Week 4: Loup-De-Guerre
I recently came across what I believe to be one of the most hilariously petty acts in history. I know the modern era is lousy with pettiness- many prominent people have built their entire public existence on it- but as far as single acts go, we have nothing on our forebears in that department.
Let me take you back several centuries. The year is 1304, we are in Scotland, and there is a war going on. On one side you have England’s King Edward I, a weapons-grade asshole who was renowned for dishonesty, volatility and being a vindictive prick to anyone who was not capital-E English. He did some good things like establishing a parliament and creating a system for legal reform, but mostly he was a big ol’ jerk.
Looks like if the word ‘sniveling’ was a person
On the other side were the Scots. Now, the Scots were mad because when the Scottish king died a few years back, there was a dispute over succession so they invited Edward to help arbitrate it. Eddie said sure, then promptly declared Scotland a vassal state of England and invaded it (a vassal state is essentially a colony, where you belong to another country and give money and resources to them, but you have the veneer of internal autonomy).
The Scots, understandably pissed, went to war for their independence. Edward had just done this same thing to Wales, and Wales wasn’t Wales anymore, so they weren’t about to give up without a fight.
If some of this sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve seen Braveheart and know about William Wallace. Or you’ve seen The Outlaw King which is a super dope movie about Robert The Bruce.
Anyway, Edward beats Wallace at Falkirk in 1298 and keeps things rolling for six more years. He takes castle after castle until there’s one holdout left- Castle Stirling. So, in 1304 we begin the Seige of Stirling. Edward, who it should be noted was known as “Longshanks” which is an undeniably sick nickname, brought his best to the dance.
He utilized every single seige engine he had in his arsenal, and bombarded the SHIT out of Castle Stirling for three months, but the Scots wouldn’t give in. So, Longshanks went full supervillain.
He commissioned the construction of the largest trebuchet ever built, a weapon so massive that it took 30 wagons to carry all its parts. It would be able to launch a stone through two castle walls like they were nothing. It took five master carpenters and 50 other people working around the clock for three months to build the damn thing. Edward named it “Loup-de-Guerre,” which translates to “Warwolf.” Say what you want about the man, but he can name the shit out of things.
So Longshanks finally had Warwolf up and running, but there was a problem. The Scots surrendered unconditionally before Warwolf ever got used. Imagine that. You’re sitting there, day after day for months, watching this big ass megaweapon get closer to completion. You spend all that time imagining how good it’s going to feel to set it loose, and finally crush your bothersome enemies. The day finally arrives, and after fucking with you for months, they decide to call it quits. You don’t beat them, they just stop playing.
That alone is very funny and very petty of the Scots to have done, since they committed to annoying the shit out of Edward until he had something he really wanted, then they took that opportunity from him. But no one out-pettys our boy.
When presented with unconditional surrender (which means he gets everything he wanted without spilling any blood), he glanced over at Warwolf and said, “Nope.”
Longshanks brought that big sumbitch up to the front, loaded it up, and went to town. He did not allow anyone to leave the castle, or any of his soldiers to enter it. He just fired Warwolf at it for a day, and once it was good and fucked up, said, “Now you can surrender.”
That is historical pettiness right there. That lives on for generations. The internet may give a much larger platform to petty acts, but none of those acts are so petty that the average person will still be talking about them 720 years from now.
Good for you, Longshanks, you piece of shit.
Villian Corner:
In celebration of our own villains, this week Derrick Henry for stopping one yard short of 200, each dispatch we will take a moment to appreciate a great villain from entertainment history.
G’Mork
I’m assuming we’ve all seen The Never Ending Story, but in case you haven’t, it’s about a nerdy kid who sneaks into a hidden attic in his local library and reads a fantastic tale about a warrior named Atreyu who fights to save his world from being swallowed up by a mysterious evil force named The Nothing.
The world, named Fantasia, is the product of human optimism and imagination, and The Nothing represents apathy and hopelessness. As people surrender their desires and dream less, The Nothing grows, and whole sections of Fantasia and its occupants cease to be.
