The Sandusky Tribune

Bite beat Jordan 156.62 to 142.20 in the Chicken Sandwich Showdown. He trailed by 24.10 when Monday night began with three Rams in his lineup and Josh Allen in Jordan’s; the Rams scored 69.02 and Allen 30.5, and Bite won by 14.42. Jordan has now lost twice this season while scoring 140 or more, which only Thomas has done once, and Bite is 3–2 and third in points with 695.20, eleven behind Jordan. Jordan leads the series 10–9.

Matthew Stafford was signed on Wednesday for $3 after Lamar Jackson went to injured reserve. He threw for 383 yards and three touchdowns in the Rams’ 37–34 overtime loss to Buffalo, 27.32. Two of the touchdowns went to Davante Adams, who caught five for 51, 22.1. Kyren Williams scored the third, 19.6. Before Monday there was Brock Bowers, eight catches for 110 and a touchdown with a lost fumble, 23.0, the second week in a row the tight end Bite activated from IR has led the position in his game. Drake London caught 18.8 and Bijan Robinson ran for 15.8 in Atlanta’s 30–23 overtime loss to Baltimore. The Texans defense, a $2 Wednesday claim replacing the Ravens, held Tennessee to three points and scored 15. Quinshon Judkins scored 8.0 in the flex, and that is where the story moves to the bench.

On Tuesday Bite moved Jaylen Warren into the lineup for Kyren Williams, then back out, then in for Judkins, then back out. Warren ran 15 times for 101 yards and caught six passes for 87 and scored a touchdown each way in Pittsburgh’s 34–22 win over Indianapolis, 36.8, the third-best score in the league this week, on the bench. Matthew Golden caught six for 123 in Green Bay’s 31–7 win, 20.3, on the bench, for the fourth time in five weeks. Devaughn Vele (6.6) and DK Metcalf (5.3) completed a bench of 69.0. Bite’s best lineup was 189.92, which would have been the second-highest score in the league this week behind Kyle, and he won by 14 without it. The league’s standing accusation is that Bite’s roster is run by a machine. A machine does not move Jaylen Warren in and out of a lineup four times and leave him out.

Jordan had the best waiver claim of the week in Isaiah Likely, released by Mitch in Week 4 to make an hour of room for Sam Darnold, claimed Wednesday for $8, and the recipient of 11 catches for 94 yards and two touchdowns from Tyler Huntley in Baltimore’s overtime win, 32.4. Josh Allen threw for 210 yards and a touchdown and an interception and ran for 121 yards and a score, 30.5. Jameson Williams caught 18.7, Will Reichard kicked 16, and Emanuel Wilson, the other Mitch release, ran for a touchdown and 13.2 after Jordan’s $19 beat three other bids for him. Chase Brown ran for 39 yards and fumbled, 7.0. Jaylen Waddle caught 4.8. Behind Waddle, Mike Evans caught seven for 113 and a touchdown in Tampa Bay’s 24–16 win at Dallas, 26.3, and Denzel Boston scored 13.6. Jordan’s best lineup was 166.80, which beats Bite by ten. Start Evans and he wins by seven.

On Tuesday Jordan offered Cam Skattebo to Carl for Malik Nabers, withdrew it, offered Skattebo for George Pickens, withdrew it, and offered Skattebo for Nabers again, and withdrew that too. Skattebo scored 7.1 on Jordan’s bench. Nabers scored 29.1 on Carl’s bench and Pickens 28.0 in Carl’s lineup. Bite also declined a trade on Wednesday. Jordan dropped the Packers defense, which scored 10 for him last week, and went back to the Bengals, who scored 9.

Bite is 3–2, 22–13 against the field, third in points and Unlucky and Good. Jordan is 2–3, 21–14, second in points at 706.66, the second-most ever by a 2–3 team, and also Unlucky and Good. The Moth picked Bite. Bite plays Mitch next, who leads that series 13–7. Jordan plays Drake, whom he leads 11–5. The sandwich debt from last year is unchanged, and the Tribune understands a second one is now in dispute.

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.

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.

Kyle beat Thomas Leigh 189.40 to 37.34 in the first meeting of the two franchises, a margin of 152.06 that is the largest in the ten-year history of the league. The previous record, 141.28, was set in 2022 by Jordan against a Kyle lineup with two starters in it. Thomas started nine. Kyle has now been on the losing end of the worst beating in league history and the winning end of the one that replaced it, which is a distinction, and the margin alone would have beaten four of the seven other teams in the league this week.

