Kyle and I had an email exchange last week (I know, I’m as surprised as you are) about my line etiquette question, and he brought up something I’m truly passionate about. Kyle wondered just how much time self-checkout was actually saving people who use it, and the implication was it may not be worth it if you only have a few items.

I got so wound up in my response that I’m re-purposing and expounding on it here, because this is a sermon that must be heard by as many heathen ears as possible. (Kyle can skip ahead)

Ah-heh-heh-HEM.

The self-checkout is an absolute gold mine and anyone who stands in line for the regular checkout is a fool. An imbecile. An absolute doofus. It's a vastly superior system and everyone should be using it.

One, there are always more self-checkout registers than manned ones. If there are two people ahead of you in line in a single manned aisle, they both have to conclude their business before you get to go. If there are two people waiting for self-checkout they can be cleared out simultaneously as the stations open up. An aisle keeps you sequential, the self-checkout hub allows for concurrent, which clears a crowd exponentially faster. This is why there is almost never a line at self-checkout.

Two, people who gravitate toward the manned stations are also gravitating away from the self-checkout, which means they have a higher likelihood of not being in a hurry (they passed up the faster option) AND not being adept at the checkout process ("those machines are too complicated"). It's not a lock, but it's far more likely they'll be the type that doesn't put their card in the machine correctly, or pulls it too early, or takes forever on each step of the process.

"What's this now? Do I want to round up? What does that mean?"

"Oh, do I want cash back? Well, I could always use som- oh! I didn't mean 20! Can I go back and do 10?"

"Hmmm? I did? No, I paid. Oh the GREEN button?"

You know what I'm talking about.

Self-checkout is for the professionals. We handle our business like Asian businessmen in the airport security line- no wasted motion, no chitchat. We have the order of operations down. We can no-look type in our rewards number while taking items out of the cart. We have produce codes memorized. The action is the juice for us. This isn’t a social occasion, it’s a supply run.

Lastly, flying solo means you aren't held hostage by your cashier. If they're slow, or chatty, or fucking new? God, new is the worst.

I got trapped in a manned line with a newbie a couple months ago because the self-checkout machines were being upgraded. I was buying five things, one of which was non-alcoholic beer. The guy scanned the six pack, looked at me like I was on Interpol’s most wanted list, then asked for my ID. I had just been to the DMV to update my license address and ended up getting one of those REAL IDs that they keep saying we need but we never will. Since they have to mail the REAL ID to you, they give you a paper ID in the interim. This is not a new thing.

I presented this form of identification to an absolutely bewildered face. Paper IDs are commonplace, especially in Missouri, but when I saw him squint suspiciously, I knew this was going to be a whole thing. He grabs the walkie and calls for a manager. We ended up waiting for multiple minutes before one came over, took one glance at a man CLEARLY in his thirties buying beverages with no alcohol in them, and typed in a random code without ever looking at my ID. This was a five-minute ordeal that should have taken 30 seconds, but the cashier could not think critically. It could happen to you.

In self-checkout, I have complete control. Not only of the speed, but the bagging as well. That last part is crucial because the art of efficient bagging is now apparently lost to history. If I go through a manned line, I end up with like six more bags than necessary. They put single items in bags, double bag each meat product, stack shit with no discernible pattern of size or fragility. They bag milk and cases of soda! The things have HANDLES. You don't need to bag them, much less double-bag them. (I know you can bring reusable bags, but I never remember to do that and if I do, I don’t want to go home before going to the store. I just bag with ruthless discipline, then use the few plastic bags I have for car trash and dog poop)

I'll just come out and say it. I'm faster and better at all aspects of the process than they are. Put me up against any cashier in this country and I'm taxing that ass 10 times out of 10. They can even have a bagger if they want. I'm in the parking lot before they can tell me how much I have in rewards.

If you're out here joining a multi-person line in an aisle despite acres of space at self-checkout, maybe you're not ready for primetime. I get it. Not everyone is built for NFL game speed. Just slap a bumper sticker on that cart: "New driver, please be patient."

Otherwise, take those sparring gloves off and get in the ring with the big boys.

Villian Corner:

In celebration of our own villains, this week the Tight Ends for validating the position in fantasy, each dispatch we will take a moment to appreciate a great villain from entertainment history.

