Week 3: To sleep perchance to dream
Belief in oneself is important. Most people who achieve something truly great do so because they have an unwavering (often delusional) certainty that they are destined to do that thing. They will achievement into existence, largely because they cannot comprehend the alternative.
Often this means absolutely shattering the odds, because only the tiniest fraction of people are born with true gifts, and the percentages are never in favor of the average human being.
So I asked all of you what the most outlandish thing you believed you could do was, and the answers were tremendous.
This is a league of AMBITION. Here, we dream big. People who think they can climb Mount Everest are boring, I want the ones who think they can kidnap the Pope. That’s the kind of gumption I can get behind.
They say putting your dreams out into the world helps make them manifest, so I offer this humble platform in furtherance of that. Here’s a sampling of our totally-attainable-not-at-all-fantastical feats:
Jimmy:
“I believe that if I was positioned with at least half my body out the top of a vehicle, say out of sunroof, that if that vehicle were driving along the side of a cliff and started to roll off the cliff, that I'd be quick enough to climb out and run across the side of the vehicle in time to jump back onto the ledge and not go down with the vehicle.”
That’s what I’m fucking talking about. THAT is the stuff legends are made of. So specific and so impossible, and I love Jimmy for his certainty that he could do this. If you’re confused, hold your hand out palm down. That’s your car. Imagine Jimmy is poking out from the sunroof between your knuckles. Now turn your hand 90 degrees so your thumb is pointing up. That is your car rolling off the cliff. Now imagine your tiny Jimmy pulling himself from the roof and climbing onto your index finger, then leaping to the nearby cliff edge.
NOW imagine all that, but your hand is a real car traveling at great speed and that tilt you did is that real car falling off a real cliff. Real Jimmy is certain that he can escape the sunroof and run across the car doors, eventually leaping to safety like he’s in Fast 7. Good for you, Jimmy.
Munson:
It took Munson a bit to come up with a response, because he believes he has a realistic sense of his limitations. He finally settled on defining his animal fighting weight class, but see if you catch what I caught in his response:
Munson used this chart as reference
“I feel confident I could beat a rat, cat, or goose. Not without injury but I'd kill them before they kill me. Eagle is weird cause I don't think an Eagle would actually be able to kill me, but it could probably blind me or injure me enough and then just fly where I can't get it. I might be able to get a lucky swing and break a wing though so I'd at least give myself a chance. King Cobra I could totally kill but would certainly get bit and die from the venom so we'd have to define what winning looks like. The rest of those I am dead 100% of the time.
Medium-sized domesticated dog would depend on the size, breed, and upbringing. Under 80 lbs and not trained to fight, I think I'd manage more often than not. But any bigger or a dog that has been bred and trained to kill other dogs, no I'm losing that.
I'm using my mom’s dogs here and I'm pretty sure I could take the smaller shepherd because he couldn't knock me over and would bite my arm or leg, and then I could try to use my weight to crush him, or get an arm down his throat to choke him. Her bigger dog though even though he's a jovial idiot could totally knock me over if he ran into me and then I'd say he could get my throat.”
Did you see it?
“…or get an arm down his throat to choke him”
Holy shit man. For a guy who insisted he’d lose to most animals, that is a really specific attack you have locked and loaded for that dog. That seems real personal to me. You’re one step away from going all Temple of Doom and taking its heart out. I know you were being modest up there, but given you already have a Mortal Kombat fatality move planned out, it seems like you’re trying to bait these animals into a fight.
Chris:
“I believe I could win a foot race against anyone in my age group who has at least one artificial joint. Not very aspirational, I agree.”
More aspirational than you think! Allow me to introduce you to-and I promise this name is real- Dick Beardsley!
Look how good he looks. You know this isn’t gonna be good for your race odds.
Richie Beards there is a former Olympic Marathon winner, and still runs 25-50 miles per week despite having an artificial left knee. He was profiled by Outside Magazine in 2017 and at that point was still running sub-2:00 half marathons.
Now, at 68 (which I would say is comfortably in Chris’ age group), his pace has slowed a bit. Last year his half marathon time was 2:20:44, or roughly a 10:45 mile pace. Yes, those results are real and I tracked them down.
Oh, did I mention he also has an artificial right knee?
This isn’t a guy running with a fake shoulder or some other technicality. The man is straight up kneeless.
So Mrs. Bailey, now you have to decide on the length of your race. I’d caution against choosing a mile, since he seems to run that all the time and I’m comfortable saying you do not.
The best hope is a sprint, but even then, beating Dick Beardsley and his two artificial knees in a race is looking about as likely as Jimmy surviving that car thing.
She could always fall back to her safety choice: She thinks she could land the plane.
Will:
“I think I could successfully host a game show.”