Even as a child, I knew The Nothing was clearly supposed to be the big bad of the movie but I was much more frightened of G’mork (that handsome fella above). Some of that was due to him being tangible rather than ethereal, and some more of that was due to him being a raggedy giant wolf with glowing green eyes. But most of it was because of what he represents.
The Nothing has no motive, or at least it doesn’t express one. It simply exists counter to Fantasia, and so must replace Fantasia with itself to continue existing. We don’t like what The Nothing is, but it isn’t operating out of malice so much as it’s trying to survive. G’mork is choosing to help it.
He knows its success means the erasure of presumably millions of Fantasian lives, and abject misery for humans on Earth, and eagerly says yes. Not because he believes in the cause, or thinks this is ultimately best for the universe, but because people in pain are easier to manipulate.
Atretu: What is the Nothing?
G'mork: It's the emptiness that's left. It's like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
Atreyu: But why?
G'mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control... has the power!
Watching this as an adult, we all think “duh,” and move on. But G’mork wasn’t in a movie for adults. He was in a kids movie, and that idea- indifference toward mass misery in service of accruing power- is shattering to a child.
You’ve spent the entire movie seeing it as a binary- our heroes are on the good side and everyone else is on the bad side. But suddenly you have a third set. Here is a being that was on neither, but actively chose the bad side. Kids don’t see good and evil as a business decision. I didn’t until that point. So being confronted with that was pretty destabilizing. It was doubly upsetting because unlike most bad guys in kids programming, G’mork wasn’t hiding it. He was sitting there calmly, the only one unbothered by the collapse of the world around him, casually confessing to the most evil of things.
Except he wasn’t confessing, because a confession requires guilt- or at least the acknowledgment that there should be guilt. G’mork has offers neither. His speech is just a statement of fact.
Worse, while G’mork is working with The Nothing, it’s important to note he’s not working for it. He says he is working with the power behind The Nothing. If the existential dread wasn’t enough, now you know there’s a bigger, badder force out there and G’mork is signed up with it. If you’re the type of creature that every evil entity comes to for help, maybe you’re the biggest villain.
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 | Power Score | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Kyle Luke | 91.14 | ↑1 |
| #2 | Justin Childs | 90.94 | ↑1 |
| #3 | JJ Bailey | 86.97 | ↑5 |
| #4 | Micah Thoman | 84.66 | ↓-3 |
| #5 | Andres Santana | 82.61 | ↑2 |
| #6 | Andrew DeWitt | 72.76 | ↑4 |
| #7 | Jimmy Slater | 72.24 | ↓-2 |
| #8 | Will Armistead | 71.4 | ↓-4 |
| #9 | Chris Bailey | 69.81 | ↑2 |
| #10 | Ryan Munson | 66.4 | ↓-4 |
| #11 | Steve Keers | 66.4 | ↓-2 |
| #12 | Lee Morehouse | 52.16 | --- |
PLAYOFF ODDS
| Team | Odds | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Andres Santana | 62.30% | ↑ |
| Micah Thoman | 62.30% | ↓ |
| Justin Childs | 62.30% | ↑ |
| Kyle Luke | 62.30% | ↑ |
| JJ Bailey | 37.70% | ↑ |
| Jimmy Slater | 37.70% | ↓ |
| Ryan Munson | 37.70% | ↓ |
| Will Armistead | 37.70% | ↓ |
| Andrew DeWitt | 37.70% | ↑ |
| Steve Keers | 17.20% | ↓ |
| Chris Bailey | 17.20% | ↑ |
| Lee Morehouse | 5.47% | ↓ |
THE
GAMES
THE GAMES
Andres Vs. Jimmy (134.8-118.6)
Apparently, Monday Night Football(s) will determine the outcome for half our league every week this year, and I find that very exhausting. We have had 20 out of our 24 total matchups still up for grabs on Mondays, and 16 of those were realistically anyone’s contest. I am not a paragon of cardiovascular fitness and as such am growing concerned about my blood pressure.
