Week 5

Kevin and Dashon met in three straight semifinals between 2011 and 2013. This meeting decided something smaller: whether Dashon would start 0-5. Kevin saw to it that he would not.

It was Kevin's second straight week as somebody's first win, and his 13th loss to a winless team. Dashon is second on that list with 10, which gives this game a certain professional courtesy. Kevin's record against winless teams is 9-13. History does not say what happens next. In 2023 he lost to an 0-5 Andrew and an 0-7 Tony and finished ninth. In 2024 he lost to an 0-7 Patrick and finished last. But the only other time he gave an 0-4 team its first win was 2016, and he won the title that year. We present the evidence without a recommendation, for reasons covered elsewhere in this column.

Both managers did what last week's recap suggested. Dashon started Malachi Fields and Wan'Dale Robinson and benched Terry McLaurin, Rashee Rice and Saquon Barkley. Fields scored 3.00. McLaurin scored 10.20 on the bench. Six of Dashon's bench players did not play at all, which makes it less a bench than a waiting room, but Matthew Stafford and Jaylen Warren each scored over 33 and nobody needed the waiting room.

Kevin started Ollie Gordon and DK Metcalf, and both outscored the players they replaced, by not very much. Jacory Croskey-Merritt, moved to the bench to make room, scored 14.20 there. Kevin's best possible lineup, 152.32, would still have lost. Caleb Williams was out again, and Kirk Cousins played 50 of 60 snaps, so no injury explains what happened next. Did the kicker outscore the quarterback? Jason Myers 23.00, Cousins 15.72. In Week 3 we congratulated Kevin on getting past this.

The win broke an 18-18 series tie. Kevin is 2-3, and 44 teams have started 2-3 before him; six reached the top four.

For four weeks, Tony's tight end question was Dalton Kincaid or Colston Loveland, and he kept choosing the one who scored less. In Week 5 he stopped choosing. Kincaid, Loveland and Mike Gesicki all started, two of them in flex spots, and the three produced 13.00 points.

There was a reason for some of it. Running backs scored 24 rushing touchdowns across the NFL, down from 35, and Tony's were mostly unavailable to score any. Kenneth Walker and Chuba Hubbard, who had scored 30.40 and 25.40 the week before, did not play, and Kyle Monangai was out with a toe injury. Tony needed bodies. He also had MarShawn Lloyd, who scored 16.20 on the bench while two tight ends used the flex spots. David Montgomery started at running back and left after nine snaps with a groin injury. That part was not Tony's fault. Lloyd's 15.10-point edge over Montgomery would still have flipped a 12.74-point game.

Jared Goff outscored Josh Allen from the bench again, this time 34.94 to 32.50. We have mentioned Goff before, and Tony is 4-1, so we will keep this brief.

Daniel won without Tetairoa McMillan or Bryce Young, who had combined for more than 60 points the week before and did not play this week. Isaiah Likely, a tight end, led him with 26.90, which must have been interesting to watch from Tony's side.

Last week we pointed out that Daniel and Tony had never played a close game. They still have not, quite. At 12.74, this is now the closest of their nine meetings. Tony has left 123.90 points through legal lineup changes this season, the most in the league. Of the 29 teams that started 4-1 before him, 25 reached the top four. Nobody likes this column.

Nate and Jonathan both came into Week 5 at 1-3, with their championship hopes receding about as fast as their hairlines once did. One of them was leaving at 1-4, and of the 24 teams that started 1-4 before this season, five reached the top four. Nate scored 151.90, his 21st-best week in 190, and would have beaten seven of the league's other nine teams. He lost to one of the two he could not beat, and he lost it on Monday night.

By Sunday night, Nate and Jonathan were mostly done. Nineteen of their 22 starters had finished, and Nate led 122.70 to 121.36. The rest of the matchup belonged to one NFL team. Puka Nacua was Nate's. Kyren Williams and Davante Adams were Jonathan's. All three play for the Rams, all three would be catching passes from Matthew Stafford, and the Rams were hosting Buffalo on Monday night. Whatever happened next, Stafford would be responsible for it, and he had no idea.

Nacua started by catching four passes in the first quarter, and Nate's lead grew with each one. Early in the second quarter he ran 9 yards to the Buffalo 7, and Nate led by 5.64. Two plays later, Stafford threw a 4-yard touchdown to Adams. Nacua had carried the ball to the doorstep, Adams walked through it, and the lead changed hands for the first time.