I should explain. We were on the phone for this, and Will clarified that this would be him going in completely cold. He believes if he were snatched off the street, walked up to the stage, and told “If you want to go free, you have one chance to host this show so well that no one can tell you’ve never done this before,” he could do it. Live audience, real contestants, TV cameras, everything. He gets no rehearsal, and the only info he gets are the rules of the show handed to him on some index cards. Lights, camera, action.
I really like this one because every year the world gets surveyed about biggest fears and every year the number one response is public speaking.
This is about as public as it gets, and with the added pressure of looming captivity, Will’s confidence in his charisma and ability to conjure off-the-cuff humor and rapport is extremely bold. Add to that the fact you have someone in your ear constantly, calling out camera positions and blocking, and giving you ever-changing guidance on which contestants to focus on.
There’s a reason you can name almost every game show host off the top of your head. The shit is hard. Shows don’t have host turnover because once producers finally land someone, they pay them insane money to make sure they don’t go anywhere. The search for a good game show host is exhausting, and in fact plenty of good concepts never launch because they can’t find the right personality to front it.
Remember when Alex Trebek died? They couldn’t find a host for months. They tried everyone they could think of, and eventually decided to split the duty between multiple people. Ken Jennings finally took over full time, but that was mainly because Jeopardy! is an institution and he is an institutional figure.
So while this isn’t an outlandish physical feat, it’s certainly a mental one. And to believe you could be one of the handful of people on earth to pull it off, and without a single minute of practice, is pretty wild.
Micah (buckle the fuck up):
I’m doubling down again and saying I could complete 5 passes in an NFL game IF given the right circumstances:
1. Give me Kyle Shanahan or Matt LeFleur (god I hate that I’m choosing a Packer) and their sole purpose is to scheme a game plan to get me 5 completions over the course of a game. They dont need to win the game, just 5 completions.
2. Give me the 49ers playmakers or another great offense.
3. Give me a good O-line. Whatever is the best in the NFL.
4. Play action. One step passes. Etc.
5. I could probably take like 2 hits before dying, maybe more if I was given some time to train and beef up. So give me a good line and running game with a good game plan and I’m surviving enough time to make it to 5.
May I die? Possibly. But I’m making it to 5 first.
Well let’s do this quickly, shall we?
You could get the greatest offensive schemers in the known universe if you want, but you’d still need to actually be able to do the things they scheme up. They scheme plays for professional athletes- men who are fast enough and strong enough and throw hard enough and think fast enough to be in the NFL. Those are not plays the average person could run. They don’t have any schemes for a guy eats Chipotle as much as you do.
A great playmaker would certainly help, but you have to get the ball to that playmaker. You have to throw it hard enough, and far enough, and accurate enough for the “making” part to actually happen. Did you know that the average distance of a flat pass is 2-3 yards forward, but 10-15 yards horizontally? That’s a lot of ground to cover via the air for the average person. The receiver being fast is probably worse.
Through the first two games this season, do you know which offensive line had the highest protection grade? Carolina. Couldn’t save Heisman winner Bryce Young.
All of those things take time and footwork and the ability to see with a helmet on. I haven’t even covered the funniest part of this, which is: have you ever taken a snap under center? Did you know NFL centers snap the ball with enough force to break fingers? Same with shotgun snaps. If you don’t have your hands set correctly and the timing right, you’re going into the medical tent without ever attempting a pass.
Nope. You are not making it through two NFL hits. Sorry man. You’re nearly 40 with a bad shoulder and two bad ankles. I guarantee your body has never felt anything like the impact an NFL defensive end can deliver and would not survive it. Having a lineman fall on you would be nearly fatal. An unchecked blitzing LB or safety would send you to another realm of existence. They’d have a moment of silence for you and then sign Joe Flacco for the remaining three quarters and 14 minutes of play.
“My second one is I think I can sneak/talk my way into any event outside a government event. However, given the recent lapses of the Secret Service maybe even a government event. But then again I don’t want to die so I would prob pass on that. But the Oscars, a charity ball, or other random event…with time to plan, I’m getting in.”
This doesn’t count because I’ve seen Micah do this already. This is impossible for most people but I’ve watched him do this exact thing enough times to know that he could get onto the International Space Station if he really wanted to.
Also- if you don’t want to die, maybe don’t sign up to play in the NFL.
Bonus Submission
Mrs. Thoman:
“She firmly believes that given the opportunity she could convince the Taliban to give women their rights back. She believes she could convince them of the benefits and they would eventually take her side.
She said this after less than a minute of thinking about it. So she obviously has thought about this before. Was not something I was expecting. You give me 100 guesses I would have never guessed that’s what she would have said.”
Hm.
