Cliff vs Thomas

Thomas Leeh beat Cliff 104.98 to 95 in the first Cheesehead Schism, the first meeting of the league’s two Packers fans, on a Sunday that ended with the Packers beating Dallas 23–13. Thomas is 4–2 and in second place a week after scoring 37.34, the lowest full-lineup total in league history. Cliff is 2–4 and has allowed 848.78 points. Thomas leads the series 1–0. The matrix has Thomas in Lucky and Good, 22–20 against the field with 14.3 points of luck, the most in the league, and Cliff in Lucky and Bad, which for a man who has allowed 848.78 points is a matter the Tribune has referred to the matrix.

On Wednesday night Thomas moved Tyler Shough, who had scored minus 0.16 in the lineup the week before, to the bench, and promoted Patrick Mahomes, back from his bye. Shough completed 16 of 30 for 144 yards and three touchdowns and ran for a fourth as New Orleans scored 34 consecutive points to beat the Giants 34–27, 26.96, from Thomas’s bench. Mahomes completed 23 of 30 for 272 yards and an interception in Kansas City’s 22–6 win, in which both Chiefs touchdowns were scored by Jordan’s Kenneth Walker, 10.48. The swing was 16.48 and Thomas won by 9.98, so it is a story and not an obituary. The lineup that did win: Jonathan Taylor ran 21 times for 94 and a touchdown and caught two for 57, 21.1, with a lost fumble. George Kittle caught five for 69 and a touchdown on Monday night, 17.9. CeeDee Lamb caught nine of eighteen targets for 70 in the Cowboys’ loss at Green Bay, 16.0. Chris Olave caught a touchdown from Shough, 14.3. Trey Smack kicked three field goals, 12.0, three days after the Moth wrote that Thomas should cut him. Tony Pollard, moved into the lineup on Friday with Jeremiyah Love out, carried 19 times for 76 in the Titans’ first win of the season, 7.6. Rhamondre Stevenson carried 14 times for 36 in the flex, 3.6, with Marvin Harrison Jr. at 6.4 on the bench. The Rams defense, signed Wednesday night to replace the Cowboys defense cut on Tuesday, allowed six Chad Ryland field goals in an 18–16 loss to Arizona and scored 2.0; the Cowboys scored 5 for nobody. Thomas’s best lineup was 124.26.

Cliff’s best lineup was 110.7, which beats Thomas, and he did not use it, and the reason is late Saturday night. Jahmyr Gibbs was on bye. Cliff signed Woody Marks on Wednesday and started him in Gibbs’s place, then signed Tyler Allgeier on Saturday morning, cut T.J. Hockenson, and started Allgeier in Marks’s place, then, late on Saturday night, cut Marks, moved Emeka Egbuka from the flex to the bench, and activated A.J. Brown from injured reserve into the flex. Marks ran for 10.1 for Houston as a free agent. Allgeier carried 18 times for 38 yards, 5.8. Brown, in his first game for New England, caught three of ten targets for 27 yards, 5.7. Egbuka caught seven of sixteen targets for 48 yards and a touchdown in Tampa Bay’s overtime loss to Pittsburgh, 17.8, on the bench. Start Egbuka and Cliff wins by 2.12. He had also, on Thursday, paid four dollars for Travis Kelce, whom Bite had cut for a kicker, and started him over Dalton Kincaid; Kelce caught four for 53, 9.3, and Kincaid seven for 38, 10.8, on the bench.

The decisions Cliff got right were real. Drake Maye, started over Bryce Young for the second week, threw three touchdowns in the Patriots’ 26–19 win over the Jets, 23.8; Young threw two in Carolina’s win at Philadelphia, 19.84, on the bench. The Steelers defense sacked Tampa Bay’s quarterback five times and intercepted him twice in the overtime win at Tampa, 11, Cliff’s third-best score. Tetairoa McMillan caught six for 86, 14.6. Braelon Allen, the four-dollar claim from Week 5, ran for 78 and caught two, 12.4, against Maye’s Patriots, and the Moth’s stated condition for a Cliff win, 38 points from Allen and Marks combined, produced 12.4 from Allen and a cut Marks. Christian Watson caught three for 64 on Sunday night, 9.4, which lost the Packers-fan-against-Packers-fan subplot to Smack’s 12.0. Tyler Loop kicked one field goal in Baltimore’s 13–10 loss, 3.0.

Cliff has now lost twice this season while owning the highest-scoring player in the league and once, this week, while owning the best lineup in the game; he is 12–30 against the field, last in the league, and has the most points against. Thomas is 22–20 against the field on 712.60 points, the fewest ever by a 4–2 team in the current scoring era, and the record book notes that his franchise, which finished last in three of the last five seasons, is in second place in October. The Moth picked Cliff, and has now picked against Thomas in consecutive weeks with a combined record of 1–1. Thomas plays Bite next, in the first meeting of the two 4–2 teams. Cliff plays Carl, who leads that series 12–7.