The Scoreboard Cooled Off, but the Managers Took Over

Week 6 Collected the Bill for Week 5

Apparently the fantasy gods saw 191.26 versus 176.34 last week and decided we had enjoyed ourselves enough.

Week 5 averaged 134.14 points per team.

Week 6?

108.97.

That's a drop of more than 25 points per team in seven days.

The league went from 1,341.38 total points to 1,089.74.

Nobody reached 150.

Three teams failed to reach 90.

Goonies Never Say Punt finished at 76.00.

And somehow, despite all of that offensive carnage, Week 6 gave us some of the best owner-decision stories of the season.

Because this week, lineup management mattered.

A lot.

Bosscoe made two changes from the earlier lineup, ended up with the exact hindsight-optimal score, and won by 4.50.

kristianP1 replaced a zero-point quarterback and won by 2.06.

ALL BALLZ ITCH replaced a zero-point kicker with Daniel Carlson, got 13.00 points from the move, and turned what would have been a 0.98-point loss into a 12.02-point win.

Meanwhile, Estevan059 pulled off the biggest upset of the week as a 24.7% underdog, Prestige WorldWide suddenly has a winning streak, and four teams now sit tied at 4–2.

Week 5 was about fireworks.

Week 6 was about surviving the smoke.

Week 6 Awards

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Biggest Upset

ESTEVAN059 WAS GIVEN A 24.7% CHANCE. EDUARDOBASS7 NEVER GOT THE MEMO.

Estevan059 103.80, eduardobass7 92.72

This was supposed to be the most one-sided matchup of Week 6.

The forecast had:

eduardobass7 121.40.

Estevan059 98.96.

Projected margin:

22.44 points.

Win probability:

eduardobass7 75.3%.

Estevan059 24.7%.

That's not a coin flip.

That's the model politely telling Estevan to start thinking about next week.

Estevan won anyway.

And the funniest part is that he didn't even need a huge score to do it.

103.80.

That's it.

The biggest underdog of the week pulled the biggest upset of the week while scoring below the league average.

Fantasy football is beautiful.

Isaiah Likely led the way with 23.90.

Caleb Williams scored 16.50.

CeeDee Lamb added 16.00.

J.K. Dobbins had 13.60.

Ka'imi Fairbairn chipped in 11.00.

Nobody went nuclear.

Nobody needed to.

Because eduardobass7's lineup simply never got going.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba did his part with 25.40.

Alvin Kamara scored 14.90.

Dak Prescott had 13.02.

Nico Collins added 10.90.

Parker Washington scored 10.40.

Then the floor disappeared.

Juwan Johnson: 0.00.

Houston defense: 1.00.

Jason Myers: 7.00.

Woody Marks: 10.10.

The favorite finished at 92.72, or 28.68 points below projection.

Could the bench have rescued him?

Not really.

Drake Maye scored 23.80, about 10.78 more than Dak.

That gets the perfect hindsight lineup to 103.50.

Estevan scored 103.80.

Even with every answer after the fact, eduardobass7 still loses by 0.30.

That is vicious.

Estevan had his own pile of unused points.

Kyle Pitts scored 23.00.

Chris Boswell scored 17.00.

The hindsight-optimal lineup reaches 126.40.

But neither player was an obvious must-start beforehand. Isaiah Likely carried the stronger tight-end projection and then scored 23.90 himself. Fairbairn was projected ahead of Boswell.

So this wasn't a story about Estevan somehow stumbling into the correct bench decisions.

It was a story about the 75.3% favorite coming in almost 29 points below expectation.

Estevan059 improves to 4–2.

eduardobass7 falls to 3–3.

And the biggest favorite on the board leaves Week 6 wondering how 75.3% turned into 92.72 points.

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Best Game of the Week

KING IROK SCORED 136.74 AND LEFT 0.30 POINTS ON THE TABLE. BOSSCOE WAS LITERALLY PERFECT.

