Meyer’s World

We have only two 3-0 teams and they both live in Bethel Park. Congrats to the Meyers for starting strong. I know personally how bad 1-2 feels, but half the league sits with that record meaning even the 0-3 teams are a single game out. How has it only been three weeks? This is going to be the longest fantasy season ever. Actually, My Team Sucks^TM^ so it should end three weeks early this year.

I was a week early discussing the rampant injuries to fantasy players. Since last week’s article, we’ve lost De’Von Achane, Breece Hall, Terrance Ferguson, Baker Mayfield, and maybe Justin Jefferson for at least a week. Scrolling everyone’s teams, every single team has had at least 2 quarters of a game missed due to injury for a player they started or would have started otherwise… Except of course for Emily and Dave. While verifying this fact, I found Emily has made one single transaction this year and it was swapping defenses yesterday. Keith and Jeremy are sitting at zero.

Data Nugget

As promised, I spent way too much time answering the question, “how often do I get shit on by a single opponent?”

Below is a matrix showing the average score difference between the 12 core owners from 2019 to 2025. The plot should be interpreted vertically. Find your initials along the bottom and go up. If the value is negative, the “Owner_two” in that row beats you by an average of that many points during that span. Likewise, if the value is positive, you beat that person by that many points. Red is good for you, blue is bad for you. The color palette matches the Braves. Fuck the Phillies.

There’s likely much more nuance that is distilled in this matrix, but yea… It took me almost three hours to get to this point so I’m calling it here. Our greatest discrepancy is Cody Cat over Max with an average margin of 36.4 points while Zach and Cody Meyer about balance out on average. Unsurprisingly, most teams are “plus” in 5 or 6 matchups which is expected if scoring was random. Unfortunately for Jeff, his only plus matchup is against Cody Cat. Zach’s run of dominance on the league ends with plus matchups against everyone except for Cody Meyer who he’s effectively balanced against (-0.5).

If you’re still reading this, thank you. How would you like to submit weekly power rankings for the league? The only rules are they’re due before TNF kickoff and my team has to be ranked highest.

Transactions

The trade talks were heating up last night. I’ve come close to a few deals, but if Justin Jefferson plays this week I ain’t movin em.

[!WARNING] TRADE ALERT! ITS HAPPENING.

We effectively had a three way trade this morning:

Jeff Taylor Alan
Justin Jefferson Tyler Warren Joe Burrow
Jonah Coleman Alvin Kamara Braelon Allen

Thanks to the injuries, Ollie Gordon II was the hot ticket item with $76 in total bids. The sweepstakes ended in a $40 victory for Nasty Gworls.

Matchups

My team sucks (102.08) stumbled and fell into his first win of the year against Keith’s Top-Notch Team (97.84) in this week’s toilet bowl. I was driving back to Atlanta from Pittsburgh on Sunday so it was audio only for me. I did catch Thursday’s Packers-Falcons game though and was excited to play the Packers DST at home against a Falcons team that had yet to play a single offensive snap in the redzone. An opening drive interception from Michael Penix Jr. had me and everyone at Lambeau feeling great. After that opening drive however, the Falcons dominated the Packers, whose offensive and defensive lines were a transparent as Tupac’s hologram. -6 points from the DST later my team started living up to its name. I set my lineup at a rest stop around 12:30pm and didn’t scroll down enough to see that I added Mariota (20.42) so I played TreVeyon (3.9) instead. Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers (23.68) has his best fantasy performance in five years (idk probably) on my bench while Justin Jefferson (5.2) exited early with an ankle injury. Days were not any brighter for KTNT. Jadarian Price (1.2) fumbled early and was benched while Dalton Kincaid (3.8) also lost a fumble. Emeka Egbuka (11.2) hasn’t scored more than 15 fantasy points since week 10 of last year, and KTNT had their own bench player pop-offs in Harold Fannin Jr. (24.1), Jordan Addison (20), and Keenan Allen (18.3). My team sucks stayed in the game with a pair of rookie breakouts in Kenyon Sadiq (23.5) and Jeremiyah Love (21.9). Heading into Monday night, it was D’Andre Swift needing 7 points for My Team Sucks. It was slow and steady, but eventually Swift worked his way there to carry My Team Sucks out of the trash heap and into… at least the smaller trash pile beside the heap.