Late in the half, Nacua caught a 15-yard pass along the sideline that would have put Nate ahead by 0.04. Buffalo challenged, and the catch was overturned. Anyone following on the app got a lead change and a lead change back without the inconvenience of either one being real.

Jonathan led by 4.86 at halftime. Nacua spent the third quarter catching short passes, 14 yards, 5, 12, 3, chipping away until a 6-yard catch late in the quarter put Nate back in front by 0.44. He opened the fourth with a 2-yard touchdown, and with ten minutes left Nate led by 9.44, the biggest lead either team would hold. If this story had been written then, it would have been about Nacua.

Adams caught a 5-yard touchdown to tie the Rams with Buffalo at 27, and Nate's lead was down to 2.14. Then Buffalo scored with 1:39 left to go up 34-27, and the Rams' last drive turned into a fantasy matchup of its own:

• Adams, 14 yards. Nate by 0.24.
• Williams, 5 yards. Jonathan by 0.76.
• Nacua, 16 yards. Nate by 1.34.
• Adams, 15 yards. Jonathan by 0.66.

Three lead changes in 28 seconds of game clock, all of them thrown by the same quarterback. It was the kind of finish that makes a man want to pull his hair out. Neither of them could. Williams then caught a pass at the 1 and ran it in himself with five seconds left. The Rams tied the game, and Jonathan's lead went to 8.96.

That should have been the end, and Nacua refused to accept it. In overtime he caught passes of 21 and 5 yards, the Rams reached the Buffalo 30, and Nate was within 5.66. A Nacua touchdown from there would have won the matchup. The Rams tried a 48-yard field goal instead, Buffalo blocked it, and Buffalo kicked one of its own with 1:55 left to win 37-34. Neither manager had either kicker. The blocked kick still mattered: it ended the drive, and with it Nate's last chance.

On the official play-by-play, the lead changed hands five times. If you were watching the app when Buffalo threw its challenge flag, it was seven. Nacua scored 29.20 by himself. Adams and Williams scored 36.20 together. Two Rams beat one Ram, and Jonathan won by 5.66, the closest game of the week. He has now beaten Nate three straight times and leads the series 14-10.

Andrew spent three weeks choosing between Jalen Hurts and Tyler Shough at quarterback and was usually wrong. In Week 5 he picked Jacoby Brissett, who had not been on his roster a week earlier, and caught the right week for it: across the NFL, three-touchdown games went from three to seven. Brissett scored 30.78. Hurts scored 15.00 on the bench. Shough scored -0.16. For once, Andrew picked the right quarterback.

He also set the league's most efficient lineup for the second week in a row, using 97.6% of his best possible score. It still left him 15.42 short of Thinh. Even his perfect lineup of 132.08 would have lost. He is 1-4, a year after going 12-3 and finishing first in the regular season. Of the 24 teams that started 1-4 before him, five reached the top four.

Thinh used 91.2% of his best possible score, ninth of ten. Denzel Boston scored 12.10 on the bench while Romeo Doubs scored 2.10 in the lineup, and Thinh's three starting receivers totaled 15.90. He also chose Joe Burrow over Brock Purdy for the second straight week, and Burrow outscored Purdy 32.60 to 20.16. Thinh got the quarterback right and enough of the rest, and that was plenty.

Thinh is 5-0 and the league's only unbeaten team. Andrew's last season ended with a third-place-game loss to Thinh. He has now lost the first rematch too, and the series is 19-18 Thinh after entering the game tied.

John's 133.14 is the 132nd-best of the 264 weeks in his team's history. That is the exact middle. It was his third straight score between 131.88 and 134.38, and he has won all three. A manager with four titles has settled into the most average version of himself, and it is working.

It was also the eighth-best score of the week. John would have lost to seven teams. Fortunately, he played the one he was most likely to beat: Patrick, who posted the week's lowest score and would have lost to everyone.

Patrick still has the league's most efficient lineup decisions for the season, at 93.6%. This week he made no changes at all, and Darius Cooper scored 14.10 behind Michael Wilson's 5.28. Sam Darnold scored 10.30, his running backs managed 14.50, and the Raiders defense scored nothing. Making no changes can mean a manager is confident. It can also mean he had no better options. Even Patrick's best possible lineup, at 126.40, would have lost.

John leads the series 21-11 and has won the last two. The defending champion started 3-0 and has lost two straight. John has not changed much of anything and seems in no hurry to start.