Pregame Week 6 · vs Nicole
Gibbs, Tee Higgins and the Detroit defense all have the week off, and all three are still in her lineup.
Nicole's starting lineup currently contains three men whose teams are on bye: Jahmyr Gibbs, Tee Higgins and the Detroit defense. That is a third of her roster sitting out, which is how a team the robot ranked second in the league and gave an A- comes out projected for 89.8 points, the lowest total on the board by a mile. Emeka Egbuka (10.6), Rachaad White (8.2) and Kyle Monangai (6.1) are all on her bench with actual games to play, and the fix takes four clicks and thirty seconds. Ryan projects 150.4 and has scored 699.70 points, more than anyone in this league, and he spent the past week adding Dameon Pierce, Will Shipley and Keon Coleman without dropping a single soul. She beat him 110.88-107.22 last season. She will not do it again. Ryan by sixty.
Postgame Week 5 · vs Jarrod · L
Ryan was the biggest favorite on the board, projected for 153.1, and he turned in 109.04. That is 44.06 points of pure vapor. CeeDee Lamb went for 1.9 on a 22.7 projection, Dak Prescott for 12.64 on a 21.4, Chris Olave for 8.6, and the only starter who beat his number was Parker Washington at 27.9, a man Ryan almost certainly does not know the position of. Blake Corum's 16.7 watched from the bench, 14.8 left there in total. Jarrod got 33.9 from Puka Nacua, 29.04 from Jared Goff and 19.0 from the Houston defense, and took it by 22. Ryan also picked himself to win this game. So did both other people who picked. Dumbasses, all three.
Pregame Week 5 · vs Jarrod
408.74 points for, dead last, behind the winless commissioner, and somehow 2-2 because the schedule has been carrying him.
Jarrod has scored 408.74 points. Not the fewest among the bad teams, the fewest in the entire goddamn league, less than the 0-4 commissioner, less than Chris, less than everybody, and he is 2-2 because this schedule has been doing him favors it stops doing Thursday. Ryan has 590.66. That is a hundred and eighty-two more points than Jarrod and it is not close to a conversation. Ryan also swept him 2-0 last year by a combined eighty-one, then went home and this week added Will Shipley and Keon Coleman without dropping a soul, because he has roster space and Jarrod has Malik Washington starting at receiver hours after signing him. Dak, CeeDee Lamb and Brandon Aubrey are all in the Thursday opener, fifty of Ryan's points banked before Jarrod has read his own matchup. Ryan by nineteen.
Postgame Week 4 · vs Beth · W
Four hundredths of a point. Beth lost by 0.04 with Sam LaPorta, the man her fucking team is named after, sitting on the bench scoring 20.4. Twenty point four. She needed 0.05. She beat her projection by 29 points, scored 147.46, the highest losing total in the league, got 36.8 out of Kyren Williams and 18.0 from a kicker, and lost anyway because she wouldn't start her namesake. Ryan survived on CeeDee Lamb's 37.9 and 29.1 from Emanuel Wilson while Parker Washington was projected 19.3 and scored 1.6. Ryan left 1.5 total on his bench. Beth left the entire margin plus twenty. That one's going to sting until January.
Pregame Week 4 · vs Beth
Ryan has scored fifty more than anyone but himself and is 2-1 because a kicker beat him.
Ryan has 443.16 points for, nearly fifty clear of the field, and he is 2-1 because Jared beat him by 3.4 in a game where a kicker was Jared's fourth-best starter. That loss follows a man into October. His response this morning was to drop Dallas Goedert and add nobody at all, plus swapping out the Philadelphia defense that gave him a clean 2.0 for Minnesota's. Beth is the defending champion of this entire league and she won last week by thirty-eight hundredths of a point, which is not a win so much as a clerical error. She has made zero moves in eight days, still carries the C and the eleventh-ranked draft, and is still starting Sam LaPorta in a league that has never had a tight end slot. Ryan by eighteen and it should be thirty.
Postgame Week 3 · vs Jared · L
The preview called Ryan by thirty and promised Jared would eat it. Jared won by 3.4 and now gets to type this sentence himself, which is the single most obnoxious outcome available to this league. He played a mathematically perfect lineup, 0.0 left on the bench, the only manager to do it, and got 25.0 from Derrick Henry, 24.4 from Tyler Shough and 24.3 from Jaylen Warren, with Harrison Mevis kicking in 16.0 as his fourth-best starter. That's a kicker. Ryan was projected 148.3, the highest number in the league, got 33.86 out of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and still lost because the Philadelphia defense handed him 2.0 and Jadarian Price scraped together 2.2. Jared is 3-0. He has made zero transactions all season and he will not shut up about the A-minus.
Pregame Week 3 · vs Jared
Jared's A-minus roster starts a Doubtful quarterback at 0.0 and he does not own another one.
Jared has told everybody within earshot about his A-minus and his first-place draft grade, and here is what it bought him: Jayden Daniels, Doubtful, projected 0.0, in the only quarterback slot, with nothing behind him because he never drafted a second one and has not made a single transaction all season. Beth at least went out and claimed a quarterback. Jared sat there and admired his grade. He is 2-0 on 255.4 points and this is the week the math comes to collect: Ryan is projected 148.6, the highest number in the league, put up 177.36 last week, and buried Jared 165.56 to 96.66 in Week 12 last year. Ryan's nine starters are filled and healthy and he has not had to touch a thing. Ryan by thirty, and the guy who writes this page eats it.
Postgame Week 2 · vs Joey · W
Ryan scored 177.36 and his top three, Jaxon Smith-Njigba at 40.5, CeeDee Lamb at 33.8 and Dak Prescott at 31.16, outscored Joey's entire lineup by eleven points on their own. Final margin 83.08. And Joey did it to himself in precisely the way he did it last week: Patrick Mahomes scored 29.68 on his bench while Justin Herbert started and coughed up 8.18. Same crime, seven days later, nothing learned. Twenty-one point nine left sitting there, the most in the league, and Spencer Shrader, a kicker, was the second-best thing on his roster. Brock Bowers contributed a clean zero from the bench for flavor. The commissioner is 0-2 and his team name has never been more accurate.
Pregame Week 2 · vs Joey
Two quarterbacks, three tight ends, and a bench that outscores the lineup.
Joey drafted two quarterbacks, two tight ends and zero kickers, and then on Sunday he signed Michael Mayer, a third tight end, for a league that starts none of them. That's the commissioner reading his own rules and deciding they were suggestions. He scored 101.26 and lost by thirty, and Alec Pierce is parked on his bench at 13.0 so Quentin Johnston can start at 10.6. Ryan hung 131.5 on Ben and claimed Brandon Aubrey the second Lauren dropped him, the only decisive thing anyone in this league did all week. Joey did end Ryan's season 126.18 to 113.5 in the winners bracket, and Ryan has not let go of it. Ryan by ten. Run the league, Joey, don't collect for it.
Postgame Week 1 · vs Ben · W
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 Ben
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.
