.

It also meant the viewer, for the first time, lacked any emotional armor. You couldn’t brace yourself for what was coming, because you hadn’t been down this road yet.

Craig Mazin, that piece of shit, used this advantage to craft one of the most complete and moving episodes of television I have ever seen, demolishing me in the process.

Spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t watched that episode and plan to, do it before you come back.

The entire hour is largely a two-hander, built around Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett). It begins slightly before the events of the main story, when the outbreak was in its early stages and the defacto government was rounding people up for “relocation” out of infected areas.

Bill, a mix between doomsday prepper and survivalist, watches all this from cameras in a hidden subbasement inside his home. The room he’s in and his opening line cover his background in three seconds.

Once the small town has been cleared and Bill emerges from hiding, he realizes this is actually what he’s been dreaming of. Sure the world is falling to ruin, but he’s finally alone to do things the way he wants. He immediately sets to work, hitting the hardware store, gas station, wine shop, etc. When the power cuts out, he goes to the gas plant and turns the flow back on. He’s basically who we all hope we’d be in the apocalypse. None of us would be, but that’s the dream. Maybe Jimmy. Jimmy could do a lot of that stuff.

We jump ahead to once he’s finished, living in his house with fences surrounding the property, surveillance cameras covering the grounds and woods, booby traps galore, and a fresh-cooked meal with meat made from something he killed. It’s as good a living situation as anyone could dream of under the circumstances, made possible by his self-sufficiency and distrust of everyone else. That moment, in that scene, is the biggest “I told you so” possible for a guy like Bill.

Enter Frank.

Frank is a lot closer to most us. He is not the type of dude who can build a structurally sound security system using items from the Home Depot. He’s not a seasoned hunter and he certainly can’t operate an entire public utility himself. How do I know? Our introduction to him is when he falls into one of Bill’s traps.

After a tense standoff, Frank-held at gunpoint- wears down Bill until Bill agrees to give him food. Maybe it was pity, maybe it was his human instinct for connection bubbling up. Maybe both. But he takes Frank inside, and in that moment anyone who has seen end-of-the-world fiction before had their spidey sense tingling. Almost always, this is where the ruthlessly self-sufficient character is undone by his one acquiescence. Bill will turn his back gathering some rations, and Frank will drop the act and reveal the malicious killer beneath.

But here is where this episode begins to taxi down the runway. Bill doesn’t give Frank food, he makes Frank food. He doesn’t toss a few things in a pack and send him along. He lets him shower, gives him clothes, sets the table, plates the main course with care, and pairs it with wine.

He hosts.

The contrast between the two is perfect. Bill’s emotions are all over the place and he’s visibly trying (and failing) to mask them. He’s still suspicious, he still doubts, but he also strangely wants this to go well. One set of instincts is screaming about risk, the other is focused on his guest’s enjoyment.

Frank is unabashedly transparent. Look at his face when Bill sets the plate in front of him. He’s giddy, and he doesn’t care at all that it shows. They seem like oil and water, but there’s a shared passion for the way things ought to be done and the gap between them starts to close. When Frank compliments Bill on his choice of wine, Bill says, “I know. I don’t seem like the type.”

Frank pauses and says, “No, you do,” and holds a stare just long enough to communicate he not only appreciates the care Bill has put into this, but he also sees the part of him most everyone else doesn’t.

The gap is almost gone by the end of the meal. Bill offers Frank seconds, revealing he is no longer trying to get rid of him but in fact wouldn’t hate it if he stayed for a bit longer. Frank instead turns to the piano in the other room. He asks to play and chooses “Long, Long, Time” by Linda Ronstadt. He butchers it badly enough that Bill asks him to stop, so Frank asks him to play it, promising to leave once he does.

When he sits down, the episode takes off.

From that moment , Mazin has you. As you might imagine, Frank does not leave. Instead, the song closes their gap completely. What follows is pound-for-pound one of the most affecting portraits of a relationship ever put on television. The show does in 30 minutes what most movies fail to do in two hours.