Jimmy was in a deep, dark hole going into the final game of the week, a product of his roster having gotten together to ritualistically ladle sleepytime tea into each other’s cups like a Fantasy Football Jonestown. When I saw that Cincinnati scored 34 points, I figured Burrow must have blown up. Nope. The Vikings scored 34? Aaron Jones had to have gotten in the endzone. Nope.
The Raiders accounted for an unforgivable amount of RedZone airtime, so I was forced to hear about how Sunday was their “best running performance by FAR” and how “the running game FINALLY looks to be on track.” One would think this was good news for Jimmy, since he has Alexander Mattison, one of two running backs on the Raiders. Nope.
The Bucs SHREDDED the Eagles through the air, so obviously Chris Godw- nope. Well the Rams faced Chi- nope. But I- nope.
To be fair, Jimmy was missing two of his biggest hitters to injury, but when Ladd McConckey and Bucky Irving are your big stars on a Sunday, it’s safe to say things didn’t go to plan.
So Monday came around and he was down 60 points. But there is always hope! I took a peek and saw he had three players to go!
Oh, they are all on the same team. Ohhhh, they are all pass catchers on the same team. Oh oh ohhhhh, that team is the Lions and the Lions’ quarterback is Jared Goff who would face the best-rated pass defense in the league.
Jimmy’s boys did put up quite a fight, but despite a long touchdown from Williams and a receiving AND passing touchdown from St. Brown, it was never really close. Andres is now 3-1, and the guy who looked like his best player coming out of the draft has yet to wake up. Bijan Robinson hasn’t cracked 15 points in a week, but Andres hasn’t needed him to. That’s concerning, since Travis Kelce is slowly coming online (and will soon be the only living pass catcher on the Chiefs), Baltimore has found their offensive formula and it produces 25 points a week for Lamar, and between Shaheed, Chase Brown, and Hopkins, he’s always going to get at least one pop performance. Heck, Odunze probably has one or two more in him.
Now Andres does not have depth, and history tells us with mathematical certainty that he will not trade or pick anyone up off the wires to address that issue, so therein lies the challenge for his season. He needs everyone to stay healthy.
But he’s 3-1 headed into the Santana Gauntlet, so if they are going to get hurt, it will come in the next four weeks.
Kyle Vs. Micah (138.7-129.6)
Good lord, Derrick Henry. It’s incredible that the NFL is actively trying to remove the concept of the bell-cow running back from our consciousness and the oldest and most overworked of that ilk is the one offering up the most compelling resistance. Henry is the last god of a dead religion, and he is visiting his holy wrath upon the league.
Look at those defenders! Those are professional athletes and they look like you or I trying to chase him down. That man is 6’3 and weighs 250 pounds, and he hit a top speed of 21.29 MPH on that run. We all thought Xavier Worthy was the fastest thing we had seen all year, but his top speed was 21.24 MPH. That’s a negligible difference. The four-inch, 90-pound difference between them is decidedly not.
Look at Rasul Douglas up there (Number 31). That man made a business decision. Derrick Henry never looks all that fast, much like a train never looks fast. It could be going 100 and it still appears to be lumbering along. But then you see it up close and say, “holy shit I am staying far away from that.” That’s what happened to Douglas.
Anyway, Micah entered the Sunday night game with a 4% chance to win. Thanks to Henry’s 199 yards (lol what a tease) and a touchdown, he went into the Monday night games as the favorite.
He almost got away with it, too. Buuuuuuuut…
Kenneth Walker walked off the injury report right into the thrashing maw that is the Lions run defense, and did not give a single shit about them. He ripped off three touchdowns and put Micah’s streak to bed with authority. But it wasn’t all roses.
This shouldn’t have been dramatic in the least, but the Dolphins decided to replace Skyler Thompson with a slightly improved Skyler Thompson. If Tyreek Hill is a Lamborghini, the Miami quarterback room is the syrup being poured in the gas tank. This is a problem for Kyle, since he paid for a goddamn sports car, not a very fast-looking paperweight.
Micah did almost the entirety of his damage with a kicker, punter, and defense.
Kyler Murray+Josh Jacobs+Keenan Allen+Amari Cooper+Mike Gesicki= 27.6 points.
Chicago D/ST+Evan McPherson+AJ Cole= 38.2 points.