Chong Li from Bloodsport

Sometimes subtlety is overrated. The 80s were a decade built entirely on that premise, and the films of the 80s are the purest distillation of the decade’s ethos. This is why the bad guys in 80s and early 90s action movies are cartoonishly over the top- everything was at an 11, so they had to be a 15 to stand out.

But of all the baddies of that batshit era, Chong Li stands alone as the supreme monument to maximalism. Look at him. He has a 70-inch flatscreen TV for a chest. His arms are cords of braided steel, and his eyes pools of unchecked madness.

The sight of him sets off a primal physical reaction because no matter our life experience, we instinctually know what an ass-whipping is, and he looks like an ass-whipping.

I’ve never lost a fight to a photo before now.

When you look like that, you don’t really need to say shit, and the movie knows this. Chong Li gets seven minutes of screen time and all of four lines. He says 24 total words. One of his four lines is just “mah-tey,” so I don’t count that one, but the other three are BANGERS.

1: The movie’s hero Frank Dux gets challenged to smash the bottom stone in a big stack of bricks using only his hand. He does this, and a collection of the world’s most dangerous fighters are all extremely impressed. Chong Li is not. While everyone else is gawking, he dismissively says, “Very good, but brick not hit back.”

Got his ass.

2: In the semifinals Chong Li fucking kills a guy. He straight murders a man in such a fashion that everyone present at the world’s most violent, no-holds-barred fighting competition turns their back to him in disapproval. Is he bothered? He is not. He steps right over the corpse he just made, walks over to Frank Dux, points and says in a now-silent arena, “You. Are NEXT.”

Got his ass again.

3: Chong Li previously put Frank Dux’s friend Ray in the hospital by stomping the shit out of his head in a previous round. When it happened, Chong Li thought he had killed Ray, so he bent down and snatched Ray’s Harley Davidson headband right off his bleeding skull as a trophy.

Now in the finals against Frank, Chong Li is WEARING the headband on the same leg he stomped Ray out with, and lets Frank know he’s not impressed with the fact Frank broke Chong Li’s record for fastest knockout.

“You break my record, now I break you. Like I break your friend.”

HEATER. While wearing the headband. What a boss.

Also, I kind of blame Ray for what happened to him. Everybody knows Chong Li is the big swinging dick in this tournament, but Ray went and popped off anyway.

Look at Chong Li’s face! That’s the most “Is this mfer talking to me?!” reaction I’ve ever seen. I can’t even fault him for the head stomp. Ray Jackson fucked around with a FAFO Hall of Famer. You get what you pay for in that situation.

So Chong Li’s resume is two murders (one in last year’s tournament), breaking one guy’s leg for no reason after he had already won the fight, stomping one guy’s head in the hopes of a third murder, two snot-rockets on the shared fighting mat, and throwing salt in the eyes of his championship fight opponent.

He is the number one karate movie villain ever, and number one on my list of people I never want to fight.

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 8 weeks

HTML Table

Rank	Team	Power Score	Change
#1	Justin Childs	84.61	7
#2	Kyle Luke	84.43	-1
#3	JJ Bailey	83.56	2
#4	Andrew DeWitt	83.51	---
#5	Ryan Munson	81.95	2
#6	Will Armistead	79.64	5
#7	Micah Thoman	79.38	3
#8	Andres Santana	71.91	-2
#9	Steve Keers	71.44	-7
#10	Chris Bailey	67.33	-7
#11	Jimmy Slater	67.03	-2
#12	Lee Morehouse	52.73	---

PLAYOFF ODDS

HTML Table

Team	Odds	Change
Kyle Luke	89.00%	↓
Andres Santana	65.60%	↓
Micah Thoman	65.60%	↑
Ryan Munson	65.60%	↑
Justin Childs	65.60%	↑
Andrew DeWitt	65.60%	↑
JJ Bailey	34.40%	↑
Steve Keers	34.40%	↓
Jimmy Slater	10.94%	↓
Will Armistead	10.94%	↑
Chris Bailey	10.94%	↓
Lee Morehouse	0.00%	---

THE

GAMES

THE GAMES

JJ Vs JIMMY (146.6-93)

Jimmy and I had quite the bonding experience Sunday, as the Detroit Lions put on one of the most confusing displays of football in recent memory.

That game really seemed like it would be the biggest momentum shifter in our matchup, given the amount of players we had in the mix. We needed a high-scoring affair, and we both needed multiple touchdowns of the passing variety.