We jump forward a few years, catching Frank and Bill mid-argument. Frank wants to use some supplies to fix up the house and the surrounding shops, as well as tend to the landscaping in the neighborhood. He thinks this is important because this is their home, and he’s not asking for much. Bill thinks any amount of supplies spent on this is a waste of resources, and thinks Frank is naively trying to recreate a version of the previous world and should come back to reality.

Both are right, to a point, but this world forces people into extremes. Bill isn’t crazy for clinging to every ounce of resources, because they may run out. Frank isn’t crazy for taking pride in their home, and survival isn’t going to come down to a couple cans of paint.

Where a lesser show would use this small fight as the beginning of the unraveling, Mazin smartly twists it to paint more details. They poke at each other, making point and counterpoint, and while they’re still angry, you can feel how lived-in this relationship is. Under the each man’s frustration is an elemental understanding of who their partner is, and like all fights between couples like that, you can sense laughter just beneath the surface.

Frank eventually gets Bill to acquiesce, both out of frustrated affection and begrudging agreement.

“Paying attention to things… it’s how we show love,” Frank says. “This is my street, too. Let me love it the way I want to.”

Bill, for all his practicality, gets it. After all, he didn’t have to make Frank that meal. He didn’t have to plate the food and pour the wine the way he did. He understands, even if he’s annoyed Frank is right.

Their story goes on, showing us moments through the years. They reinforce their defenses, slowly make two friends (one is the show’s main character), force themselves to jog for their health, maintain their neighborhood, and build their lives. Through all of it, their personalities begin to bleed into one another. Bill’s crucial practicality, Frank’s necessary appreciation of niceties. Their lives depend on Bill, their life needs Frank.

In another jump forward, Frank reveals he traded their friends one of Bill’s (many,many) handguns for a packet of strawberry seeds and planted them as a surprise. This time, Bill grumbles a bit but is ultimately more interested in the strawberries since they haven’t had them in decades. When they finally taste them, he weeps with happiness.

A scene later, raiders try to breach their defenses in the night. Frank awakes to an explosion, and realizes Bill is gone. He leaps from the bed and grabs a gun, running into the street to help without hesitation.

It’s a fantastic one-two punch of exposition without exposition. Frank has learned what it takes to survive and how hard you have to fight for your life, and Bill has accepted there’s no shame in making a life worth fighting for. The actors sell all of this to perfection. They, and the relationship, feel real. Offerman and Bartlett were unsurprisingly nominated for every award, because their performance was so genuine you felt like you knew these guys and every ounce of their history- even the stuff you didn’t see.

When Bill is shot in the skirmish and the camera fades out on him bleeding on their kitchen table, you expect this to be the end. But we get one more jump, and it’s immediately clear it will be the last.

The men are old now, grey and wrinkling, moving with the weight of hard-lived years. Bill has recovered from his wounds, but Frank is in a wheelchair. He’s in a room full of paintings, struggling with his latest canvas to paint his partner as he does yard work. Frank is sick, and the deteriorating quality of the paintings around him tells us the sickness is going to win.

We spend a day with them, and Mazin shows just enough to allow us to fill in how hard the last few years have been. At the end of it, Frank makes a decision. The next morning he tells Bill that today will be his last day. He has a few things he wants to do, but at the end of it, he wants Bill to crush up all of his meds and put them in a drink so Frank can take them and drift away.

“I’m not going to give you the ‘every day was a wonderful gift from God’ speech,” says Frank. “I’ve had a lot of bad days. I’ve had bad days with you, too. But I’ve had more good days with you than with anyone else. Just give me one more good day.”

And so Bill does.

It was perfect Frank, a day spent doing things solely because they’re enjoyable; a reminder that staying alive is important, but not a permanent state of affairs no matter how much you prepare. He’s dying of cancer, after all. No amount of resources, ammunition, or fortifications could have stopped it. The end comes one way or another so you might as well make the time between now and then more than just trying to put it off.

But Mazin isn’t done. The walls have crumbled, but there are still some emotional defenses left.

Fuck, man.

Watch that episode in its entirety. I can promise I am not doing it justice. If you do, and you let yourself sink into the story, by the time you reach the end of the above scene those eyes are gonna be MISTY. I cried when I watched it the first time. Sat in my living room alone as the credits rolled and Capital-C cried. That shit moved me.