Add those together and you barely get more than Henry and Kamara (63.8).
But even the mighty run god couldn’t overcome such comprehensive mediocrity. Another mircale spent in service of a loss.
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.
Bryan Bresee has lost back-to-back competitions. This new data makes it clear Micah must re-examine his thesis entirely. The discovery of Breseenium could mean a re-writing of the entire elemental ugliness table.
Chris Vs. WIll (120.2-109.6)
God bless JaDavidMhyr MontGibbsery. The man is truly Chris’s rock.
On paper, this should not have worked out as it has. She kept Gibbs, and then after drafting Mostert, drafted Montgomery with several RBs still on the board. She only drafted one other starting running back, and that was Chuba Hubbard! Hubbard looks awesome now, but remember that he was drop-worthy through two weeks and at the time looked trapped in a hopeless offense and had Jonathon Brooks coming for his job eventually. So she bounced him to the scrap heap and DeWitt thanks her for her contribution.
Chris has three total RBs on her team. One hasn’t played since the first quarter of Week 1, and the other two are on the same offense. And yet, who among us would not want JaDavidMhyr?
You know what she’s averaging out of her two running back spots through four weeks? 33.15. Is that the highest? No, that’s Kyle and Justin with 41. But what it is is consistent. The most consistent by fucking MILES.
The biggest gap between her highest score from her two backs and her lowest score from her two backs is 8.9 points. No one else is even close to that. Her week-to-week variance is 4.3 points, meaning she can know almost to a certainty what she’ll get from the two RB slots every week. Kyle, for all his points, has a high-low gap of 26.2 and a variance of 12 points. Justin’s numbers are 38.4 and 16.9, respectively.
In a world of variables, Chris has found peace of mind. Maybe the whole one-team thing isn’t such a bad idea.
However, this week she pressed that particular gambit to its breaking point. Three NFL games accounted for the entirety of her skill positions (TE is not a skill). 100 percent of her RBs were on the Lions, 100 percent of her WRs were on the Niners, and her QB and Flex were on the Bucs. Leaving aside that that’s a whole lot of eggs in not a whole lot of baskets, it also means having to watch way too much of a single game. RedZone is wonderful because NFL games, when watched in their entirety, are usually extremely boring. In terms of game-action-per-minute-of-broadcast, the NFL is far and away the dullest of the four major sports. You spend far more time watching replays and ads than you do actual plays being run. That’s why spreading players out on multiple teams is nice, because I can watch RedZone and get little snacks of action (snacktions?) without being held hostage by the New England Patriots offense for half of three hours. Having to watch an entire Dolphins/Titans game is hell to me.
Where was I? Oh yes, consistency.
Do you have any Will can borrow? Like any at all?
Breece Hall is (should be?) so good, you guys. For all we’ve seen of him, he seems to be very good at being an NFL running back. Until he isn’t, or until the Jets do that thing they do where they recede into themselves until they are the least threatening lifeform on the planet.
Have you heard of the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii? It is the only thing on planet Earth considered to be biologically immortal. When it faces something like starvation or disease, or even environmental change it can’t handle, the jellyfish has the ability to revert to a previous stage of its life cycle, essentially hitting the reset button and starting over.
“You and I are gonna live foreverrrrrrrrr. Well, one of us anywayyyyyyyyyyy”
That’s the power the Jets have. If they sense they are becoming too interesting, or perceive a threat of expectations on the horizon, they can revert to their embryonic state, becoming the simplest form of themselves: a forgettable team that offers no aesthetic value and is no danger, and thus is allowed to persist forever.
But as a mortal saddled with not only a Jets player, but a Jets player who is critical to his weekly scores, Will is in a spot of bother. The Jets’ Samsara is ironically fatal for fantasy owners. It only brings confusion and suffering. Will needs someone he can count on in the worst way.
