Week 2

Kevin came in leading this series 8-7 with two straight wins, including the 0.08 game in Week 2 of 2024 and a 152.78 to 147.10 in Week 9 last year. It is 8-8 now, and the reason is not the one the box score suggests. Tony's four running backs scored 113.30 in Week 1, the best backfield in the league by 19.20; the same four scored 57.90 on Sunday, the biggest week-over-week drop of any position group on any team. He won by 32.30 anyway because Josh Allen went from 39.66 to 46.82 and because Kevin's quarterback went the other way. Caleb Williams was Kevin's best starter in Week 1 at 41.26. On Sunday he played 64 of Chicago's 74 snaps before a hamstring ended his day and finished with 7.72, a 33.54-point swing at one position on a team that lost by 32.30. The lineup card was not the problem: Kevin's start/sit efficiency is 91.0 percent through two weeks, fifth in the league, and his one Week 1 miss, Matthew Golden at 12.50 on the bench, he corrected. Tony's is 87.5 percent, with 46.20 points left on the bench, the third-most in the league, almost all of it at one position: Colston Loveland has started both weeks for 0.80 combined while Dalton Kincaid scored 34.50 behind him. Tony is 2-0, first in the league in points, and has not swapped a starter for a bench player since Week 1. It has not cost him yet. It will the week Josh Allen scores like a normal person.

Here is a thing the box score cannot tell you. In Week 1, Matthew Stafford scored 4.10 on Thinh's bench. In Week 2 he scored 34.98 on Dashon's. Between the two Sundays he changed rosters, and then Dashon started Justin Herbert, who played all 68 of the Chargers' snaps for 9.88. The two-week start/sit ledger says this is not a one-off: XXXDaDa has left 53.00 points on the bench through two weeks, the most in the league, and Sunday's lineup captured 71.5 percent of what the roster scored, the worst single-week mark by anyone this season. The perfect lineup scores 128.28 and wins by 19.56. And it is happening against the one opponent Dashon used to score on: in the five meetings before this one he put up 165.04, 142.44, 148.90, 126.70, and 120.04 against Patrick. Sunday was 91.68. Patrick now leads the series 19-14 and has won four straight, and he is doing it with a roster that is shrinking under him. His best possible lineup was worth 157.14 in Week 1 and 114.52 in Week 2, with Nico Collins, RJ Harvey, Kendre Miller, and Zach Charbonnet all out, and his one promotion, Dallas Goedert off a 21.70 on the bench, returned 0.90 on a bad knee and 19 snaps. The champion is 2-0 with the best start/sit efficiency in the league, 92.0 percent, partly because there is nothing left on his bench to get wrong.

John's Sunday lineup captured 98.5 percent of what his roster scored, the most efficient lineup anyone set this week; the 2.06 he left on the bench was Drake Maye over Trevor Lawrence, and it was short by 1.94. The reason it was close at all is the story of the week in the NFL. Running backs stopped scoring touchdowns in Week 2, 27 across the league in Week 1 and 12 in Week 2, and John's backfield took the biggest hit in this league after Tony's: D'Andre Swift went from 31.90 to 10.40, Javonte Williams from 21.70 to 6.50, Breece Hall from 18.80 to 11.70, 75.50 down to 28.60. His quarterback decision was the other half. In Week 1 he sat Lawrence's 34.10 for Maye's 11.82; in Week 2 he did what the box score told him and got Lawrence's 6.16. He also promoted George Kittle off a 2.20 and got 16.00, which is the kind of call that is supposed to win a game. The one manager in the league whose Week 1 reaction paid was the one across the table. Daniel benched Baker Mayfield for Dak Prescott, and Prescott's 37.76 over Mayfield's 14.18 is a 23.58-point decision in a game decided by 4.00. Sacks in the City led this series 5-4 coming in. It is 5-5, Daniel has won three of the last four, and his best week ever, 183.40 in Week 4 of 2025, came here. John has the most career wins of the ten managers here (138), four titles, and a three-game losing streak that reaches back to last year's seventh-place game with 131.18, 173.52, and 134.36 in it.

This series has 36 games in it now, more than any other pairing in this season's briefs, and Jonathan leads it 20-16 after ending Andrew's two-game run, which had included the 202.20 Andrew hung on him in Week 4 last year. He did it with the highest score of the week and the second-worst start/sit ledger in the league: Patrick Mahomes has scored 25.66 and 34.98 on Jonathan's bench while Jayden Daniels started for 21.66 and 16.74, and Sunday's version ended with Daniels playing 39 of Washington's 71 snaps before his elbow gave out. Escuela de Snyder has left 50.94 points on the bench in two weeks and scored 282.10 anyway. The Week 2 number came from the receivers: Davante Adams went from 4.10 to 35.50 and Jaxon Smith-Njigba from 22.20 to 38.00, so Jonathan's wide receivers scored 79.30 after 32.50 in Week 1, the biggest position-group gain on any team this week. Andrew's side is the inverse of the week's trend. While the league's running backs lost 28 percent of their scoring, Coker, Barely Know Her's backs went from 19.60 to 50.70, because Andrew promoted TreVeyon Henderson off a 0.00 and got 13.60 and Omarion Hampton went from 8.30 to 16.50. His 145.06 would have beaten seven of the other nine teams; the two it could not beat were Thinh's 146.38 and Jonathan's 166.94, and he drew Jonathan. He has also been outscored by his own backup quarterback in both weeks, Jaxson Dart 32.60 over Jalen Hurts's 30.72, then Tyler Shough 24.38 over Hurts's 20.16, and both times starting Hurts was the right call. That is what this year is going to feel like for Andrew.

Straight Receptions Homie leads this series 14-8 now, four in a row, and the last five meetings include the 64.20 that is still Nate's worst week ever. Sunday's 77.60 was the 181st of his 187 weeks, and here is the part that should bother him more than the score: his best possible lineup, every right call at every slot, scores 87.70. That is the lowest ceiling any roster in the league has had this season, and it loses to Thinh's actual lineup by 58.68. Nate promoted Deebo Samuel after a 15.00 on the bench in Week 1 and got 5.00; Puka Nacua was ruled out with a hip and started anyway at 0.00. Bishop sycamore's start/sit efficiency is 85.8 percent through two weeks, third-worst, but the problem is not the decisions. It is the 23.30 the whole bench produced. Thinh absorbed the same running back collapse that hit the rest of the league, 94.10 from his backs in Week 1 to 59.00, and won by 68.78 because Brock Purdy doubled Joe Burrow's Week 1 output and because Thinh keeps making the small call correctly: Stefon Diggs promoted from 13.50 to 19.20, Burrow demoted after 16.16 with Purdy's 32.48 in his place. Straight Receptions Homie is 2-0, second in points, 91.9 percent efficient, and the last time anyone in the league scored lower than Nate did, it was Kevin, against Thinh. Nate's best week ever was a 198.42 in Week 5 of 2021. He lost it, 199.54 to 198.42, to Sacks in the City, whom he plays Sunday.