After six weeks in the Man Law blender, there’s only one team that’s avoided the sweeping blades at the bottom: Nihal. The last-season-named Silent Majority is indeed 6–0 and looks to add another win to his record this week. What’s his secret? This reporter visited the enigmatic co-commissioner to find out. Roll tape!
Powerful, powerful stuff… Onto the games!
The Silent Majority (Nihal) 126.5–59.5 Magnum Dongs (Eshaan)
Rumor has it that after this performance, Trojan PR rang up Eshaan and pleaded with him to break the product placement contract that’s led to Eshaan’s curiously-named team. A sub-60 performance is hardly “magnum”, they said, and despite the manager’s dedication to Tight Ends, the single entendre was no longer necessary. Between Robert Tonyan, David Njoku, and Jonnu Smith, Esh got a total of THREE points from his hybrid truffle pigs. No Nick Chubb, no AJ Brown and a grounded Justin Herbert led to a performance unmatched so far this year: below 60 points. Prior to Week 6, no team had registered a point total below SEVENTY and here comes Eshaan to blow that to pieces. The previous record was a shameful 73.5 point performance in Week 4 by………………. Mr. Rao himself. Meanwhile, I’d certainly hate to be Nihal right now. Team hasn’t been punched in the mouth yet, hasn’t tasted the metallic tang of a loss leaking from their gums, flying high and out on the town with all the pressure on them. Sure, his playoff odds are 99 percent but anything less than the Mr. Clanky Trophy is a failure. If Nihal comes up empty this season, you have to expect that heads will roll in the Front Office…
Nihal (6–0)
Eshaan (1–5)
Julio You Think You Are! (Guggs) 87.5–85 Joe’s Fantasy Football Team (You can guess)
First off, big kudos to Guggs for having one of the better new team names this year. The eponymous bowling taunt is one of the greatest trash talk moments in sports history — up there with Victor Oladipo insidiously asking the New York Knicks if he could play for them in the middle of a game. Talk about negging your opponent! Anyway, I’m attributing this *close* win to Guggs’ team name because the soon-to-be Daddy of the League did himself no favors on the roster. Starting Daniel Jones (@Rams) over Joe Burrow (@Lions)? Is this man losing sleep to the baby monitor already? In fact, looking across Nathan’s whole roster, you’d be hard-pressed to pick him to beat ANY team in the league — let alone one with Brady, Hopkins, Kareem Hunt and James Robinson. And yet, that was the position these two were in as they came into Monday Night Football knotted at 81-all. It all came down to a sadly washed Julio Jones vs Zack “Only Runs North” Moss. Fitting for this sad game. Jones got 6.5, Moss got just 4 and that was it. Guggs saves his season with win number 2 and Joe is pulled into the .500 morass. There will be better days for Joe with that roster but Guggs will need to fight a newborn as well as his mediocre roster for a playoff spot. For this week though, it’s true that Daddy Knows Best.
Guggs (2–4)
Joe (3–3)
Edit: Guggs has HAD THE BABY! Congrats to the Father of the Year, you officially have an excuse for Jones over Burrow.
The Cool Ranch Lunatics (Evan) 102–72.5 Sermon on the Mikes (JH)
The Man Law Group Chat was sent into a bit of a tizzy this week after JH suggested moving to a 2QB setup. Not since that confusing and terrifying night a couple years ago where Half Point PPR was debated to within an inch of its life has the Chat sizzled like it did this week. Two quarterbacks? In this economy??? Now that an uneasy consensus has taken hold of the League, I believe it is the right time to point out the lie of “incredible QB depth.” For my star witness, I bring to the stand Taylor Heinicke, starting QB for the Washington Football Team and starting QB for Evan’s team. No byes, no injuries, just a Guggsian decision to bench Ryan Tannehill for Heinicke. Now, I know Evan has some Tannehill Trauma as that pepper bet looms large but we’ve got QB depth and you’re starting WFT? WTF! Still, Evan grinded out the win and saved his season with an easy 30-point cushion over JH. Despite a roster that looks pretty good on paper (Lamar! Mike Williams! Travis Kelce! Hollywood Brown!), JH went down in flames. Much of this has to do with the recently consummated Christian McCaffrey trade where JH sent Steve Diggs and DJ Moore to Tim for the injured Panthers tailback. Well, he wasn’t *supposed* to be injured but then the IR news came and well… JH’s cupboard is now bereft of help when his roster underperforms. Of his seven bench players last week, only ONE even had an opportunity to score points. The rest were on bye or in the Sick Wing. An ill omen after such a ballsy trade.