DK Metcalf tried to be that guy. Boy did he ever. But the thing about trying is that sometimes you fail. In a particularly brutal sequence, JaDavidMhyr rushed for a TD, and then Metcalf fumbled on the ensuing possession to set up a short field and another MontGibbsery TD. On the next possession, he had a very nice 29-yard reception, but that was overshadowed by the fact that if it had been a 30 yard reception, it would have been a touchdown. Kenneth Walker ran it in from the one, and then the Lions marched right back down the field for another JaDavidMhyr score.
That will do it!
Metcalf got over 100 yards and finished with 13.9, but any attempts at heroics were cut short when Geno Smith decided to start throwing meaningful passes to guys named Barner and Bobo. That duo, which sounds like a children’s variety hour, sopped up enough of Metcalf’s opportunity to make sure Will was back to searching for consistency.
Right now his only bankable weekly results are that Mark Andrews will get 0 points and no Steelers running back will get more than 12.
JJ Vs. Munson (160.6-111.5)
JJ Weekly High Score
Boy, I sure can’t get it right with Jayden Reed, can I? I can’t complain at all given my team’s output, but I might set some sort of record with that guy for most unrealized points.
As of today, he is the WR 2 in fantasy. He has not been in my starting lineup this season. Not because my team rules or anything. No, it’s because I am very very dumb.
Anyway, thank goodness for (and I can’t believe I am saying this) Justin Fields! Proof positive that mobility is pretty much the only thing that matters at QB for fantasy this season. He actually looked pretty good as an NFL quarterback in the loss, one dumb fumble aside. I know it seems weird that we (I) would care at all about Justin Fields, but that’s the state of things in 2024.
The average QB fantasy score in our league through four weeks is 17.5 points. There have been 48 performances so far, and nine of those were single-digit scores. There have only been 17 instances of a QB scoring 20 points or more, and three guys have half of those performances (Allen, Lamar, and Daniels).
As far as QBs go, guys like Fields are as good a bet as any, and his legs make him a better bet than most. That’s a very goofy thing to be dealing with. Can’t wait for Russell Wilson to start Week 6 and ruin my newfound happiness.
Munson’s problems remain the same for a third straight week. He is all set- set as can be, even- at wide receiver, and very much not set at running back.
Here are his combined RB scores through four weeks:
Week 1: 35.7 Hey! Great!
Week 2: 18.8 Uh oh…
Week 3: 6.3 GEE-zus fucking Christ
Week 4: 15.6 Oh so this is bad, bad
Meanwhile, he’s had at least two WRs hit 15 every week and often three. He had three guys get 16+ this week and Deebo Samuel wasn’t one of them. It’s like Munson has all the food in the world, but not a drop of water to wash it down with. Seems like a prime situation for a trade to me!
He still had a 1% chance of victory going into Monday, because ESPN could apparently imagine a world in which De’Von Achane fumbled the ball 22 times without gaining any yards. He did not gain any yards, but thankfully we avoided the two dozen fumbles.
DeWitt Vs. Steve (126.1-113.5)
What did I say about quarterbacks up there? Josh Allen, the presumptive MVP through three weeks, just needed to show up for like, a half. He had been shredding, and his only bad fantasy game was when he was entirely unnecessary against Miami and got a free night off. But this was the Ravens on the road. It would be a fight for at least two quarters if not four. Allen would need both his mighty arm and his thunderous legs to keep Buffalo undefeated. Steve could not possibly end the evening still trailing DeWitt.
But it was not a fight for any amount of quarters, and Allen used neither his arm nor his legs, and Buffalo did not remain undefeated, and Steve was, in fact, trailing DeWitt at the end of the evening.
What the fuck happened?! That was NEVER a game. The Ravens straight-up Jimmy-and-Joed Buffalo right out of town.
Allen looked like the NBA players in Space Jam after they had their talent stolen. Are we sure that wasn’t Bo Nix? He was in Jersey earlier in the day, he easily could have made it to Baltimore by game time. Someone check on that.
Travis Etienne might be cooked. At least he is until the Jaguars fire Doug Pederson, which could be anytime between their Week 6 loss to the Bears and the end of this sentence. Cam Akers isn’t the answer either, which is a problem since Dobbins is on bye. He has a whole lot of run-friendly defenses coming up, but the couch next week isn’t one of them. Time to spend the house on Jeremy McNichols!