Well, leaving aside the historical and political complications of this whole endeavor, I think the biggest problem here is that the thing you’re trying to solve is the very thing that precludes you from getting the meeting in which you could solve it.
I don’t much about how the Taliban does its scheduling, but I can’t imagine a calendar invite that says “a woman would like the right to give a presentation about how you should give women rights” is going to be accepted. I applaud the ambition, but the hardest thing about this is going to be getting on the books.
I guess you could have a guy schedule it and do the old switcheroo, but that sort of defeats the purpose.
Andres:
“Murder.”
No further questions.
Bonus Sub-
Actually, I do have a further question. Is this ANY murder? Or are you being assigned the murder? Because I think if the goal is to get away with any random killing, that’s pretty doable. More doable than I’d prefer, honestly. You could just drive a few states away and conk someone on the head in a dark alley and drive home. As long as there are no cameras in the alley and you keep your face off CCTV in the surrounding area, you’re pretty much uncatchable since you’d have no motive to put you on the suspect list.
Now if you were given a piece of paper with a name on it and you had to murder that specific person, that’s way harder. You’d have to locate them, learn their routine, and plan the whole thing out without being conspicuous, and without popping up on video in the days preceding the act. There are cameras literally everywhere, so you have to scout everything out super carefully.
While I can’t know for sure, I’m assuming since they are a prescribed target they are going to be harder to access than your average suburban dad. That could mean security systems or bodyguards. How do you get around the locks and alarms? How do you get them away from their guards- or do you whack the guards too?
The trickiest part of this is you have to plan and execute all of it while still maintaining the daily routine of your life. You can’t just disappear from work for two weeks and then pop up acting all weird right after a murder. That wouldn’t do.
I think Andres could do it, especially since that was the first thing he threw out, but I’d like to see his answers before I bet money on it.
Bonus Submission
Zach Latham:
“Survive a fast-zombie apocalypse handily.”
“Handily” absolutely kills me. Zombies alone are pretty hard to survive. There’s a reason most of the movies are about small pockets of survivors scraping by in the tattered remains of society, not huge groups of normal folk sitting around watching football and occasionally going into the yard to obliterate the lone zombie who wandered by.
They multiply exponentially and with great speed. Even the shambling ones increase their numbers at an incalculable rate, which is why they don’t need much in the way of speed. They simply overwhelm humans, and we can’t run because there’s nowhere to go.
Now take all that, but this time the zombies can sprint forever without tiring. Same numbers problem, but now all of them are fast.
I think survival at that point is simply luck. Don’t be in a city when it happens, get to a car or a secure building before it gets too bad, hope they can’t climb. Saying you could survive it “handily” implies there’s a skill to it.
Isn’t it binary? You either survive or you don’t? I like that Zach thinks he would survive harder than most. That’s the kind of shit this question is made for.
Me:
I think I could perform successful surgery if someone was talking me through it. Not a heart transplant or anything, but I could take a bullet out of somebody without killing them. As long as there was someone who could instruct me, either in person or over the phone, I think that patient lives. I have steady hands and don’t get freaked out by blood, and I would want to brag about that so badly that I think I could will myself to get it done.
Fuck it, who needs their appendix out?
Villian Corner:
In celebration of our own villains, this week Justin for ruining my very good day, each dispatch we will take a moment to appreciate a great villain from entertainment history.
Marlo Stanfield
The Wire is probably the best TV show ever made. If not, it’s definitely in the top three, and once you get to that point it’s a matter of personal preference. Among the many reasons the show is held in such high esteem is the absolute murderer’s row of characters it gave us. There has never been anything close to the depth of that roster and the complexity of the characters that made it up. Antiheroes, villains, chaotic neutral, lawful good, dumb, smart, conniving, sympathetic, they had it all. Almost no one was entirely one thing, and often they never knew who they really were.
This is why Marlo stands alone. In a world full of murderers, drug dealers, corrupt politicians, dirty cops, and more, Marlo is the supreme villain precisely because he’s not complex. There is no nuance and no evolution. His evil deeds are not means to an end, they are eventualities; matters of course in the perpetuation of a status quo that does not allow for any other type of deed.
He’s inscrutable- never angry or sad or happy. He views the events of a given moment as simply catalogued experience in service of an ongoing project. He has no exploitable characteristics because there are no recognizable characteristics at all. A woman sent to seduce him is murdered because she is a distraction. Nosy store security guards die alongside rival drug lords. Grandmas are targets of gunfire because their peril will draw out enemies who love them. Murders are rampant and trumpeted, but bodies are never found. Marlo is the personification of an uncaring universe.
This deeply frightens hardened men of power who occupy the same world as him. These are men responsible for dozens, if not hundreds of murders and untold ancillary deaths. They are ready for death in a way that only people who have seen it ad infinitum can be.