Thomas came into the game 3–1, second in points, tied with Kyle in all-play, and newly first in both the Coaches Poll and the commissioner’s rankings. He left it 3–2, fifth in points, 20–15 in all-play, and in possession of the lowest score ever recorded by a full lineup. Tyler Shough completed 16 of 25 for 96 yards and two interceptions in New Orleans’s 23–13 loss to Minnesota, minus 0.16, which means the quarterback slot would have scored more empty. The Cowboys defense, signed Wednesday to replace the Chiefs, allowed 24 points to Tampa Bay and a rookie quarterback named Jalon Daniels on Thursday night and finished at minus 2.0, so the same is true of the defense. CeeDee Lamb, a week removed from 17 catches and 189 yards, was targeted five times in that game and caught two for nine, 2.9. Jeremiyah Love carried twelve times for 22 yards for Arizona in a 45–21 loss to Detroit, 2.2. Trey Smack made one field goal in Green Bay’s 31–7 win over Chicago, 3.0, while two Packers receivers scored 52.6 for other owners. Patrick Mahomes was on bye. Breece Hall and Marvin Harrison Jr. did not record a point. Jonathan Taylor led the team with 45 rushing yards and 11.2; Chris Olave scored 8.6, George Kittle 7.4, Tee Higgins 4.2. Rhamondre Stevenson ran for a touchdown in New England’s 45–17 win, 17.5, on the bench, with Tony Pollard (5.2) and Mark Andrews (4.8) beside him. The best lineup on the roster was 54.94, the lowest optimal score in league history; the old mark, Mitch’s 73.42 last season, is eighteen points higher.

The only lower score on record is Kyle’s 6.10 from Week 14 of 2022. The lowest by a team that started nine players had been Carl’s 58.02 in 2017, before the league adopted its current scoring, and 62.58 by Bite in Week 5 of 2023 since; Thomas cleared the second by 25 and the first by 21. The lowest score ever by a team entering the week with one loss or fewer had also been Bite’s 62.58. The franchise Thomas inherited is named for Rob Ercanbrack, who finished last twice; Rob’s worst week in nine seasons was 66.26.

Kyle, for his part, scored 189.40, the fifth-best total of his career and the sixth-best by anyone since 2019, and did it with 28.76 points on the bench. Parker Washington, who caught one pass for seven yards in the flex last week, caught six for 124 and two touchdowns in Jacksonville’s 19–17 win over Philadelphia in London, 30.4. Joe Burrow threw four touchdowns in Cincinnati’s 31–24 win at Miami, 24.6, and this week Kyle started him. Jason Myers kicked 23 in Seattle’s 32–29 loss to San Francisco, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught five for 102 and a touchdown in the same game, 22.8. Trey McBride caught nine for 66 and a touchdown, 21.6. D’Andre Swift ran for a score, 17.3. Amon-Ra St. Brown caught six for 69, 12.9. The Broncos defense, a $4 Tuesday claim replacing the Rams, held the Chargers to 17 and scored 14; the Rams defense gave up 37 to Buffalo as a free agent. On Monday night James Cook ran 25 times for 111 yards and two touchdowns in the Bills’ 37–34 overtime win in Los Angeles and lost a fumble, 22.8, which took the margin from 129.26 to 152.06 and the record from Jordan to Kyle.

The bench. Bucky Irving ran for 165 yards and a touchdown and caught another in Tampa Bay’s win at Dallas, 31.5; Kyle had said he was fifty-fifty on Irving and went with Swift. Jayden Daniels threw for 199 yards and ran for 103 and two touchdowns in Washington’s 27–27 tie with the Giants, 32.26, from Kyle’s IR slot, where he has sat since his injury and where he remained while playing a full game. Trevor Lawrence scored 21.74 and Sam LaPorta 19.8. The best lineup was 218.16, the second-highest since 2019 behind Kyle’s own 219.42 from 2023. The IR slot counts; the league ruled on that in September, over an objection from the same publisher.

Kyle is 4–1, first in points at 774.14, first in all-play at 27–8, and leads Jordan, the next-highest scorer, by 67 points. Thomas is 3–2, 20–15, and fifth in points at 607.62; the matrix still has him Lucky and Good, by 2.9 points of luck, because one afternoon against the field is only seven games. On Sunday morning he held the site records for career all-play percentage, luck banked, consistency and games above 100. He holds none of them now. The Moth picked Kyle, and is 2–2 for the week and 12–8 for the season. Kyle plays Carl next, who leads that series 9–7. Thomas plays Cliff in the first Cheesehead Schism.