DeWitt lost yet another player to injury, because Week 4 was a week of fantasy football, and if there is fantasy to be played, there are players for DeWitt to lose. This time it was Anthony Richardson, and if the Colts end up marking him “Out,” DeWitt will then have five players who are either marked as such or fully on IR. Also Aaron Rodgers is questionable. Somehow, DeWitt is 2-2 with two Top-10 running backs in Jordan Mason and Chub Hubbard. He is the early runaway favorite for Coach of the Year.
Isaiah Likely Value Tracker:
Acquisition cost: $53
Points since acquisition: 3.6
Exchange rate: $1 = .12 fantasy points (rocket ship, babyyyy)
Justin Vs. Lee (129.1-84.3)
Would you look at that! D’Andre Swift, running back for the Chicago Bears, did indeed get his!
Of course, Justin did not start D’Andre Swift, running back for the Chicago Bears, because he is D’Andre Swift (the running back for the Chicago Bears). No one, save for the most desperate of fantasy owners, did because why would they? In ESPN’s own words, “D’Andre Swift has been one of the least efficient running backs in the league so far this season.”
So of course he went off for 26 points on everyone’s bench. That’s the one thing Swift is good for: instilling regret over an objectively correct decision. He will be started next week, and it will be a mistake. Then he will be benched and that will end up being a mistake. This is D’Andre Swift- an exciting player until you look right at him.
But just when I thought Justin’s rationality was winning out, he started Cole Kmet over George Kittle. I do not need to enumerate the reasons why that was extremely silly, I can just let empiricism do that for me.
I get why DJ Moore was started, I guess. I mean if you are going to start Kmet, you should really start Moore. Belief in one means belief in the Bears offense, so why not start both? That’s sort of like being pocket-committed with Jack high, but whatever. What I cannot abide, however, is Nabers not being started in a WR slot.
I’ll fully admit that this is stupid. I know as long as a player is started, what slot they occupy doesn’t matter in the least. But I am a man of many stupid principles and one of those stupid principles is that starting your best player in the flex spot is disrespectful. The flex spot is for a guy who isn’t your RB or WR 1 or 2. He is not the starter or backup at either position, he is the next best guy after that.
Malik Nabers does not belong there. Malik Nabers should be parked in that WR 1 space like he deserves. That space is fully enclosed and has climate control. Ja’Marr Chase has played well enough to get the WR 2 space, which is covered and around back so it’s private. Let DJ Moore park out on the street in the flex. Get your priorities together, Justin.
Anyway, Justin was able to weather very bad weeks from everyone but Nabers and Chase because Lee’s cursed season is growing ever stronger in its mastery of the dark arts. Rashee Rice got his season ended by his own quarterback, Devin Singletary managed to fail against a run defense that gives out the answers to the test beforehand, and his kicker went 0-2 on field goals. That’s somehow an improvement over last week, because at least this guy attempted a field goal. Zamir White got three points despite the Raiders shattering their season high in rushing. It was all very depressing.
On the bright side, Michael Pittman became relevant the instant someone with any accuracy whatsoever was throwing the ball to him. Faith rewarded! As long as Indy doesn’t commit to the guy they drafted fourth overall and instead goes with 39-year-old Joe Flacco, everything should be fine.
Also James Conner is really good even when Kyler Murray is bad, which is great news for whoever ends up with him via trade this week. There is a world where Lee cobbles together enough of a running back room and acquires enough consistent points at WR to scrape some wins together. But given how things are going right now, if he were to get on anything resembling a hot streak the NFL would immediately see an unchecked outbreak of hantavirus. The universe is furious at his fantasy team.
Kicker watch!
There were 215 touchdowns scored in the NFL through three weeks compared to 189 field goals. Week 4 finally saw a normalization of those numbers, but the number of attempts is at the highest rate through four weeks in NFL history. Also, the average distance per attempt is astronomical. Over the last 10 years the average FG attempt distance is 38.7 yards. Through four weeks, it’s nearly 41. That’s because there have been six 60-plus yarders attempted so far. Three of those were made!