I cried when I re-watched it. Even now, watching it over to write about it, I felt that grab in my throat. This is why Mazin is my villain.

I love great writing, and he wrote a perfect episode of TV. He used all of the medium’s strengths and expertly leveraged them. He wasted no motion but left nothing underserved. He showed us a lifetime- two lifetimes- in an hour, and made us care deeply about them.

But revisiting that achievement means you get hurt all over again. You have to choose heartbreak to engage with it. Craig Mazin is a true monster. He took a story I loved, made it better and more complete, and did so by giving me two characters I desperately want to spend more time with. He also made it so that the only way I can spend time with them is to watch them die again and again while I wipe my face and tell myself to get it together.

That’s villainy.

season power rankings

HTML Table

Rank	Team	Change
#1	Justin Childs	---
#2	Micah Thoman	---
#3	Will Armistead	---
#4	Jimmy Slater	---
#5	Kyle Luke	---
#6	Andres Santana	↑1
#7	Andrew DeWitt	↓-1
#8	Ryan Munson	↑1
#9	JJ Bailey	↓-1
#10	Steve Keers	---
#11	Chris Bailey	---
#12	Lee Morehouse	---

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE

HTML Table

Rank	Team	Change
#1	Jimmy Slater	---
#2	Will Armistead	---
#3	Justin Childs	↑1
#4	Micah Thoman	↑1
#5	Lee Morehouse	↓-2
#6	Steve Keers	---
#7	Andrew DeWitt	↑1
#8	Ryan Munson	↓-1
#9	Kyle Luke	↑2
#10	JJ Bailey	---
#11	Chris Bailey	---
#12	Andres Santana	---

PLAYOFF ODDS

(No longer viable because the system does not factor in tiebreakers)

THE

GAMES

THE GAMES

Andres vs. Will (142.7-134.4)

Will IN with a win

Andres IN, first-round bye with a win AND a Justin Loss OR a Micah Loss

So there’s a list called TOP500, which ranks the world’s most powerful supercomputers based on how fast they can solve vast numbers of equations.

These computers are used to work on a wide range of complex problems like climate modeling, nuclear fusion simulations, chemical composition combinations for drug discovery and national security shit. For a long time, Frontier, a machine built by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee was the top dog, having reached what’s called the “exascale.” The exascale means the computer can do a billion billion (yes, a billion BILLION. Like “a hundred thousand,” but with “billion” in both spots) floating point operations per second (FLOPS).

But just two weeks ago, a new, MORE super computer emerged. This beast, with the much-cooler name El Capitan, can hit 1.742 exaFlops (1.742 billion billion).

“El Capitan will essentially provide the vast computational power necessary to ensure the effectiveness of the US nuclear deterrent without having to carry out physical nuclear testing. LLNL claims that complex, high-resolution 3D simulations of nuclear explosions that would take months on Sierra, its most powerful system until now, will be done in just hours or days on El Capitan.”

— a bunch of nerds at New Scientist

Leaving aside that these computers are seemingly all named after versions of Mac OS, it’s fucking wild that we built something this powerful and our main use for it is to see just how bad shit will get when bombs go off.

We don’t need to use El Capitan for this. Roland Emmerich has directed like 15 movies that deal with this very thing. He did the work already. I don’t know what that computer cost, but I’ll bet it’s cheaper than a Netflix subscription, which is all you need for access to Rolly’s world-ending “simulations.”

There. Nailed it.

So let’s use El Capitan for something more useful. I want to feed it our fantasy league roster data, transactions and all, and let it simulate 1,000,000,000 versions of the 2024 season.

I’d bet good money that in ~95% of those simulations, Andres does not win nine games. But we are not living in that 95%, are we? We are firmly in the 5% that have Chase Brown becoming a Top 10 RB, DeAndre Hopkins being traded to the Chiefs, Lamar Jackson getting Derrick Henry and getting better, and Andres’ preternatural gift for hypnotizing opponents into low scores continuing to thrive.