What we got, impossibly, was exactly what we asked for but not at all what we wanted.

The Lions scored 52 points. There were four passing TDs thrown. All of this seems very good on its face. But let us look deeper!

Amon-Ra St. Brown caught a TD (good for Jimmy), but only gained seven yards on two total receptions (bad for Jimmy). Sam La Porta caught a TD (good for Jimmy), but only had 48 yards (bad for Jimmy). This is because while Jared Goff did throw touchdowns (good for JJ), he only threw three of the four of them (still good, but annoying for JJ) and managed only 85 yards passing (bad for JJ and Jimmy alike).

David Montgomery threw a TD pass to a person named Kalif Raymond. Goff threw one to something labeled “Brock Wright,” which admittedly is a very football-ass name, but otherwise has no business catching passes in this lineup. The Lions did everything Jimmy and I were hoping for, but wrong.

Tracking that game was like when you’re with a lady and all signs are pointing toward the boudoir, but you end up in an argument you know you can win before the show begins. You’re unsure which one you want to lean into more, but you know how you handle this delicate cocktail of emotions will determine the rest of your day.

Neither of us made it to the bedroom in this case.

Jimmy was undone by Joe Burrow, who came out and led a 17-play drive to open the game in which he went 11-for-12 for 70 yards and a TD, but then felt that was enough for the day. His second drive looked good but stalled at the Philly nine, and things got less and less cool from there. What looked like an incoming 30-point performance ended up being outshone by Goff and his 85 yards.

Between that and Davante Adams being stuck on a shitbox football team quarterbacked by late-stage Ben Roethlisberger, Jimmy needed all of Joe Mixon’s not-inconsiderable powers to hang in. But James Conner, who by all rights should be mostly paste at this point, clawed his way to 13 points on a 2.7 YPC thanks to a late TD, and Anthony Richardson got out of the way just long enough to allow Jonathon Taylor to get the final goal line carry for the Colts.

Their efforts ended up not mattering all that much since CeeDee Lamb finally deigned to grace us all with his presence, gaining more than 100 yards for the first time this season. Frankly, I needed that for my emotional stability. I was going to a place because of the Miami game.

Have you seen La La Land? Great movie, ending fucking ruined me. Long story short, these two are wildly in love, but circumstances arose such that they couldn’t be what the other needed at the precise moment that they had to make life-changing choices. So they end up apart, and after many years they run into each other again, now both who they wanted to be, but a little diminished without each other. The final scene is them looking at each other knowing they are what’s missing in each other’s lives, but also knowing what’s done cannot be undone.

I’m not too good to admit that the clip above was almost frame-for-frame me looking at De’Von Achane’s stat line all morning.

If CeeDee hadn’t shown up to remind me what I have, I might have spiraled into calling Will three times a day about a deal.

MICAH VS. Andres (132.8-117.2)

Micah’s Menagerie of Miracles rolled into Andres’ village this week, bringing with it yet another turn of improbable events. This time it was in Jacksonville, where the Packers were playing the league’s rock-bottom pass defense with a quarterback who will happily throw 50 times a game, three legitimately good pass catchers, and two others who are plenty good enough to torch the Jags.

So what happens? Jordan Love gets hurt, and the Packers give Josh Jacobs 25 carries. He scores twice and nearly doubles his previous season-high in fantasy points. The only other TD for Green Bay goes to…. you guessed it, Micah’s tight end.

Across every other positional exchange, Andres was +5.6 points. He was winning 111.4-105.8 without the Flex accounted for, but that is where Josh Jacobs was hiding. Micah’s powers are too great to be undone by things like matchups and statistical likelihoods.

The victory moves him into a five-way tie for second place, but he still hasn’t solved his WR problem. I know he was throwing his hands up about Calvin Ridley popping off on his bench, but no one in their right mind would have started him. Do I have to remind you? This is what it looked like with Mason Rudolph just one week ago!

That is not a quarterback that gives you any confidence whatsoever.

Cooper Kupp is very good but is on the wrong side of 30 and will cede the big piece of chicken to Puka Nacua now that he’s back. Amari Cooper’s numbers are actually getting worse on Buffalo, mainly because their OC would run 100% of the time if he could. Cooper might be begging to return to Cleveland in a couple of weeks. Jameis Winston is an unhinged lunatic, but he’s an unhinged lunatic who fuckin’ slings it.

