Pregame Week 6 · vs Morgan
Morgan burned a week of transactions on a kicker carousel and parked exactly where she started.
Morgan has made eight moves in eight days. On the 7th she cut Harrison Butker for Matt Gay, then cut Matt Gay for Evan McPherson. This morning she cut Evan McPherson and re-signed Harrison Butker. Congratulations, Morgan, you drove a complete fucking circle and paid the toll three times, and while you were at it you signed the Cincinnati defense last week and cut it this morning, which is the one week Cincinnati is on bye and had no game anyway, and Lamar Jackson is Questionable on top of all of it. Ben, meanwhile, has made zero moves, which sounds disciplined until you notice Will Reichard is in his kicker slot and Minnesota is on bye, so he is volunteering a zero he could erase with one click. Two men on two-game skids, and Morgan by four.
Postgame Week 5 · vs Chris · L
This was the ugliest hour of football anybody played on purpose. Chris won 103.46 to 84.26 and his leading scorer was Jason Myers, a kicker, at 23.0. He also left Kenneth Walker in his starting lineup on Kansas City's bye week, a zero that has been printed on the schedule since July, buried 29.1 more points on his bench including Matthew Golden's 19.8, watched the Chicago defense turn in 1.0, and won by 19.2 regardless. Ben replied with the lowest score in the league: 84.26, two tight ends in the lineup, 26.54 abandoned on the bench and Joe Burrow's 26.0 among it, worth more than any human he started. Saquon Barkley and DeVonta Smith both landed on 0.0, and that part was rotten luck. The rest was all his.
Pregame Week 5 · vs Chris
Four weeks of screaming at him worked, and his reward is being the favorite over a playoff team from last season.
Chris signed a kicker. Four straight weeks this page begged him and on October 1st he took Jason Myers and the Chicago defense and started fielding nine men like a functioning adult, and his reward is being favored over a team that made the winners bracket last year. He is 1-3 and he is the favorite, which says less about Chris than it does about Ben. Ben dropped De'Von Achane for Keaton Mitchell, and Mitchell is in the lineup Thursday at 12.4, next to Saquon Barkley at 0.0, next to George Kittle and Trey McBride, two tight ends, in a league with no tight end slot, for 105.8 projected. Joe Burrow sits on his bench at 19.8 while Brock Purdy starts at 17.4. Chris still has Kenneth Walker in his lineup and Kansas City is on bye this week, with MarShawn Lloyd sitting right behind him at 11.1, so nobody here is clean. Chris by nine.
Postgame Week 4 · vs Holli · L
Ben put up 92.92, the worst score in the league this week, and the reason is sitting right there on his bench: Joe Burrow, 24.52, benched behind Brock Purdy's 22.12. His second-best starter was his kicker. Will Reichard, 19.0 points, out-scoring both of the tight ends Ben decided to start in a league with no tight end slot. Saquon Barkley 1.7. Davante Adams 6.2. Twenty-six points left on the bench in a 42-point loss, which at least means the bench wasn't the problem, the whole goddamn thing was. Holli rode Javonte Williams and Bijan Robinson for 63.3 and didn't need any of it. She's 3-1. He's 2-2 and dropping.
Pregame Week 4 · vs Holli
A second-round running back dropped for Keaton Mitchell, and now there are eight men in the lineup.
Ben dropped De'Von Achane this morning. One bad Sunday, 2.5 points on a 20.6 projection, and a second-round running back is on the street for Keaton Mitchell. The result is a starting lineup with an empty slot in it and two tight ends in it, George Kittle and Trey McBride, in a league that has never started a tight end and will not be starting one Thursday either. That is 118.1 projected, and the only manager below him is starting an empty jersey on purpose, from a 2-1 man surviving entirely on other people's incompetence. Holli is at 140.0 and spent her own week churning the same useless position: Dalton Schultz in Sunday, Schultz out Wednesday for Juwan Johnson. Two transactions to fix a problem this league does not have. Holli by twenty-two, and Ben gets to watch a blank slot score zero.