Ok. So toss out the 95% where it doesn’t happen and let’s look at our 5% pile. Let’s run it again. In 99.9999% of THOSE simulations, he definitely does NOT get his ninth win on the back of a 235-yard day from Jerry goddamn Jeudy against the best pass defense in the league with Jameis Winston as his quarterback.

And yet, it happened, leaving us to conclude we are living through a statistical aberration that only the world’s most powerful computing machine could have foreseen. Take stock of this moment, ladies and gentlemen. We have pioneered beyond the envelope’s edge and find ourselves existing in a true cosmic singularity.

Given what we now know, could Andres win it all?

For Will, coming back from 2-5 to make the playoffs was not enough. The man took a look at our big league history post, saw that there may be some uncertainty from pundits as to who is the true GOAT, and went ahead and upped the difficulty to its highest setting.

He’s now lost CMC for the year, as well as his backup Jordan Mason. Add them to the pile of injuries with Puka Nacua’s eight-week absence, DK Metcalf’s three-week break, and Brandon Aiyuk’s forever injury. Also, Breece Hall wasn’t physically injured, but his spirit was for most of the year.

I get wanting to build a legacy, Will, I really do. But there are better ways than falling three games below five hundred AND clubbing your stars within an inch of their lives. Sometimes the promise of immortality’s nectar clouds a man’s judgment.

This is how you end up coaching the Jets.

Lee vs. JJ (123-105.8)

Lee eliminated

JJ IN with win AND a Jimmy loss AND he outscores him by 174 (That’s just for me. I’m eliminated)

“Of course, that means I would have to beat [Lee]. Do I believe I will beat him? I do not. My team is BUILT to underperform in this game. The most fitting thing to happen would be for me to lose, be eliminated from the playoffs, ruin a beautiful losing streak, then have to write about all of it. Can’t wait. ”

— A broken but correct man

I am the Lisan Al Gaib of fantasy failure, beholden to the prophecy that I alone can deliver maximum disappointment each time. Lee’s streak ends at 12 straight losses, the single longest in-season skid in league history. He dodges the longest losing streak ever, but we are denied the winless season we all so richly deserved.

The Thanksgiving games were a harbinger of things to come, given that Lee managed to coax Jayden Reed into not one, but two touchdowns after being wholly absent for WEEKS, totaling 18 points and matching Jonnu Smith’s epic performance for me. He also canceled out David Montgomery’s wonderful day with a kicker, since the Lions forgot they were averaging five yards per carry against the Bears and decided to fruitlessly pass in the fourth quarter. That game should have gone to overtime, where Montgomery would have eaten, but Matt Eberflus entered a fugue state and spent the final 35 seconds rebooting his hard drive (more on that later).

Anthony Richardson and Brian Thomas Jr. managed to accrue 20 points between them on their teams’ final drives, my beautiful Baker got hurt, Calvin Ridley watched all his touchdowns go to some jamoke (more on THAT later), and the Eagles sent AJ Brown home at halftime.

By the time Nick Chubb was catching a touchdown pass on Monday night, my fans had already emptied into the parking lot. I’d say there was tension, but I’d be conjuring drama as a formality. The second the first quarter ended in the afternoon games, it was clear the vibes were all wrong for me. You fight to the last man, but if I’m being honest, I spent more time working on my “My Dearest Alice” letter than I did reloading my rifle.

The good news is now I can give my young buck some run at QB. Drake Maye posted his second-highest score of the season, so I think my little buddy is ready for prime time! Let’s see what the boy can d- aaaaaaaaaaaand he’s on bye. Can’t I have ONE nice thing?

Kicker watch!

I am out of facts for kickers this season, but it’s fitting that we ended here. After all the endless shit I gave him campaigning for our big-footed boys, Lee managed to stress me out using one of them. I spent all Thanksgiving weekend worried about the fact his kicker matched my top running back. I checked the score on my phone like five times for no reason, hoping it would change.

A tip of the cap to you, sir.

I reaped the SHIT out of what I sowed.

Justin Vs. Dewitt (158.5-128.9)

Justin IN, first-round bye with win OR a Micah or Andres loss

DeWitt IN with a win

Justin Weekly High Score

Hmmmm. I’ll confess that I worked really hard to find some fraudulence in Justin’s victory, especially since Saquon had another long TD, as did James Cook.