Bosscoe 141.24, King iRok 136.74

Now this is a fantasy football game.

While half the league was searching for points under the couch cushions, Bosscoe and King iRok decided to ignore the Week 6 recession entirely.

Bosscoe scored 141.24, the highest total of the week.

King iRok scored 136.74, the second-highest.

Combined:

277.98 points.

Final margin:

4.50.

And unlike some close games where both owners can spend Tuesday finding 40 points they accidentally left on the bench, these two basically nailed it.

King iRok's actual score:

136.74.

Perfect hindsight score:

137.04.

Points left behind:

0.30.

That's it.

Tony Pollard's 7.60 over Bijan Robinson's 7.30.

Thirty lousy hundredths of a point.

King got 25.70 from Germie Bernard, 24.70 from Bhayshul Tuten, 21.24 from Jordan Love, 19.00 from Carnell Tate, and 17.50 from Luther Burden.

That is a strong lineup.

It lost.

Because Bosscoe did something even better.

Actual score: 141.24.

Perfect hindsight score: 141.24.

Zero points left behind.

Again.

Darius35 did it in Week 5.

Bosscoe did it in Week 6.

And Bosscoe needed every bit of good management because the earlier lineup looked very different.

Lamar Jackson and Jeremiyah Love were in the earlier starting group.

They combined for 0.00 actual points.

Before kickoff, Bosscoe moved to:

Trevor Lawrence.

DeVonta Smith.

Actual scores?

Lawrence: 28.34.

DeVonta: 20.50.

That's 48.84 points replacing two zeros.

Without those changes, Bosscoe scores 92.40.

King iRok scores 136.74.

Game over.

Instead, Bosscoe gets the lineup right and wins by 4.50.

James Cook added 24.30.

Jalen Coker scored 15.70.

RJ Harvey had 14.60.

Mike Evans contributed 12.40.

Cam Little scored 10.00.

There were no hidden answers sitting on the bench.

The lineup on the field was the best lineup Bosscoe could have submitted.

King deserves credit too.

He made late changes at kicker and defense, replacing two zero-point options with Eddy Pineiro's 4.00 and Washington's defense at 5.00.

Those moves mattered.

They just weren't enough.

Bosscoe improves to 3–3.

King iRok falls to 1–5.

And if King wants to complain about losing after scoring the second-most points in the league with an almost perfect lineup...

Yeah.

We're going to allow it.

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The Ugliest Win of the Year

KRISTIANP1 WON 78.06–76.00. DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS. JUST TAKE THE WIN.

kristianP1 78.06, Goonies Never Say Punt 76.00

Last week kristianP1 scored 176.34 and lost.

This week kristian scored 78.06 and won.

Fantasy football does not care about your sense of justice.

It barely cares about arithmetic.

The forecast had Goonies as a strong favorite:

Goonies 127.93.

kristianP1 106.81.

Win probability:

Goonies 74.0%.

kristian 26.0%.

Final score:

78.06–76.00.

Both teams missed projection by a mile.

kristian fell 28.75 points below expectation.

Goonies fell an unbelievable 51.93 points below expectation.

The combined 154.06 points were barely more than Bosscoe scored by himself.

And kristian could not care less.

A win is a win.

More importantly, there was a lineup decision that actually mattered.

Earlier in the week, Jared Goff was in kristian's starting lineup.

He finished with 0.00.

Justin Herbert replaced him.

Herbert scored 9.76.

If kristian leaves Goff in, the final score drops from 78.06 to 68.30.

Goonies wins 76.00–68.30.

That quarterback change alone flipped the winner.

Tyler Higbee also replaced Jake Ferguson at tight end and gained another 0.90 actual points.

Were there much bigger scores sitting on kristian's bench?

Absolutely.

Chuba Hubbard: 19.10.

Stefon Diggs: 16.40.

Rachaad White: 15.70.

Dallas Goedert: 12.10.

The hindsight-optimal lineup gets kristian all the way to 110.36.