Evan (2–4)
JH (2–4)
Jak n Will went Kupp the Hill (Clay) 156.5–133 Ceci n’est pas une stripe. (Kristian)
I think we can all agree that the most exhilarating thing about fantasy football is the Tuesday morning post-loss flagellation where you scroll through every other matchup and say “I would’ve beat you and you and you and both of these teams and you and you.” Love that. Really boosts morale in the locker room! Such was my situation with a 133-point outburst running up against the immovable object that is Clay’s roster. To my mind, this man has the best roster in Man Law — better than Nihal, better than mine… and well, the rest of you are beneath my vision. Clay’s got MVP candidate Kyler Murray, Najee Harris who catches 12 balls every game, Swift, Tyreek Hill, MVP candidate Cooper Kupp… the list goes on! Clay now sits at 5–1 with that 99 percent playoff odds number that is usually reserved for the unbeaten and it’s not a fluke. The boy has scored at least 111 points each week and his only loss came last week when Ruble bombed him for 149 points. You come up against Clay, you best not miss! But I missed. Keenan Allen and Chris Godwin continued to underperform while Jamarr Chase had a rare week off. Josh Allen can’t put the whole team on his back! During Film Review this week, I had the WRs coach print out a screenshot of this matchup and we buried it on the practice field. Shallow grave (turf fields and all) but I think the players got the message. Eshaan next week, y’all better be ready! Now this is a buddy system when it comes to byes, one in and one out, right?
Clay (5–1)
Kristian (4–2)
The Devil’s Triangle (Ruble) 118–112.5 The OBJYNs (Tim)
My how the mighty have fallen. Like Clay noted last week, it’s been a precipitous drop for preseason and all-around darling Tim. Pundits and robots across the country were picking him to storm his division en route to glory but Yung Bergeland has just one win to show for himself. Tough! Tim needed a BIG night from new team member Steve Diggs to pull out the win Monday night but he didn’t quite get enough. According to my sources, Ruble also had the Bills kicker going so that kind of washed out Diggs’ 18.5 point performance. Tough! But Tim, you can hang your hat on this: when asked if your team name and picture was funny, fellow Mindy Project watcher Grace “my gf” Lyden said… yes, it’s funny. Congrats! Now to Ruble. Sure, he’s 4–2 and Jalen Hurts has apparently been the most consistent QB this season per some tweet I saw but does this team scare anyone? Dalvin’s in and out of the lineup, Davante Adams has had 2 good weeks, Alvin Kamara has completely forgotten how to be a Fantasy God and the rest of the roster is booty. Booty, I tell you! How does this man have 4% more playoff odds than me? That’s not fair and I will be playing this season under protest. This recap is over!
Ruble (4–2)
Tim (1–5)
Boyd Are My Arms Tyler 141.5–137 The Team That Shall Not Be Named (Rob)
And here I am, being dragged back for one more paragraph. This is messed up. I’m on MEA Break! I’m a teacher who is risking his LIFE to ask ninth graders to pretty please take your AirPods out of your bushy hockey hair so you can actually hear and THEN ignore my directions. MEA is my only solace! Cripes. At least this game was a barnburner. If my math is correct, Chris went into Monday Night Football with something like a 45 point lead against Derrick Henry, Emmanuel Sanders and Bills D for Rob. Not exactly a comfortable spot to be in! The Buffalo D has been spectacular this year and Henry woke up after a Week 1 snoozer to incinerate all defenses in front of him. No surprise, that’s what happened Monday night as Henry racked up 143 yards and THREE scores. Mamma mia! I believe I saw that Henry also hit the fastest speed this year for running backs during his 76-yard touchdown run which is mind-numbing when you consider he also set the record again for Largest and Scariest Running Back in the NFL for the 84th week in a row. (While looking up Derrick Henry stats for this recap, I discovered that his nickname is “El Tractorcito”. I believe this translates to “little tractor.” The Nickname Supply Chain is clearly failing.) A solid Sanders night had Rob on the way to an unlikely victory! But then, the Buff D faltered at the worst possible time and put up a disgusting -2 points. Yuck! If the Bills force overtime or block a field goal at some point, Rob wins this game and goes to 4–2, up there with the Elites in this league. Alas, he’s in the 3–3 morass with Chris and Joe. And Chris didn’t even need Saquon to put up 141! It truly is spooky season.
Okay that’s it, folks! Get out of my hair! I have a bottom-of-the-table Premier League game to go ignore while I check my phone. Skol Vikes! Beat the hell out of that bye week, fellas.