But, having never once embellished or engaged in hyperbole when it comes to Justin in this fine publication, I must remain ever honest and true: This was a tip-to-tail asswhipping and it wasn’t because DeWitt laid down.

Justin’s team has provided a valuable service all season, which is helping every other team find their ceiling. Sports movies generally feature a ragtag squad that comes together, getting better each game until they face the mighty villain. Then, our heroes must use all the lessons from the previous triumphs and defeats, and synthesize them into one perfect performance. “They may be the better team 99 times out of 100, but let’s show them the one time they’re not,” etc etc.

Those movies are great lessons in self-belief and perseverance; teaching kids that you don’t quit just because something is hard or an opponent is intimidating, and you can become great by testing yourself.

All good stuff.

What those movies DON’T teach is that far more often, the other guys are just better than you. You can train and practice and study harder than them. You can fight like you have nothing to lose, pull off every trick play you have, and guess right on every 50/50 call. It still doesn’t matter. You play that perfect game and leave every cent of yourself out there but you’re still short of a dollar because you just aren’t as good as they are.

That’s what Justin’s team has done through 13 weeks to almost everyone. He’s shown that their perfect day isn’t good enough to beat his average one, and his perfect day is unbeatable.

His team, like all fantasy teams, has its vulnerabilities, but they are few and often do not manifest in critical moments. He has been blessed with almost no injuries and those that came did not find his key weapons.

He is Tha Point Gawd and his overwhelming performance earned him the luxury of ambivalence in Week 14.

That will in no way diminish my victory over him.

DeWitt, improbably, is still alive. Given that he and Will have spent all season ensuring the medical industrial complex stays thriving, I’d say whichever of them goes the furthest in the postseason is the voting favorite for Coach of the Year.

He goes into a win-or-go-home game without one of his two best players, and with Chuba Hubbard having begun his transformation into a pumpkin. Facing the Eagles defense should accelerate the process.

Still, he’s Chief-ed his way to seven victories, so why stop now? You are what your record says you are, after all, and with one more win, his record says he’s a playoff team. Perhaps John Parker Romo, he of XFL glory, will be the missing spice in this confusing-ass stew.

Or perhaps not. Hey- I bet Justin Tucker is available!

Can’t Bear It

**Did Justin start a Chicago Bear when he shouldn’t have?**
Yes he did
**Who was it?**
D’Andre Swift, running back for the Chicago Bears
**Who should he have started in his place?**
Malik Nabers
**How many points did it cost him?**
2.9!

Examination

Was it a lot of points? No, it wasn’t. But this game is built on a binary engine. Either a Bear was or was not the correct choice.

So Justin chose to start D’Andre Swift, running back for the Chicago Bears, despite him facing one of the most fearsome run defenses in football rather than deploy Malik Nabers against the shambling corpse of the Dallas Cowboys. The Giants suck, so they lost, but the Giants sucking is a near-permanent state of affairs. Nabers has a couple of future car salesmen throwing him the ball, but the only real difference between Tommy Devito/Drew Lock and Daniel Jones is that they’ll be selling the 2026 Kias and Jones will have his name on the dealership thanks to his contract. The situation isn’t all that different than it was three weeks ago.

The lost points didn’t cost much, but incorrect is incorrect.

Now, an aside-

I have to say I absolutely LOVED Matt Eberflus’s energy last week. Here’s why.

That dude fucked up so colossally that the football world voted unanimously that he should be fired.

Do you know how hard that is in sports? The punditry machine is fueled entirely by performative contrarianism. Its lifeblood is “yeah, BUT.”

There is a whole CROP of middle-aged dudes who will gladly slap on a mismatched suit and fire off a pro forma rebuttal to empirical evidence so long as the check clears.

But not this time. Eberflus has been so bad, and committed a singular blunder so egregious, that even the lowliest Fox Sports 1 third-chair sports screamer refused to pick up the mantle. Everyone, in one voice, loudly and clearly said, “fuck that dude.” Fewer people have walked on the moon than have gotten that level of consensus in sports.

And how did our boy handle the moment?