Micah’s next best option is Jauan Jennings, who was hurt and now has a bye week. His solution to this problem is to go door-to-door with his worst running back, hoping to trick one of us into giving up a WR 1 in exchange.

Quick survey: Show of hands, who here has gotten a trade offer involving Tony Pollard in the last week? I bet there are a lot of empty pockets right now.

All those RB2s, two quarterbacks, and a shiny mystery box in TJ Hockenson to work with and the offer going ‘round is for a 27-year-old running back on a dead offense.

Trading with Micah is like walking down a city street and seeing a beautiful jewelry store with perfectly polished items in glass display cases in the window. In the simple but elegant showroom behind them, there stand well-groomed employees dressed in suits waving you in with champagne in hand. Then you open the door and suddenly you’re in an alley with this guy:

“Yeah, I got stuff. I got lots of stuff. But if you want my Pollard you gotta move quick, the patrol car comes by every couple minutes.”

Best to turn and high-tail it out of there before you get upsold to a Rico Dowdle.

Andres ends his brief run as the sole proprietor of second place with the comforting knowledge that there was absolutely no help coming from his bench. The only player who was even clinically alive was Justin Herbert, and Lamar scored the same amount. He can go serenely into 5-3. There was no antidote.

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.

Did you guess wide receiver? I bet you didn’t guess wide receiver. I didn’t really think Trenton would lose, but he undeniably has one of those faces that make you certain you know what he sounds like. You’ve never met Trenton Irwin, but you can hear him describing a YouTube video in your head right now, can’t you?

Anyway, Cody requires a proper challenger. He is the Chong Li of this Kumite. I had to travel far and wide for this fighter. He with the age of 28 and the face of 55. Remove the perma-frown and other facial features and just trace the outline of his head in this picture. The result is fascinating.

DEWITT VS. CHRIS (126.2-121.2)

I am genuinely shocked at this one. I like to think I know my mother pretty well, and certainly well enough to know her tendencies in fantasy football. I know she will acquire and start Mike Evans yearly until the Sun swallows the Earth, I know she likes veteran RBs, I knew Baker Mayfield would end up on her roster at some point this season (early this time!), and I knew she would kill a man for Brock Bowers on draft night.

She has her guys, like we all do, and this season she has most of them under one roof. So I knew Sunday would be full of tough decisions for her, given that Tua (a Chris Guy, albeit not her favorite one) was back, but Baker (a Chris Guy) was playing the Falcons for the division lead. Tua being back meant good things for Mostert (a Chris Guy), but Javonte Williams (not a Chris Guy) was coming off a great game and playing the Panthers. Then there’s Cade Otton (not yet a full-fledged Chris Guy, but very much a Chris-Guy-in-the-making), who she picked up because she (correctly) believed he would sponge up all of Evans’ and Godwin’s now-vacated targets.

The locks were easy. Bowers (Chris Guy: The Next Generation) and JaDavidMhyr (tough to tell here, but I lean Mongomery is a Chris Guy, Gibbs is close but outside looking in still. Loves the performance, but in an open draft I think she’d take Monty over Gibbs at their respective price points).

The wide receivers were a toss-up, because all of them are boom/bust except Wan’Dale, who is… whatever 10 points a week is. Boomst? He’s Boomst.

So it was down to QB and Flex, and I have to tell you I was shocked to discover Mayfield, Otton, and Mostert on her bench. I know they couldn’t all have played, but I would have bet a LOT that at least one of those guys was in the lineup. I didn’t check the fantasy matchup scores for the morning games (I never do), but when I flipped through the NFL stats and saw that Mayfield threw three TDs, two of them to Otton, and Mostert got into the end zone twice, I thought “well, better luck next week, DeWitt.”

Imagine my surprise when I saw Javonte Williams in the flex and Tua in at QB. I get the Tua start, certainly, but I would have figured that meant Mostert was in, too. Good for the gander and all that. Starting Mayfield and Otton would have been a hero-ball play, but Chris has never shied away from such moves when it was her Guys. (See: Last week when she started Mosert over Williams without Tua back)

But the decisions were made, and this matchup came down to the final minutes of the afternoon games. Timing is everything, and for Chris, the wrong teams had the ball at the end.