Token Female (125.38) stayed perfect against Nasty Gworls (103.18). The Gworls were mired by a pair of RB injuries. Breece Hall (8.5) exited with a thigh contusion while De’Von Achane (1.7) was lost for the season after tearing his ACL. With Nico Collins still out, Nasty Gworls started Tre Tucker (8.3) over both Rome and Devaughn Vele which ended up being the right call. 8 points, however, won’t get the job done against Token Female. Token Female’s JSN (35.36) had a third consecutive stellar week with 128 yards and 2 TDs. JSN is on pace for 204 targets, 153 catches, ~2300 yards, and a cool 34 TDs. The targets are the only stat not shattering current NFL records. Nasty Gworls fortunately had Sam Darnold (29.66) to offset some of these points, but Token Female still had the edge. Heading into Monday night, Token Female only needed a few points from Jalen Hurts and DeVonta Smith to wrap up win number 3.

Mr. Big Chests (119.34) cruised past Patty Potbellies (94.28). The Potbellies were one week shy of learning their Kyle Pitts (1.5) lesson. On a night where Michael Penix Jr. threw for 256 yards, Pitts could only secure ~2% of those yards. Matthew Golden (21), however, benefitted from a negative game script on Thursday night to mitigate the stinky Pitts. MBC’s stars did not impress as much as they have been this year. Amon-Ra St. Brown (11.9) was fortunate to catch a TD in a game where he only had 19 receiving yards, his lowest value since St. Brown’s rookie year. Chase Brown (8.9) failed to find the endzone and caught only a pair of passes against the Steelers while Parker Washington’s 13 points feel disappointing at this stage of the breakout. MBC did receive solid games from Chris Olave (19.7) and Trevor Lawrence (20.78). The Potbellies struggled to keep up on Sunday. Patrick Mahomes (16.94) didn’t need to stretch the field, though he did connect with Rice (15.8) 7 times for 88 yards. The Potbellies saw just three TDs from their entire team (QBs included) as opposed to 7 from MBC. With Carolina’s hot start to the year, PP went with Bryce Young (14.64) over Joe Burrow (22.58) likely predicting a classic AFC North gamescript between the Bengals and Steelers as PP also started the Bengals DST (0). Courtland Sutton (7.6) also had to fill in for Puka Nacua who is nursing a groin injury, but should return this week.

Too Many Bengals (143.96) out star powered Dad of Two (130.14). The back half of the matchups this week feel much better than the past few week have, with blowouts or tight games in low scoring affairs. Though top heavy, this contest was not disappointment free. For DoT, Justin Herbert (13.74) cannot generate any offense, blowing a game against the Bills in which the Bills committed 5 turnovers and still won. James Cook III (19.4) however ran circles around the Chargers defense at 6.4 yards per carry. TMB also stank of Chargers with Ladd McConkey (10.6) and Omarion Hampton (5.6) suffering from the same dearth of offense. In better news for DoT, George Pickens (15.2) was more involved than he has been all year while George Kittle (26.2) is all the way back. Both of Kittle’s TDs came with less than 9 minutes to play, and they were offset by TMB’s Brock Purdy and his 4 passing TDs and 31.28 fantasy points. TMB were also carried by Jahmyr Gibbs (41.4) doing Jahmry Gibbs things and generating more offense by himself than bottom third NFL offenses can manage combined. This matchup was tight going into Sunday night with TMB’s Terrance Ferguson and a Jahmyr Gibbs sized points buffer against DoT’s Stafford and Saquon. Though the task seemed tall, Ferguson rolled his ankle early in the game and exited without a catch. He wrapped the ankle and came back in the game to catch a screen pass that he took and literally hopped on one foot to get the first down before falling over and ending his night with 1.9 points. A decent night from Stafford (22.9) left DoT with Saquon and only about 23 points away from a victory. The Eagles seemed to be blowing open holes for Barkley. Hurts had to leave the game to be evaluated for a concussion and the team turned to Saquon for three consecutive redzone carries. Barkley was stone walled at the 1 twice in a row leading to an Andy Dalton 3rd & goal interception from which the Eagles and DoT would not come back from.