Postgame Week 3 · vs Ally · W
Jordyn Tyson has been on injured reserve and in Ally's starting lineup every week of this season. Three for three. Another 0.0, another slot set on fire, and still not one transaction all year, no adds, no drops, nothing, while Matthew Stafford scored 22.1 on her bench behind two tight ends in a league with no tight end slot. It worked in Week 2. It did not work here: 92.96, Tetairoa McMillan at 3.2, Cam Little at 5.0, and a 40.92-point beating. Ben got 31.98 from Brock Purdy and 25.2 from George Kittle, watched De'Von Achane produce 2.5 on a 20.6 projection, and won by forty anyway with 0.0 left on his bench. Joe Burrow scored 23.28 sitting behind Purdy, which is the kind of problem Ally would love to have.
Pregame Week 3 · vs Ally
Third straight week with an injured reserve receiver in the lineup and still not one transaction.
Jordyn Tyson has been on injured reserve and in Ally's starting lineup since Week 1. Three weeks. Projected 0.0 every single time, and Ally has made zero transactions all season, no adds, no drops, nothing, while Chuba Hubbard sits at 18.6 behind Bhayshul Tuten at 14.8 and two tight ends start in a league that has no tight end slot. The robot handed her a D and ranked her twelfth out of twelve and she has not said one word back to it. And yet she scored 130.32 last week against a 98.2 projection and won, which is the most infuriating fact on this page. Ben hung 155.58 and is projected 136.6 to her 106.8. He did drop Brian Thomas for Tank Bigsby, so he is not immune to stupid either. Ben by thirty.
Postgame Week 2 · vs Nicole · W
This projected as the closest game of the week, four tenths of a point apart. Ben won by 65.18. Davante Adams, who gave him 4.6 in Week 1, went for 38.0. Brock Purdy added 29.78, DeVonta Smith 25.7, and the Rams defense 13.0, which is more than Nicole's quarterback and kicker produced together. Jaxson Dart scored 0.8. Cameron Dicker scored 2.0. The Detroit defense scored negative two, an actual subtraction from her total. Jahmyr Gibbs gave her 24.9 and Dalton Kincaid 21.0 and every bit of it went into the furnace. She lost by 1.32 with 148.3 last week and by 65.18 with 90.4 this week, which is a hell of a range for the same result.
Pregame Week 2 · vs Nicole
Half a point between the guy who can't score and the woman who can't win.
Ben averaged 132.38 a game last season, the best in this league, and never once dipped below 98.72 in fourteen tries. He opened this year with 89.26, the lowest score of Week 1, and got run off the field by forty-two. Nicole managed the exact opposite: 148.3, second-highest in the league, and she lost by 1.32. That is the whole rivalry in two numbers. Ben has beaten her twice already, 133.96 to 131.02 and 115.82 to 105.64, both of them close, both of them hers to lose. This one projects inside half a point, 133.6 to 133.2, with Jahmyr Gibbs at 32.9 the biggest number on either roster and Nicole's defense opening Thursday in Buffalo. Nicole by a rounding error, and if she drops a third straight squeaker to Ben she should stop calling them close.
Postgame Week 1 · vs Ryan · L
Ryan won 131.5 to 89.26 and his leading scorer was Chris Olave with 26.7, the guy the team is named after, which is the single luckiest thing that happened to anyone this week. Jaxon Smith-Njigba added 24.2. His kicker Brandon Aubrey scored 1.0 and the Eagles defense scored 3.0 and he still won by 42.24, because Ben opened the season with 89.26 on a 132.3 projection. Saquon Barkley: 11.0. Davante Adams: 4.6. The Rams defense: 2.0. And Brock Purdy, the backup quarterback Ben drafted in a league that starts one, outscored starting Joe Burrow 23.6 to 16.66 from the bench. Perfect lineup: 99.6. Still not a hundred.
Pregame Week 1 · vs Ryan
Two projected points between two men who have never finished anything.
Ben scored more per week than anybody in this league last season, 132.38 a game, and never once dropped below 98.72. He finished 7-7. Leading a twelve-team league in scoring and going .500 takes a rare talent for losing the exact games that matter, and Ben has it. So of course he drafted two quarterbacks and two tight ends for a league that starts one and zero, and left them to rot on a four-man bench. He did end Ryan's season 109.54 to 93.5 in the winners bracket. Ryan went 9-5, finished sixth, then lost both of his playoff games, which is a classier way of quitting in December. He also named his team after Chris Olave, the third-best projected receiver on his own roster. Ryan by two, decided by something stupid, and both of them will blame the projections.