They may accept the nature of their world, but many of them dream of creating some approximation of order. They have codes, they run things like a business. They do all this because if they create a simulacrum of legitimacy, it codifies their power. Ruling an empire is taken more seriously than ruling a wasteland.
Marlo terrifies them because he is what emerges when their world reaches its terminus. Something built atom by atom to be the apex predator in a jungle full of monsters. He’s not a product of his environment, he is the environment, and they are no longer built for it.
When the police finally discover a body they can be sure was Marlo’s victim, they find it inside a boarded-up vacant home. That’s how he killed so many people but never left a trace of them behind. He hid them right in front of everyone, behind the plywood symbols of a dying city that everyone but him overlooked because everyone but him felt something when they looked at them, so they tried their best not to.
When the camera pans out to show the hundreds upon hundreds of boarded up homes, the horror sets in for everyone present. You can’t stop Marlo Stanfield, because he has already happened. You can’t win, because he didn’t view this as a contest.
As he would say:
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 2 weeks
| Rank | Team | Score | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Micah Thoman | 95.46 | --- |
| #2 | Kyle Luke | 90.27 | ↑1 |
| #3 | Justin Childs | 88.45 | ↑2 |
| #4 | Will Armistead | 85.45 | ↑2 |
| #5 | Jimmy Slater | 82.88 | ↓-3 |
| #6 | Ryan Munson | 79.62 | ↑2 |
| #7 | Andres Santana | 76.9 | ↑2 |
| #8 | JJ Bailey | 69.43 | ↓-4 |
| #9 | Steve Keers | 69.13 | ↓-2 |
| #10 | Andrew DeWitt | 61.17 | --- |
| #11 | Chris Bailey | 55.45 | ↑1 |
| #12 | Lee Morehouse | 53.29 | ↓-1 |
PLAYOFF ODDS
| Team | Percentage | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Micah Thoman | 72.60% | ↑ |
| Andres Santana | 50.00% | ↑ |
| Jimmy Slater | 50.00% | ↓ |
| Ryan Munson | 50.00% | ↑ |
| Justin Childs | 50.00% | ↑ |
| Will Armistead | 50.00% | ↑ |
| Kyle Luke | 50.00% | ↑ |
| JJ Bailey | 27.44% | ↓ |
| Steve Keers | 27.44% | ↓ |
| Andrew DeWitt | 27.44% | ↓ |
| Lee Morehouse | 11.33% | ↓ |
| Chris Bailey | 11.33% | ↓ |
THE
GAMES
THE GAMES
Munson Vs. DeWitt (109.8-81.3)
I love to watch boxing. I think it’s because we were lucky enough to have HBO when I was a kid, and so when my dad wasn’t watching Cheers, or Frasier, or The Andy Griffith Show, he would turn on HBO’s Boxing After Dark and I would stay up late to watch with him.
(A note to all the league children who may read this someday: There was a time when television was the only way to watch anything. Phones still had ropes attached to them and the internet was a disk sent to you in the mail, so TV was king. However, there was only ONE TV in the house, so whatever was on that TV was what you watched. You, as a child, did not get to vote on that part. You watched whatever the adult in the room wanted to watch, and whatever that happened to be would ultimately define you as a person. What sports you liked, which teams you rooted for, your sense of humor, music, and culture- whoever controlled the TV was providing the source material for all of it. I got westerns, boxing, Footloose, the Chicago White Sox, and movies about the ocean. It didn’t all stick, but it’s all in me somewhere.)
The fun thing about watching boxing matches is the undercards. The headliners are great, but the best fights are usually two or three down the list, because they’re either between two wild-swinging rookies looking to catch someone’s attention or feature a guy whose career can’t withstand another loss so he fights like a cornered mongoose.
But every once in a while, you get the third kind of undercard. This happens when a guy who was scheduled to fight in one of the lowlier bouts has to drop out on short notice. These fights as scheduled are typically between two washed up fighters or guys going nowhere anyway, so the requirements for a replacement begin and end with: alive and available.
This is how you end up with a 42-year-old fighting a guy half his age who has a 1-13 record, or a kickboxer being subbed in, or a guy fighting southpaw because his right hand is broken (all of these happened, by the way). These fights are some of the strangest, most ineffective displays of pugilism you will ever see. They are morbidly captivating yet utterly meaningless. Neither man had anything to lose, but there was never anything to gain. The victor won simply because someone had to.
This was Munson Vs. DeWitt. The third type of undercard.
If you combined the scores of both team’s quarterbacks, RB1s, and RB2s, you would barely outscore the Green Bay defense. Munson started two Vikings receivers, neither of whom reached 90 yards, and it worked. DeWitt’s leading scorer was his punter. His only uninjured marquee player going into the week got hurt. He has to regret not starting Chuba Hubbard, which is not a thing a person should be forced into feeling.