DeWitt escapes to move to 5-3, which is a pretty stunning accomplishment given his roster has been in a permanently transitional state this season. I have to say, though, storm clouds are gathering for our guy. The Panthers have to activate Jonathon Brooks by November 5 or else he can’t play this season per NFI rules. They may not bother since this campaign is a total loss, but I’d bet they’d like to see what they have. If he plays, I’m not sure what that does to Hubbard. Maybe they become the Costco Gibbs/Mongomery, but it’s more likely they cannibalize each other’s points since there isn’t enough offense to go around in Carolina (bet they wish they traded Young before he reminded everyone what he looks like). That would mean JK Dobbins is the lead back, and he faces Cleveland, Tennessee, Baltimore, and KC before the end of our regular season and Denver and New England in the Semifinal and Championship weeks. Also, his lower body is held together by cardboard and zip ties.

Tyrone Tracy is apparently very awesome, but being on the Giants means he’s subject to the whimsical stylings of Daniel Jones, which are the worst of all the stylings. Call me a skeptic, but if the young prince is going to make a run, I think it will be Devonta Smith and Terry McLaurin-dependent. But what am I saying? None of those guys will be on DeWitt’s team by Week 11.

If you’re looking for depth, I know a guy selling a used Pollard for full price.

Justin Vs. KYle (178.3-161.5)

Oh is it that time again already? Man, it always sneaks up on me. You know how they say time goes faster as you get older? There’s actually a pretty simple reason for it. When your brain is developing, each experience is new, cutting a pretty distinct tench in your grey matter. You remember a lot more of what happens during that time because it’s novel. Even the small variations in the daily routine are happening for the first time, so your brain is storing and cataloging pretty much every event, every day. You take a lot of mental snapshots, and they are encoded in technicolor.

As we age, our brains begin to prioritize storage space and slow down in terms of neural processing. By the time we are in our 30s, most days are very similar, and we’ve experienced the numerous variations within those days enough times that they too are similar. So our brain takes months of experiences and condenses them into one amalgamation of those commutes, conversations, dinners, walks, etc. We still remember the standout moments or ones that happen less routinely (once a week, once a month, etc), but all the connective tissue isn’t being cataloged as discrete events. It gets compressed when it goes into storage, so it feels like time is passing more quickly. It’s why you remember your birthday but not usually the week leading up to it or the one that followed. The day was unique, the weeks were not.

Also, our computer slows considerably in adulthood. Once we reach stability, we process information at a slower rate, which means far fewer mental snapshots per unit of time. Even the ones we take are recorded far less vividly than the ones from childhood. This makes time feel like it’s passing quicker because there are fewer memory markers.

So perhaps that’s why Justin being saved by a punter after bitching about having them on the roster snuck up on me. It has happened so many times over so many years that my brain just compressed it all and time went by in a blip.

This time it was Tory Taylor who carried Justin, putting up an astounding 34 points in the Bears/Redskins “game.” That, plus 26.9 points from D’Andre Swift, running back for the Chicago Bears, was enough to pull Justin all the way back from the edge of the cliff before George Kittle suited up Sunday night and threw Kyle right off it.

This is the advantage of rostering 13 players from one team. Even if they score less than 20 points (which the Bears have done in 60% of their games), you are guaranteed to get whatever fantasy value can be wrung from it. Justin bought the whole whale carcass, so while he’s stuck with a lot of rotten meat, he gets the ambergris all to himself. This week that was a punter, a fact Justin has already forgotten as he types up his 10th annual missive on why the position is a detriment to the fantasy league.

Kyle lost while scoring the second-most points of the week, but I don’t feel even the tiniest bit bad for him. He won last week with the second-fewest points and beat me with 116 the week before. Worse, every time I make fun of his roster they turn around and give me a big “fuck you” and that is very annoying.

Ladd McConkey had 35.1 points! I mocked Kyle for benching the Bills WRs he’s been collecting in favor of The Conk, because he was averaging 40 yards a game and had two touchdowns all year. I hadn’t said shit about him up to that point. The SECOND I pointed and laughed, the man (who I can’t stress enough is a wide receiver named LADD MCCONKEY) pops off for 111 yards and two tuddies.

