Carl vs Drake

Carl beat Drake 165.44 to 125.14, his best score of the season by 40 and his first win over Drake since Week 5 of 2023, when he also scored 125.36 in Week 5. Drake leads the series 13–6. Drake has lost four straight, is 1–4, and wrote in his Week 4 rankings that he could not go 1–4. Carl is 3–2.

Jared Goff threw for 271 yards and three touchdowns and ran for a fourth in Detroit’s 45–21 win at Arizona, 28.94, the second-best quarterback score of the week behind Maye, and the second week in a row Carl’s free-agent quarterback has been the best decision on his roster. George Pickens caught nine for 130 and a touchdown in Dallas’s loss to Tampa Bay, 28.0, in the flex. Garrett Wilson caught 23.4 and Ja’Marr Chase 19.7 from Burrow’s four-touchdown night in Miami. Aaron Jones ran for 18.7 in Minnesota’s win at New Orleans against Thomas’s quarterback. Ka’imi Fairbairn kicked 17 in Houston’s 26–3 win at Tennessee, and the kicker trade with Bite now stands 38–23 in Carl’s favor after three weeks. Ollie Gordon, the $17 claim who cost Braelon Allen his roster spot on Wednesday, ran for 14.8; Allen, claimed by Cliff on Thursday for $4, scored 18.6, which Carl will not be reading about. Colston Loveland caught 3.9.

Then there is the defense, which Carl did not have in his lineup until Saturday. The slot sat empty through the waiver run and the free-agent period; the Seahawks were moved in on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday, scored 11 against the 49ers in a 32–29 loss, and would have scored the same from the bench had nobody mentioned it, which someone did. Malik Nabers caught 11 of 20 targets for 121 yards and a touchdown in the Giants’ 27–27 tie at Washington, 29.1, on the bench, behind Chase and Wilson, for the second straight week; last week he scored 23.2 there. Carl has now benched Nabers for 52.3 points in two weeks and won one of the games by 40, so the Tribune will stop. Carnell Tate, 21.5 on the bench last week, scored 1.6 this week, which is the one Carl got right. The best lineup was 174.84.

Drake scored 125.14, which would have beaten exactly one team in the league this week, and it was not Carl. Tyler Warren caught seven for 83 and ran for a touchdown, 21.4. Justin Jefferson, acquired from Mitch in Week 3 for Ashton Jeanty, caught 18.8 in Minnesota’s win over the Saints, his best week as an Emporium employee; Jeanty scored 10.7 for Mitch. Christian McCaffrey scored 17.3 and Brock Purdy 16.16 as San Francisco beat Seattle, so Drake’s two 49ers outscored Carl’s Seahawks defense and Kyle’s Jason Myers combined, which is the kind of thing a team at 1–4 holds on to. Zay Flowers caught 14.6, the Vikings defense scored 13, and Bhayshul Tuten, started this week after scoring 11.1 on the bench last week, scored 11.6. Michael Wilson, the $30 man, caught 7.28 in the flex while Terry McLaurin, back from injury, caught 12.2 on the bench. Brandon Aubrey kicked 5. Rashee Rice, Chuba Hubbard and Zach Charbonnet did not record a point; Deebo Samuel scored 2.5 on the bench; Kenyon Sadiq, $11, scored 0.3. The best lineup was 130.06, which loses by 35, so for the second straight week Drake lost a game no lineup could have won, and for the first time in a month he made no roster moves at all, which the ledger records as his best week since August.

Carl is 3–2 on 588.66 points, the fifth-fewest ever by a 3–2 team, and 14–21 against the field, which makes him Lucky and Bad and three games above the all-play he deserves. Drake is 1–4, 12–23, Unlucky and Bad, and has spent $78 of waiver money, the most in the league, on a roster that has produced the seventh-most points. He has never started 1–4 before; his worst previous starts were 2–3, five times, and he won the title from 4–1 twice. His longest losing streak is five, in 2024, and this one is at four. The Moth picked Drake, and is 2–2 for the week. Carl plays Kyle next, and leads that series 9–7. Drake plays Jordan, who leads 11–5, and whose column this week will presumably rank him somewhere.