Two options present themselves here. Either Matt Eberflus was the only person on the planet who did not know he was already fired, or he definitely knew and had this vibe anyway.

Either way, we should appreciate it. He said they handled the end of the game the right way. He said he was taking the blame as the head coach, but said that shit like he shouldn’t be taking the blame. He said it with the tone of someone who agreed to do the dishes even though they weren’t there for dinner. I combo of martyrdom and faux magnanimity. Chef’s kiss.

Then he had another press conference where he said everything at the office was normal, and there was no reason for him to not plan for next week, tossing a dash of incredulity into the sauce for good measure.

If he somehow didn’t think he was fired, it’s an act of ego-maniacal self-delusion so profound it should be revered. We should all aspire to such insane degrees of self-confidence. A lot of people think they're bulletproof, but only the greats hand you the gun. This was Secret Service Agent Matt Eberflus accidentally shooting the president in the face, then demanding overtime pay to clean up the mess.

If he did know, which is more likely, then going out like this is god-level shit. Few people get two know they are fired a full day before it happens, far fewer get TWO chances to talk publicly before they are axed.

The Flus made a Michelin meal out of those opportunities. He went full WWE villain in not one, but two public press conferences, deploying a masterful psyop in which he feigned obliviousness and tinged it with an air of barely-contained superiority. Like he was right on the edge of telling us all how wrong we were. It was infuriating and made for a wonderful day of shared schadenfreude, but if that was the point, then this was a troll job for the ages. Eberflus stoked impotent rage in fans and players, robbed Caleb Williams of what could have been a great first year, and forced the organization into disarray just when they thought they could rest. Then, in his final moments, he denied everyone the contrition they so desperately wanted, eschewing a mea culpa for a bear-poking set of press conferences that ultimately amounted to, “U mad?”

The man is an artist.

All that is to say that now that he’s gone, the Bears cannot be worse. They’re still a flawed team with a traumatized rookie QB, but they can only go up sans Flus. I’m glad it happened late in our season, because this section will likely get a lot less fun for me.

Season impact:

73.6 lost points

Micah vs. Munson (114.4-112.2)

Micah IN, First-round bye with a win

Munson IN with a win

Boy, Micah must not read these writeups very closely. I went to all that work to slander CeeDee Lamb last week and Micah STILL chased the dragon.

He got greedy is what he did. He had visions of Lamb finally overcoming Cooper Rush’s breathtaking mediocrity in a breakout game where he scores twice on big plays against the lowly Giants.

He saw Lamb and Cooper Kupp jumping and hugging as the scoreboard shorted out from all the points.

Instead, Lamb caught two of his six targets for 39 yards, then hurt his shoulder (allegedly) and left the game. He’s out for a week and has now scored 48.9 points since Week 9.

Lamb is averaging 9.78 points per game the last five weeks. His “ranking” is built entirely on Week 8 when he put up 35.1 points thanks to two freebie touchdowns. He had two other weeks where he cracked 20 points, and he has eight weeks with less than 15. I will not let this go until they rank Lamb in the mid-20s where he belongs.

Anyway, Micah left Mike Evans on his bench which should have been fatal, but Josh Jacobs saddled up his white horse again. This time he averaged 2.3 yards per carry but forced his way into the endzone and set his season-high receiving total. The man simply refuses to rest until every damsel in distress is saved, and Micah will gladly toss on a gown and tie himself to some train tracks if it means Jacobs will break another personal fantasy record to save him.

He is somehow both Olive Oyl AND Bluto, and Jacobs is his gullible Popeye.

It’s just this every week, but we all get to be the train:

Damn it, Josh! He did it to himself! Why can’t you figure this out?

Munson would be far more comfortable right now if Bo Nix hadn’t thrown that second interception, because not only would he have two more points, but Nix would have gotten the last six yards he needed to reach 300 on the day, winning Munson the week.

But rookies gonna rookie, and Munson’s team put up the exact score it should have been putting up every week. Finally, the totals make sense. You can move down the roster and every guy’s numbers are normaliz-

Here’s the thing.

I have Calvin Ridley, so I am acutely aware of this man’s predilection for touchdown thievery.