This was an abhorrent display, and you should both write apologies to me for making me contemplate it this long.
Also, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a team this comprehensively fucked over by injury. DeWitt has two top-10 RBs on IR, a starting WR who has been out since Week 1, and another who just had his brains turned into salad.
It hasn’t been since the 2010s when Kyle had nine players who he either drafted or picked up miss multiple weeks (5 of them hit the IR) that a fantasy owner has dealt with such carnage. I don’t know how DeWitt can get out of this, but it should be fun to watch him try!
Micah Vs. Steve (133.6-127)
I wonder what it was like for Micah watching Monday Night Football(s). I bet it was something like this:
Steve has to be getting tired of this. For the second time in three weeks, his matchup came down to Monday Night Football. For the second time in three weeks, he staged a furious comeback and had a chance to win with just minutes to go. For the second time in three weeks, the call from the governor did not come.
Monday night was truly captivating, as Josh Allen and Scary Terry gave Steve everything they possibly could to haul him over the line. If Travis Etienne wasn’t a Jaguar, I think he would have gotten this done. I was captivated, and for the second time in three weeks, found myself caring almost certainly more than Steve by the end of it.
But while Monday had the fireworks, Micah’s survival was actually far more precarious than even that made it seem.
He was saved by two tiny things that happened a day earlier.
Thing one: Big Swingin Kick missed his lone field goal attempt from 54 yards, despite having made the most 50-yarders in the league this season. This happened (according to the announcer) because he started his run-up a half second late.
Thing two: With 3:36 to go in the first half, Carolina return man Raheem Blackshear got gun-shy on a punt from Vegas’ AJ Cole, and decided to gamble on a touchback. Instead of fielding it with a fair catch at the 13, he opted to block the gunner and let it bounce. It skipped perfectly for the Raiders, going out at the five.
That’s it.
If Fairbairn takes off correctly, that’s 5.4 points for Steve. If Blackshear fields the punt, that’s two fewer points for Micah. Steve wins 132.4-131.6.
After all the big Derrick Henry Runs and Josh Allen throws, it came down to a timing thing for a kicker and a split-second choice for a return man. What a thing we choose to care about!
Micah’s faith in Amari Cooper was finally rewarded, since there are only so many games a wideout can be targeted a billion times before he finally has a good week. There wasn’t much else to carry him other than Henry, which is why those little things above stood out to me. Even checking his bench, there wasn’t a bright spot to be found. That’s probably because three of those slots are occupied by guys who are out multiple weeks and/or Kareem Hunt.
There’s something truly unhinged about Micah’s choice to sit TJ Hockenson in his IR slot, and occupy two bench positions with guys who could go there instead and free up space for living, useful players.
What are you stashing Hockenson for?! He’s a tight end! Look at the top 10 tight ends through three weeks:
These are not world-beaters. Goedert, Likely, Kmet, Henry, and Gesicki are there because they each had one goofy week. McBride is there because he recovered a fumble in the endzone. Pitts and Ertz are there simply because they can currently fog a mirror. Ertz hasn’t even scored and he’s in the top 10.
Bowers is great, and Kittle will have three-four games where he puts up big numbers. The rest are interchangeable. Stop squirreling away a TE who isn’t coming back until Week 7 at the earliest. I promise he isn’t the missing piece of the puzzle.
Isaiah Likely Value Tracker:
Acquisition cost: $53
Points since acquisition: 4.5
Exchange rate: $1 = .08 fantasy points
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.
It’s over! Micah’s thesis has been disproven by the existence of Bryan Bresee. Aidan O’Connell is not the homeliest white man in the league, according to a recent poll. But science never sleeps. We must get to the bottom of this.
Andres Vs. Lee (117.2-93.4)
I know this came down to the week’s final game, but I assure you the defining play did not happen Monday night. Not all momentous acts happen in the light, in front of adoring masses and for noble causes. Some occur in gruesome battles between inconsequential foes fought on forsaken lands, far from the eyes of anyone who matters.
Such was this particular act, committed by the Giants’ Devin Singletary in a Sunday game in Cleveland:
Yes, you read that right. Singletary ran for 43 yards, and ended up on the ground one yard shy of the endzone. That one yard was the difference between 4.3 points for Lee (which he got) and 12.3 points for Lee (which he did not get). This is very unfortunate, because Lee badly needed points going into the late games.
But those types of tragedies do happen in fantasy. Guys fall agonizingly short of glory all the time, and we as owners hang onto those unrealized points for weeks, sometimes years. I’m sure there are some of us who will pass down stories for generations about how “if Miles Sanders had just reached one foot farther…” or “and the holding had NOTHING to do with the play!”