I didn’t think he could accumulate 111 yards, honestly. His season high was 67 and half of those came on a busted play. Now he’s Calvin Johnson all because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

But by the by, Kyle, what are you doing with those Bills wideouts? I’ll admit it’s very funny that Amari Cooper owners around the nation threw a big kegger when he got traded to Buffalo only to watch Keon Coleman and Khalil Shakir show up and drink all the beer, but how many more weeks are you going to park them?

You have an interesting dilemma, don’t you? I mean back-to-back weeks of top-15 production from both of them is hard to ignore, but now you have Tua back for Tyreek (hey I would have believed his tweet, too) and an eruption from Mt. McConkey. You also have Zay Flowers, the long-lost triplet of the Shakir-Coleman family.

What to do, what to do? Maybe you could trade them?

How about it, league? Who among you is brave enough to request a Bills wideout?

I’ll bet $10 Micah comes to Kyle’s door requesting both and presents Tony Pollard’s body in a wheelbarrow in exchange.

Jayden Daniels is unkillable and Kyren Williams is so good he’s no longer interesting, but let’s give it up for Kyle and Mark Andrews! I promise this is not a bit: I am happy someone is starting Mark Andrews every week and getting numbers from him. It’s startling when guys who are fantasy rocks suddenly crumble. Especially when there was no indication of physical decline prior to said crumbling. They were a given until suddenly they weren’t, and when it just happens it’s a jarring reminder that time is undefeated. I’m glad Mark Andrews is back because I can push off thoughts of death for at least another season.

Can’t Bear It

**Did Justin start a Chicago Bear when he shouldn’t have?**
Feels good to be back. Why yes, yes he did.
**Who was it?**
DJ Moore
**Who should he have started in his place?**
Darnell Mooney
**How many points did it cost him?**
13.3

Examination

DJ Moore had one very good week when the Bears played the Panthers, but followed that up with a very disappointing week when they played the league’s worst pass defense. Now, the Bears didn’t need him in that Jags game, but it is of note. Also of note is that he’s averaging 10.3 fantasy points per game, largely because of Week 5 (27 points). Also also of note, the Falcons were playing Tampa Bay again, the team against which every member of the Atlanta pass game set season and career highs just three weeks ago.

Season impact:

62.7 lost points

Will Vs. Lee (149.2-87.3)

Well, it’s time to go out back and pull the tarp off the big board. I tucked it away after everyone got their first loss, since there was no Perfect Season Watch to track anymore. The board had a great run with Steve last year, and while it’s been brought out of storage before, this time I’m plugging it in with a grimace. Lee is now 0-8, and a loss next week against Jimmy would tie him with Chris (2022) for the worst start ever.

You know who he plays in Week 10? That’s riiiiiiiight. Chris has a chance to remove her name from ignominy and hand that stinky trophy off to Lee personally.

So we are firing this sucker up for not only a Saddest Start Watch, but 0-8 qualifies for a Winless Watch as well. Lee still has Garrett Wilson who is fantasy’s WR 5 on the year, and Jayden Reed/Brian Thomas Jr. can blow up enough to ruin anybody’s day. But outside of that trio, it will take various blow-up games from Anthony Richardson, Austin Ekeler and I guess Nick Chubb to get him north of 100 points. To get that first win would take them all having those games at the same time. Whooo baby. Light the beam.

Will, on the other hand, can finally unclench for a minute.

All those points resulted in a win for once! Will is one of five teams with more than 1,000 points this season, and of those five teams, he is one of the two currently missing the playoff cut. Unjust! (I’m the other one)

He’s 3-5, but with Puka and Achane back (it’s fine I don’t think about him at all), things look a whole lot sunnier. Jalen Hurts, despite not being all that great of a passer, is good for infinity points any given week thanks to the fact the Eagles goal line playbook page begins and ends with, “shove Jalen into the endzone like we’re college kids forcing a couch through a doorway.”

Sooner than later Metcalf will return, and anyone left on Will’s schedule should fear what happens when the Cardinals figure out you can still pass to Trey McBride when he’s in the endzone. Did you know that Trey McBride is the TE 4 on the season even though he missed a game with a concussion and he STILL doesn’t have a receiving touchdown? He recovered a fumble for a score. That’s it. Among ALL pass catchers, McBride is 18th in yards and 10th in receptions. He has more catches than Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Malik Nabers. More yards than Deebo, Devonta Smith, and Nabers again. He’s a monster, and he’s just getting warmed up. When his TD totals normalize, and sure as you’re born they will, well…

Will’s biggest problem is in New York, where the Jets are experiencing whatever the inverse of the Mandela Effect is. Instead of a shared false memory, they all seem incapable of retaining the very real memories of Breece Hall having good games. Just when you thought they stopped fucking around and decided to feed their star rusher, they went right back to splitting carries between him and Braelon Allen, and giving the goal line work to whoever raises their hand first.