But the useful question remains the same:

Were those mistakes obvious beforehand?

Not all of them.

The forecast already told kristian that Herbert was the correct move over a zero-projection Goff, and that one was acted on.

Chuba also carried a strong 16.78 projection and could reasonably have been worked into the lineup.

The rest gets murkier.

Goonies' bench looks even worse after the games.

Tyler Shough: 26.96.

Hunter Henry: 14.80.

Denver defense: 14.00.

Harrison Butker: 11.00.

Perfect hindsight lineup:

120.46.

Actual:

76.00.

A 44.46-point gap.

That looks like an owner catastrophe until we check what was known beforehand.

The submitted Goonies lineup was only 0.62 projected points below optimal.

Josh Allen was projected far ahead of Tyler Shough.

Dalton Kincaid was projected ahead of Hunter Henry.

Seattle's defense was projected ahead of Denver.

Brandon Aubrey was projected ahead of Butker.

The process was fine.

The outcomes were horrible.

Four reasonable decisions all lost at the same time.

That's not coaching malpractice.

That's fantasy football deciding it wants a joke and choosing your team as the punchline.

kristianP1 improves to 2–4.

Goonies drops to 4–2.

Last week kristian couldn't buy a win with 176 points.

This week 78 was enough.

Please stop trying to make sense of this sport.

---

Suddenly, Prestige Has a Winning Streak

DARIUS35 WENT FROM 165.36 TO 87.26. PRESTIGE WORLDWIDE SAID THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Prestige WorldWide 123.94, Darius35 87.26

Two weeks ago, Prestige WorldWide was 0–4 and we were calculating opponent scoring averages like forensic accountants.

Now?

Prestige has won two straight.

Welcome to the middle of the season.

The forecast actually favored Prestige here, though not dramatically:

Prestige 119.33.

Darius35 113.03.

Win probability:

57.6% Prestige.

42.4% Darius.

Prestige did almost exactly what was expected.

Actual score:

123.94.

Only 4.61 points above projection.

Christian McCaffrey scored 30.70.

Malik Nabers delivered 28.50.

Bryce Young added 19.84.

Chris Olave had 14.30.

Pittsburgh's defense scored 10.00.

Solid.

Professional.

No drama required.

There were some big bench scores — Tre Tucker had 26.70 and Keon Coleman scored 15.90 — so the perfect hindsight lineup reaches 148.54.

But Prestige didn't need them.

Because Darius35 followed one of the best weeks of the season with one of the worst.

Week 5:

165.36.

Week 6:

87.26.

Difference:

78.10 points.

That's not regression.

That's falling down an elevator shaft.

D'Andre Swift scored 23.00.

Brock Purdy added 17.36.

Zay Flowers had 12.70.

Then everything dried up.

Christian Watson: 9.40.

Travis Kelce: 9.30.

Brian Robinson Jr.: 3.00.

Denzel Boston: 2.50.

Las Vegas defense: 1.00.

Could Darius have saved himself with better lineup decisions?

No.

The perfect hindsight lineup scores only 91.96.

That's just 4.70 points above the actual total.

Prestige scored 123.94.

There was no coaching solution.

The roster simply had a terrible week.

Prestige improves to 2–4.

Darius falls to 4–2.

And after starting 0–4, Prestige WorldWide has officially discovered something previously thought impossible:

A winning streak.

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The Kicker Actually Mattered

ALL BALLZ ITCH WON BY 12.02. ONE KICKER CHANGE WAS WORTH 13.

ALL BALLZ ITCH 131.00, horns75 118.98

After last week's 191.26 eruption, ALL BALLZ ITCH came back to Earth.

Well...

Sort of.

131.00 was still the third-highest score of Week 6.

The forecast made horns75 a slight favorite:

horns75 122.72.

ALL BALLZ ITCH 119.85.

Win probability:

53.5% horns75.

46.5% ALL BALLZ ITCH.

Basically a toss-up.

And the matchup ended up being decided by one of the least glamorous roster spots in fantasy football.