However, this was not that. This was far worse. It’s not that Singletary went down a yard short, it’s how.
Yessiree! That’s Lee’s boy tackling himself at the goal line. It is the ultimate form of betrayal. Lee was drowning in choppy seas, and against all odds Devin Singletary appeared in a rescue ship on the horizon. As he motored near, he extended his hand to Lee and the two locked eyes. Then, Devin used that extended hand to slap Lee in the face before driving his boat straight into some rocks.
It’s not unusual to see a running back go down on purpose late in a tight game to prevent the other team from being able to get the ball back. It’s somewhat unusual to see them choose that course of action when a touchdown would make it a 12-point game (13 with the XP), and the opposing team has two minutes left, no timeouts, and is the Cleveland Browns.
There are always couldas and shouldas when a fantasy matchup comes down to a few points, but this is one of the rare times that an owner (Lee) can’t do much but stare blankly at the sky for however long it takes to feel feelings again.
On behalf of Lee, I hope every time the Giants go to hand Singletary his game check, they drop it in the trash right before it reaches his fingertips.
Andres has two receiving units. He has the exciting young players in Rome Odunze and Rashid Shaheed, and The Olds in Hopkins, Mike Williams, and 61-year-old Adam Thielen.
Odunze was great this week since Caleb Williams got to throw unlimited passes, but Shaheed, one of the fastest people alive, failed to gain a single yard. He got zero of everything. When you are that fast, how do you not accidentally achieve something?
Anyway, this week went to The Olds, as Hopkins and Thielen both scored TDs. Of course they were both on Andres’ bench, and of course Thielen immediately hurt himself because now that Andy Dalton is throwing to him he actually has to run, but I’m happy Andres is providing a safe and caring environment for these folks to live out the rest of their days. It’s good to see compassion for our elders isn’t dead.
Andres is 2-1 and now has one more week before he enters what I call the Santana Gauntlet. Over his fantasy career, Weeks 5-8 have largely determined his season. In the last decade, he is 17-23 during that stretch of the year, and when he had a winning record over those four games, he either made the playoffs or was in contention to in the final three weeks. When he goes 2-2 or worse, he falls off a cliff down the stretch.
He has only gone 4-0 twice in that window of games. Once he made the championship, the other time he finished third. Hang onto your butts.
Kicker watch!
It was a bad week for our beloved footmen. In Week 1 and Week 2, the median scores for kickers across all of ESPN fantasy were 10.09 and 10 points respectively, with the average score being 9 and 9.81.
Week 3 saw a median of 6 points and an average score of 6.21. Perhaps this is because our valuable lads are so tired! Week 2 broke the single-week record for field goals kicked. Looking at the QB scores around the league, it’s not hard to see why.
Will Vs. Jimmy (145.7-132.2)
Jimmy had what amounted to a very good week, it was just one of those very good weeks beaten by a very great week. Aaron Jones is all the way for real, as are the Vikings, who have improbably become the NFL’s most complete team despite having Sam Darnold at quarterback. The nice thing for Jimmy is that no one, not even Darnold himself, believes his quarterback play will continue at this level. That means only more rushing opportunities for Jones, who is both delightful and frightening to look at.
It’s awesome that he chose to wear team-themed sombreros in both Wisconsin and Minnesota, two places completely devoid of anything even culturally adjacent to sombreros.
These are places that gave us cheese curds, hot dishes, and lutefisk. Horseradish is the spiciest thing on most menus there. Among the listed foods for which Minnesota is famous is the Honeycrisp Apple. They are not exactly strongholds of the Latin community is what I’m saying. But while his continued headwear choice is very funny, my smile rapidly fades when he gets closer to camera. Look at his fucking arms, man! Those are some absolute pythons my guy is toting around in the tunnel. I feel like a high-five from him would put me in traction. No wonder he’s doing well at professional football.
Jimmy would have won against seven other teams, and has a squad that appears good for a floor of about 125 per week. Sam LaPorta is a problem, but then again every TE is a problem this year. Just ask Will about Mark Andrews.
Andrews had no catches and no carries. He only had one ball thrown his way. For all measurable purposes, he did not exist.
Will was the beneficiary of Dak Prescott’s fraudulent 31.7 points, a number which belies the dog shit performance that accounted for 90 percent of that game. Prescott had absolutely nothing for three and a half quarters and then panic-threw himself into the best week at the position. That shouldn’t count. He should have to give those points to someone more responsible.
