Cliff vs Mitch

Cliff beat Mitch 154.66 to 135.74. It was the third week this season in which Cliff owned the highest-scoring player in the league, and the first in which his team won. Jahmyr Gibbs scored 41.4 in Week 3 and Cliff lost by 50; Tetairoa McMillan scored 45.2 in Week 4 and Cliff lost by 48. This week Drake Maye scored 39.46 and Gibbs 37.7, the two best scores in the league, and Cliff won by 19. He is 2–3. Mitch set the only perfect lineup in the league and is also 2–3. Cliff leads the series 10–9; it had been 9–9 for a year.

Maye completed 26 of 34 for 374 yards and four touchdowns and ran for a fifth in New England’s 45–17 win over Las Vegas. He had scored 26.16 on Cliff’s bench last week behind Bryce Young; on Tuesday Cliff swapped them, and Young scored nothing while Maye scored more than any quarterback in the league this season. Gibbs ran 25 times for 151 yards and two touchdowns and caught five passes in Detroit’s 45–21 win at Arizona, 37.7, against the team that employs Thomas’s Jeremiyah Love, who ran twelve times for 22 in the same game. Christian Watson caught six for 143 and two touchdowns from Jordan Love in Green Bay’s 31–7 win over the Bears, 32.3. Braelon Allen, released by Carl on Wednesday and claimed by Cliff on Thursday for $4, ran for 18.6 against Cleveland; Ollie Gordon, whom Carl paid $17 to replace him with, scored 14.8. Tyler Loop kicked 14. Then the lineup ran out: Rome Odunze 5.0, Omarion Hampton 4.9 on 14 carries in the flex, T.J. Hockenson, signed Wednesday, 1.7, and the Steelers defense 1, a unit that allowed 22 to the Colts and was outscored by every one of Cliff’s skill players except Hockenson. Emeka Egbuka scored 17.2 on the bench behind Hampton. The best lineup was 168.96. Cliff also released Brian Thomas Jr. and Jordan Addison this week and signed Tyreek Hill, who scored nothing.

Mitch scored 135.74 with every one of his starters outscoring every one of his bench players, which the template calls a perfect lineup and which happened to nobody else in the league this week. Puka Nacua caught 17 of 24 targets for 138 yards and a touchdown in the Rams’ overtime loss to Buffalo, 37.7, tied with Gibbs for the week’s second-best score, two days after Cliff’s margin had already made the game academic. Derrick Henry ran 24 times for 102 yards and caught a touchdown pass in Baltimore’s overtime win at Atlanta, 21.0. Spencer Shrader, the Colts kicker, signed Wednesday for $4 after Mitch cut Harrison Butker on Tuesday, kicked 21 in a loss at Pittsburgh and tied Henry for the top score on the roster. Javonte Williams scored 14.2, Dak Prescott threw for 316 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions in Dallas’s loss to Tampa Bay, 12.64, and Ashton Jeanty had 77 yards from scrimmage on 13 touches, 10.7. Luther Burden scored 8.9 in Chicago’s 31–7 loss at Green Bay. Juwan Johnson, the sixth tight end Mitch has owned this season, caught 5.6; Harold Fannin, the first and the seventh, scored 1.4 on the bench. The Jaguars defense scored 4 in a win over the Eagles.

The week’s other Mitch business began on Sunday morning, when he tried to drop Jalen Hurts and found that ESPN would not let him, because Hurts is on the platform’s can’t-drop list, which the league voted to turn off at the draft and which has not been turned off. The commissioner was asked to remove Hurts from the roster manually; the commissioner did not. On Wednesday the list permitted the move, Mitch cut Hurts for Keon Coleman, and on Thursday he cut Coleman for Brian Robinson, who scored 1.6 on the bench. Mitch has made 16 acquisitions this season, the most in the league, and has spent $42; Isaiah Likely and Emanuel Wilson, both released by him in Week 4, scored 45.6 for Jordan this week.

Cliff has allowed 743.80 points through five weeks, fourth-most ever at this point in a season; the 98.04 Mitch had scored before Monday night was the fewest any opponent of his had managed this year, and Puka pushed it to 135.74, which is still the fewest. Cliff is 2–3, 11–24 against the field and Lucky and Bad, which is what a win over Mitch and a 2–3 record on an 11–24 all-play gets you. Mitch is 2–3, 13–22, Lucky and Bad, and has lost by 19 with a perfect lineup, which is the fantasy football equivalent of parking legally and being towed. The Moth picked Mitch, that is, himself, for the second time this season, and is 0–2 doing it. Cliff plays Thomas next in the first Cheesehead Schism. Mitch plays Bite, whom he leads 13–7.