But his production is so outlandishly anomalous you’d think he was created purely as waiver wire bait. The guy has 20 catches ON THE SEASON. He did not play until Week 6, and that’s when it started. One catch, nine yards, one TD.

Next week it was two catches, 10 yards, and another TD. These are the numbers we- as seasoned fantasy players- know not to trust.

This is like a guy getting three at-bats and hitting two home runs. Good for him, but he’s not going to have a 400-homer season if he has 600 at-bats. It’s small sample theater, and statistics always win. But Westbrook-Ikhine did it again the next week, and the one after that.

Even then, he had amassed only 10 catches and 108 yards to go with those four touchdowns, but it was a noteworthy run.

Then, the universe righted itself. The following week he had his usual three catches, but all you got from it was 31 yards and a useless 4.6 fantasy points.

This, according to nearly 20 years of empirical evidence in our league, was the actual baseline. Westbrook-Ikhine was a 2-3 catch-per-game guy. That’s fine when those guys catch touchdowns, but even then, you rarely get the yards to make it worthwhile and they always end up with five or six total scores on the season.

Four touchdowns in four games is fool’s gold. We all know not to chase that dragon, and Week 10 was our reminder.

But then he went right back to it. Two catches, a touchdown (this time a long one). Two catches, a touchdown. With each week, he became more tempting. But, counterintuitively, he also became riskier. Math and history tell us there are only so many touchdowns a guy like that will get, and he was burning through them at an alarming rate.

Then came last week when I desperately needed Ridley to pop off, and instead, I listened to RedZone call TWO Westbrook-Ikhine touchdowns on my drive home. He had three catches. That makes 20 catches, eight touchdowns. He’s got as many scores as games played, and nearly 50 percent of his catches end up in six points. That’s fucking insane.

So I get home and open my laptop to do some work, and it strikes me to check if anyone ever took the bait.

To my GREAT dismay, I found not only did Westbrook-Ikhine find a home, it was with Munson. Just when I had calmed down, Munson took his weird dumpster fire of a roster and tossed a weirder form of gasoline on it. Westbrook-Ikhine was his leading scorer by a wide margin.

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.

Final one! Ashtyn got SMOKED by WIll Disly. Just run out of the gym. So with our last poll, and Mr. Davis’s last chance to dodge the crown of “Ugliest White Dude In The NFL,” I give you John Parker Romo. He is, at the time of this posting, still on the team, so I gotta strike while the iron is hot.

Behold JPR, the man with the facial hair of a lounge magician, the head hair of a sitcom middle manager, and the flesh of a cadaver.

Kyle vs. Jimmy (142.9-138.1)

Kyle IN

Jimmy IN with a win

ANOTHER Jimmy loss by a narrow margin and another week where a team scores 130+ on him. That makes nine times this season. If Jimmy’s opponents were a team, they would be second in points with 1,753. They’re averaging 134 points a week, and Jimmy somehow won six of those matchups.

Bucky Irving is the steal of the season at $3, and Jimmy has Joe Burrow for $2 and Mixon for $34.

Impressive stuff. He probably deserves better than to STILL be singing for his supper, but I think I’ve made my position on Jimmy very clear. Both him and Kyle are too handsome for me to feel bad for them at all. I wish they both could have lost this one, honestly.

But Kyle won (ugh), and ALMOST got his receivers right for once. Ladd McConkey was tremendous! Nico Collins was himself! Just one more to go!

I bet you can guess who spoiled it. Do you want to?

Did you guess Zay Flowers? I bet you did. You’re a smart cookie! Smarter than Kyle, that’s for sure. The ELECTRICITY that is Zay Flowers put up 8.6, making it seven games of less than 10 points this year. He has five of 15 or more and one with 11. Just LISTEN to that current sizzle baby. Tyreek Hill got 17 on Kyle’s bench.

You know in supernatural horror movies when a malevolent spirit attaches itself to a host (usually a child) and then slowly changes them? They get all dark and weird, maybe their skin gets gross, or they suddenly have a deep, raspy voice?