Fantasy football’s best player Brandon Aubrey did it again, this time kicking a 65-yard field goal like it was absolutely no bother at all. Did you know Aubrey was a first-round draft pick in the MLS? He was! After being an All-American soccer player at Notre Dame, he was drafted by Toronto FC in 2017. After a few years, his soccer career ended and he became a software engineer. Then he was watching a football game, and when the kicker missed a couple of field goals, he figured he could probably do better. So he hooked up with a USFL team, then signed with Dallas in 2023. He led the NFL in points his rookie year, and leads all kickers in fantasy points this year. He also kicked the second-longest field goal ever last week.
That’s the real-life version of Micah’s fantasy. The guy just saw someone be bad at an NFL gig, decided “I can do that shit,” and then went and did it. I look forward to next year when he opens a Michelin three-star restaurant after watching someone fuck up a souffle on Iron Chef.
Will is quietly becoming dangerous again thanks to the appearance of Andy Dalton (or rather, the disappearance of Bryce Young). Dionte Johnson, no longer captive to whatever it was Bryce Young was doing, looks like a wide receiver again. I know the poor young man had to learn two systems in two years and doesn’t exactly have world-beaters for coaches around him but uhhhhh… maybe it’s time to put that Carolina house on the market.
You know the old saying, “If you leave your house in the morning and run into an asshole, you ran into an asshole. If you run into one at lunch, on the way home, and at dinner, you are the asshole”? It sort of applies here.
If you have an under-talented offense and an ever-changing scheme, maybe you’re a rookie QB who needs some stability.
If a 36-year-old mid-level quarterback takes over the exact same offense and immediately blows out his first opponent, you might be the problem. Andy Dalton did that. Any excuses for your ongoing performance you were ready to trot out just evaporated. I know the Panthers said this is temporary or whatever, but that was a lie. Even if it wasn’t and Young was named the starter again, the players would kill him before he made it to the stadium. They have mouths to feed, man. Can’t have this guy messing up their contract incentives.
This is all to say that even when Dalton returns to his true form, the Panthers may still be a competent football team. This means Will’s stashed treasure Jonathon Brooks could actually be walking into a semi-successful situation when he finally debuts, and the resulting annoyance for all of us will be profound. I cannot stress how little I want that to happen. Just miss the playoffs, man. Try it once.
Kyle Vs. Chris (148.9-94.3)
Another day, another 30 points from JaDavidMhyr MontGibbsery. The guy is the most consistent running back in the game. If only anyone else on his squad could be counted on.
Chris caught the ass end of the Tampa Bay implosion, getting nothing from Mike Evans (again) or Baker Mayfield. The latter was particularly painful, because while she chose him over her other three (3!) quarterbacks, he was comfortably outscored by every option without a concaved brain on her roster.
Beautiful Baby Brock got swept aside along with the rest of the Raiders, and since D’Onta Foreman is a member of the Browns, there was only one real hitter to save her. Unfortunately, Brandon Aiyuk is persona non grata in San Fran. I truly believe he could be the ONLY rostered receiver they have and he’d still get four catches for 46 yards.
The Niners entered the game without Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, and George Kittle. Those guys are 90 percent of the offense. The only notable body left was Aiyuk. Surely this would be the Aiyuk Game. This moment right here is what you JUST paid him all the money for.
Let’s roll the tape!
Ah, of course. That video is all 11 catches for Jauan Jennings, a 27-year-old former seventh-round pick. He out-targeted Aiyuk, 12 to 10, outgained him 175 yards to 68 yards, and scored three touchdowns compared to Aiyuk’s…..checks notes…. none. The universe removed every impediment to him getting the ball, and he still failed. Under no circumstances is Brandon Aiyuk to score double digits in fantasy. San Francisco paid him $120,000,000 to cosplay as a slightly-above-average tight end. If he pulled off a mask Mission Impossible style and revealed he was Jermichel Finley all along, I wouldn’t be shocked.
His disappearing act meant all of Jayden Daniels’ running Monday night was in service of a victory lap, and Kyle got to check out early and focus on his hair, or skincare routine, or whatever it is handsome people do at night. While this week was rosy- as rosy as those cheeks were after the skincare routine- there are some choppy waters ahead for Kyle.
His principal problem is in Miami, where Tyreek Hill is now saddled with whatever the Dolphins can cobble together at quarterback. This week the cobbling initially produced a Skyler Thompson, who is very bad and apparently can’t throw more than 40 yards downfield.
That link will take you to footage of Thompson actively not throwing deep to end the half, and in fact desperately looking to dump the ball somewhere closer despite this being a Hail Mary situation. This was the second play in a row he did this. The announcers were understandably upset, because the only reason a guy doesn’t make that throw is because he can’t. With that particular cat out of the bag, the Seahawks could blitz Thompson with abandon. They happily did so, eventually pummeling him so ferociously he lost some ribs and other valuable chest things.
That’s when Dolphins unleashed Tim Boyle, a journeyman who has played for five teams in six years. Tim Boyle sounds like the name of a guy who says things like, “Boy, there’s nothing like a good grilled cheese!”