But all things considered, optimism is back on the menu for Will. He’s up to #6 in the power rankings and his cavalry arrived just in time for his big showdown with Justin The Point Daddy. He gets through that with a win? Look out.

Kicker watch!

So far in 2024, the field goal success rate is 91.4%, which is the highest the league has ever seen. That’s despite Greg Zuerlein working from the inside to tank that number. Greg The Leg is an abysmal 9-for-15, and has missed three of his last seven over three games. I know it’s very cathartic to watch Aaron Rodgers piss and pout and blame every living thing but himself for the Jets’ shit record (last week it was the media, which is a tough sell given that they don’t play for or against the Jets), but he would have a legitimate case if he wanted to blame Zuerlein. In Week 4, he missed one of his two field goals and the Jets lost 10-9. In Week 6, he missed two field goals, both in the fourth quarter, and the Jets lost 23-20. Last week he missed another, and the Jets lost 25-22. That’s three games where he actively cost them a win or a chance to win. If he’s accurate, the Jets are 5-3 (I say they end up beating the Pats) instead of 2-6, and are right behind Buffalo in the division. In each of those three losses, the under on the Jets team total hit. cOinCidENce??!!

Munson Vs. Steve (141.8-112.9)

Is Munson’s team good or not? Can we get a ruling on this? Half the time his guys look like shit outside of Justin Jefferson, then he goes and has a week like this. I assumed it was tied to his two running backs, but both White and Stevenson have had good games when Munson lost and bad games when he won.

It certainly helps when Stevenson doesn’t suck, but he’s won without him before. Same with CJ Stroud, same with Stefon Diggs. Justin Jefferson doesn’t vary and Kyle Pitts, despite his explosion this week, doesn’t really factor in. There’s no pattern to this. The closest thing to a predictor is he can’t survive BOTH backs having a down week, but that isn’t unique to Munson. Sure, he seems to lack big firepower elsewhere, but Deebo Samuel can go for 30 any time he doesn’t have pneumonia or some other 15th Century disease I thought pro athletes were beyond contracting. Josh Downs just went for 30 with Anthony Richardson throwing the ball!

But who is Sean Tucker? Why is D’Ernest Johnson on this roster?

I can’t tell what this team is. It’s 5-3, that’s for sure. Tied with half the league for second place. What a world.

Boy oh boy that’s a running back room for the books over at Steve Stadium. Jordan Mason is now just as hurt as CMC, and Etienne is one hamstring shy of a set. That left things to Roschon Johnson, who admirably scored just about as few points as possible while scoring a TD. Six yards and a touchdown. Thank you for your contribution, Mr. Johnson. MHJ finally showed up with 22.1 moot points, and AJ Brown went full CeeDee Lamb (pre-Week 8 edition).

Tee Higgins needs to chill the fuck out in practice, man. Twice a year this dude gets so hyped at the IDEA of an upcoming game that he goes apeshit during walkthroughs and hurts himself. Just go half speed, Tee. Did you learn nothing from Allen Iverson?

There wasn’t a win to be found for Steve, no matter how the pieces were packaged. It was a bleak affair, except for twin cannons Dalton Kincaid and Zach Ertz. The same 11-point score from both. That’s why you roster this dynamic duo- you’ve got 8-12 points in the bag no matter what.

The good news is Christian McCaffrey, last seen arguing with Mattew McConaughey in an Uber Eats commercial, should be back after the bye.

( That is the only good commercial on television. Let more weird actors be weird in commercials for pointless things.)

The bad news is Steve still needs another running back. I hear Tony Pollard is available.

Final Isaiah Likely Value Tracker:

Acquisition cost: $53 (NOW DROPPED!)

Points since acquisition: 28.8

Exchange rate: $1 = .54 fantasy points

New numbers coming next week when someone picks him up to start in the flex because every WR is dead now.

Kind of shocked no one went for Likely this week. I guess times just aren’t desperate enough yet.

Week 8: Beep, Beep, Beep