That’s what Zay Flowers is doing to Kyle this year. He was floating out there in the netherworld, and was brought into this earthly plane on Sept 4 when Kyle drafted him for $17. Since then he has eaten away at Kyle’s very essence, turning his mind to gruel and his spirit to ash. Kyle hasn’t slept well since that night, sweatily awoken by apparitions at the end of his bed that he can only see out of the corner of his eye. Food tastes rotten, colors are bland, the faint smell of decay fills every room.

Kyle will try his best not to keep Flowers, but he will be on his roster come draft day next season. This isn’t as easy as dropping a player. This requires a holy touch. It’s fitting that the one week where Kyle has no stakes is the one Flowers is on bye. He’ll be back for Round 1, just in time to give Kyle the vapors as he endlessly cycles through his five wide receivers until lineups lock and he collapses in a puddle of shame sweat.

Luckily he has Good Mark Andrews again! That should help a lot, but he WILL have to pick up a TE for this week. That means he’ll have two, which means there’s a chance he might have to make a CHOICE at TE in the playoffs. God help that man.

Chris Vs. Steve (133.5-132.6)

Chris eliminated

Steve eliminated

She FINALLY won a close one! After losing twice by .8, Chris exacted her revenge with a victory over Steve by .9.

Truly poetic that these two tortured souls found each other this way, as both now have multiple losses by less than two points, and those are the losses that ultimately doomed them.

Here’s a fun fact for all you Steve fans out there: This was the THIRD matchup Steve lost on a team’s final possession on Monday Night Football.

His season started with a streak-killing loss to Jimmy when Tyrod Taylor threw a meaningless touchdown to end the game, and his season officially ended when Jameis Winston threw a second pick-six and then a third interception on the Browns’ last two possessions.

That is truly some miracle shit right there. The only way for Chris to win was for the defense- who ALREADY had a pick-six- to get a defensive score and somehow ANOTHER turnover in the game’s final two minutes.

Winston is an artist. He’s the turnover merchant of your dreams (or nightmares). The man threw a pick-six on his first NFL pass. He became the first player ever to throw for 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in a season, and the final one was a pick-six on the first play of overtime to lose his team the game.

Only he could have saved Chris in that fashion, and he did it because someone, somewhere said it was impossible.

Tua beat the cold and put up an outlandish stat line for what the Dolphins ended up scoring, clearly a result of him noticing it’s audition time for the old ball coach. Brock Bowers sewed up his spot on the roster next year with a monster showing, so everyone else is fighting for the last seat on the bus.

Tua stepped up, Jonathan Taylor emerged from hibernation to return to form, even Corey Bojorquez threw his hat (foot) in the ring with 19 points. Mr. Gibbs, you better shape up quick. I know you had 23 a week ago, but 9.4 on Thanksgiving and no 100-yard games in five weeks? I said you were close to a Chris Guy. You aren’t minted yet. $36 is just pricey enough that you’d better be the first one to the facility from here on out.

Steve is in Europe, so he likely won’t see this, but I have to give him credit. I shit all over him every week for having a running back room that looked like it was assembled by a blind dog, but he managed to end the season starting Brian Robinson Jr. and Breece Hall. Those are two really good running backs (Top-20 guys!) and they cost a combined $42 to keep.

That’s pretty nice, as is having Caleb Williams for $5, Drake London for $14 and Chris Godwin for free.

If you have to go out, there are worse ways than finally solving your biggest problem and setting yourself up for future success. It’s not victory, but it IS closure.

I do want to take a look at one thing though. Who is that I see at TE?

Boy, if there is better indicator of a lost season, I don’t know what it is. Kyle Pitts is the DNR bracelet for fantasy teams. Triage doctors see his name and know their time is better spent elsewhere.

He showed up for one big game this season and spent the rest of the year doing the minimum required to get a paycheck. Did you know Munson drafted Kyle Pitts for $16 and held him until November 20th? Wild commitment to the bit.

Steve picked him up the next day, I’m assuming because one of his cats fell asleep on the keyboard. He started him because… he was bored, I guess? Pitts had two targets and caught neither of them while Zach Ertz got another 11 points on Steve’s bench.

I take all that stuff about closure back. This has opened a whole new book.

Week 13: The hill is ours