Tim Boyle’s business card is printed on a saltine cracker. His favorite color is taupe. He eats pizza with a fork. He is in no way compelling other than he managed to be a massive downgrade from Thompson.
If Skylar Thompson is the quarterback equivalent of a one-horse town, Tim Boyle is the glue factory where that horse goes to die. This is bad for Tyreek Hill, who doesn’t have a person on his team who can do the one thing he needs to be successful: throw the ball somewhere close to him.
Kyle spent the GDP of Iowa to draft Hill, and thus has no one else to put in. He must watch these maladroits flop around with the ball while his best player runs 30 pointless routes per game.
Maybe he’ll frown enough to finally get a wrinkle.
JUSTIN VS. JJ (162.3-123.4)
Justin Weekly High Score
Fantasy football is kind of like March Madness in a way, because the team that wins the NCAA tourney almost always has one game where they get a miracle. You have to win six games to be champions, and 99 times out of 100, one of those wins is the product of a last-second shot, an improbable comeback, or an unlikely player outperforming their abilities when it’s most needed.
The winning team always has great talent, and usually a great coach, but something beyond that has to happen, too. There’s an element of fortune at play. The ball has to bounce their way off the rim for a crucial rebound, or the ref has to call jump ball instead of a travel, or the career day from a shooter has to happen when someone else isn’t also having a career day.
This is where the two align. There’s nothing quite like March Madness and fantasy football’s shared ability to have a miracle in your favor erased by a miracle (or miracles) in someone else’s. For example: Your tight end puts up 170 yards and 25 fantasy points, a thing that does not happen for tight ends outside of 2-3 guys, and that just so happens to fall on the week your opponent posts what will likely be their season high (including ALSO getting 20+ from a TE who has no business scoring that much).
Meaningful skill players cancel each other out all the time (see: Jonathan Taylor’s 29 points being dwarfed by Barkley’s 40), but that’s because they score a lot of points routinely. TEs don’t do that, so the odds of them carrying you to victory with a monster day are pretty long. Longer still are the odds that the one time a year it’s happening on your roster, it’s happening concurrently on your opponent’s roster.
Like the tournament, you only get so many lucky breaks in a fantasy season. Only so many 25-30-point games from guys who are otherwise incapable of such feats, only so many times you make the improbably correct call on a starting spot, only so many times a guy falls on the right side of the line. The difference between a great year and a disappointing one is when those things happen. If you are fortunate, they happen when they can alter the course of a matchup and steal you a win, a playoff spot, or a championship. If not, they are bittersweet reminders that miracles are finite, and one of your precious few has come and gone without benefit.
I’ve won and lost (mostly lost) plenty of games where there were no miracles spent. Just normal players doing what they normally do (within a margin of error), and one fantasy team bests the other. Those are lion’s share of a team’s record. It’s the 2-4 other games that separate the podium teams from the rest.
That’s why I’m sad about Dallas Goedert and his wasted heroics, the way I was sad about Jayden Reed’s 39 points on my bench in Week 1. It’s not that I lost those games- or rather, not just that I lost them. It’s that those losses came despite the miracles.
I also lost because I had far too much dependence on the Miami Dolphins, and as you read above, the Miami Dolphins were not going to do much because the Miami Dolphins employ Tim Boyle and he ended up being their quarterback. I have no idea what they are going to do at quarterback, but they better trade for someone or something. Sign Micah. He’s available.
The Cowboys are a stupid organization and a piece of shit team. Fuck Dak Prescott so much. Who falls that far behind, then suddenly finds their passing game in time to stage a furious comeback with 200 yards and two TDs, and never once throws a meaningful pass to someone who is actually on a fantasy roster?
Jalen Tolbert? KaVontae Turpin? What kind of saltwater-fish-ass names are these? These last names sound like when you’re trying to come up with as many words that start with a certain letter as you can, and you realize after about 10 that you don’t know nearly as many as you thought and you’re just making mouth sounds.
Everyone knew the Cowboys were going to lose that game, they could have at least done something for the public good. Why’d they pay CeeDee Lamb so much if they’re just going to throw to the fucking Turlington Brothers or whoever when it matters?
Anyway, while I was squandering one of my miracles, Justin was capitalizing on his.
He got 40 from Barkley and 20 from Kmet (though Barkley’s total was less a miracle and more just the high-end of his spectrum), plus another 30 from Cook and 40 from Ja’Marr Chase. That confluence was enough to cancel out the wasted 30 points from a defense on his bench. Malik Nabers is now fully armed and operational and Chase is back to being Chase, which means barring a DeWitt-level injury catastrophe, he has all the horses he needs to break his 12-year medal drought.