Exciting Whites (149.68) bested Moore Brown Bouttee (143.2). This matchup was high scoring and neck and neck from the start. The Whites’ Drake London’s (28.4) fantasy season was revived with the return of Michael Penix Jr. on Thursday night while MBB’s Bijan (35.3) generated over 200 all-purpose yards. MBB benefitted from the Lions-Jets shootout with Jared Goff (19.36) and Garrett Wilson (26.7) putting up solid numbers. The Whites answered with CMC (21.6), Dak (18.94), and Bhayshul Tuten (17). With the 49ers thin at WR, MBB decided to flex Deebo Samuel Sr. (15.4) who had 80 receiving yards yet zero catches due to a hook and lateral play in the first quarter. MBB also tried to chase last week’s 20 point Cam Ward performance, thinking a game against Jameis Winston might turn into a shootout. The weather, however, was wet and windy in New Jersey and Ward could only muster 10.44 points and Jacoby Brissett went off for 25.6 points on the bench. Exciting White’s Bhayshul Tuten was having an average game, especially for a team that was blowing up the Pats, until halfway through the fourth quarter. T-Law had a wide open lane to run in a TD and decided to take a knee with about 8 minutes left in the game. The next play, Tuten scored from 1 yard out. With a final score difference of 6.48, that decision was almost the difference in this one. Heading into Sunday night, MBB was ahead by about 25 points while facing Bo Nix and the Rams DST. Starting a fantasy defense against your own QB is certainly a choice as it slightly nerfs interceptions and points scored by your quarterback. The first half of Sunday night football looked like total domination by the Rams, leading 16-0 with Nix sitting on few fantasy points. Having woken up at 5am and spending 13 hours driving on Sunday, I called it a night and woke up to find the Broncos had miraculously scored 30 second half points against the Rams. Nix accumulated enough fantasy points for the Whites’ victory on their final drive. That drive included a game winning Nix rushing score set up by a questionable PI call. Again, being a 6.48 point gap that score alone wasn’t the difference in this matchup, but both the borderline PI call and T-Law’s strange kneeling decision led MBB to defeat. I don’t know, it feels deserved for starting Cam Ward, come on man he wasn’t in the starting lineup on Wednesday, you’re fucking with my predictions.

Team Tendonitis (133.96) outlasted $81k Team (127.78). Team Tendonitis celebrated the season debut of Brock Bowers (27.6) with a dominant game against the Saints. Kenneth Walker III and Josh Allen had their worst performances of the year, yet still combined for over 40 points. $81k team struggled early Sunday with Mark Andrews (5.4) and Drake Maye (5.76) looking like less than competent starters at their respective positions. With Jaxson Dart out for the year, Team Tendonitis decided to throw Carnell Tate (11.8) into the superflex spot and was rewarded with a game matchup his previous two outings combined. $81k Team has stacked both the Rams and Cowboys offenses with Davante/Kyren and CeeDee/Javonte respectively. The Cowboys generated a decent 38.5 combined points which kept them close enough to Team Tendonitis heading into Sunday night. With Jaylen Waddle and both Rams, $81k Team was down 55 points. Puka was out again and the Rams lit up the Broncos in the first half. In the second half, with a passing game script for the Broncos, $81k Team had hope. Unfortunately it was not a Jaylen Waddle night as he could only muster 6.4 fantasy points, leaving Steve less than 6 points from a win this week.

Predictions

I would have been perfect this week if Max didn’t play Cam Ward. Regardless, I’m happy to be back tied with ESPN at 12-6 on the year. This week’s winners are: My team sucks, Token Female, Nasty Gworls (this one should be tight. Too many players in the Pit-Cle game though), Exciting Whites, Too Many Bengals, and Moore Brown Boutte (only if Ward remains on the bench).

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