Kicker.

Earlier in the week, Will Reichard occupied that spot.

He finished with 0.00.

Before kickoff, Daniel Carlson replaced him.

Carlson scored 13.00.

Do the math.

ALL BALLZ ITCH finished at 131.00.

Remove Carlson's 13 and restore the zero:

118.00.

horns75 scored 118.98.

Without that move, horns75 wins by 0.98.

With it, ALL BALLZ ITCH wins by 12.02.

That is a lineup decision changing the winner by itself.

Not a hindsight optimization.

Not "well, technically this bench player scored two more."

A real move made before the game that directly flipped the result.

Kenneth Walker did most of the heavy lifting with 27.90.

Jayden Daniels scored 21.00.

DK Metcalf had 20.30.

Tetairoa McMillan added 14.60.

Brock Bowers scored 11.00.

The actual lineup finished only 4.00 points below hindsight-perfect, with Braelon Allen's 12.40 barely improving on Jaylen Warren's 9.80.

That's a clean week.

horns75 also played well.

Jonathan Taylor scored 21.10.

George Kittle had 17.90.

Emeka Egbuka scored 17.80.

Matthew Stafford delivered 16.88.

Ashton Jeanty had 15.80.

Xavier Worthy scored 14.30.

That is six starters in double figures.

The bench offered Colston Loveland at 18.50 and Keenan Allen at 16.20, pushing the hindsight-optimal lineup to 127.18.

Enough to win after the fact.

But neither omission was some screaming projection mistake.

The actual lineup was only 0.21 projected points below optimal entering the week.

The decisions were sound.

ALL BALLZ ITCH simply made one crucial replacement and got a little more from the lineup.

ALL BALLZ ITCH improves to 4–2.

horns75 falls to 3–3.

And yes, for once, the kicker deserves his own paragraph.

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The Bench Report: The Week Hindsight Lied the Loudest

Week 6 had some ugly bench totals:

• Tyler Shough — 26.96 on Goonies Never Say Punt's bench
• Tre Tucker — 26.70 on Prestige WorldWide's bench
• Kyle Pitts — 23.00 on Estevan059's bench
• Drake Maye — 23.80 on eduardobass7's bench
• Chris Boswell — 17.00 on Estevan059's bench
• Stefon Diggs — 16.40 on kristianP1's bench
• Keenan Allen — 16.20 on horns75's bench
• Rachaad White — 15.70 on kristianP1's bench
• Keon Coleman — 15.90 on Prestige WorldWide's bench
• Hunter Henry — 14.80 on Goonies Never Say Punt's bench

But this might be the best example all season of why raw bench points are dangerous.

Goonies left 44.46 hindsight points unused.

Its submitted lineup was only 0.62 projected points below optimal.

King iRok left 0.30 actual points unused and lost.

Bosscoe left zero.

Darius left only 4.70 and still got destroyed.

ALL BALLZ ITCH left only 4.00.

horns75 had 8.20 available after the fact, but entered the week almost perfectly aligned with the projections.

The loudest bench is not automatically the worst-managed team.

Sometimes several lower-projected players just happen to go off simultaneously.

Week 6 was loaded with exactly that.

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Six Weeks In: Four Teams at 4–2 and the Records Keep Lying

Four Teams Share First Place

ALL BALLZ ITCH.

Darius35.

Goonies Never Say Punt.

Estevan059.

All four are 4–2.

And once again, the records are telling only part of the story.

ALL BALLZ ITCH has scored 851.56 points.

Estevan059 has scored 692.40.

Same record.

Difference in scoring:

159.16 points.

That's basically an entire excellent fantasy week separating two teams with identical records.

ALL BALLZ ITCH Has Opened a Huge Scoring Lead

After six weeks:

851.56 points.

That's an average of 141.93 per week.

Darius35 is second at 778.60.

Difference:

72.96 points.

The catch?

ALL BALLZ ITCH has also faced 820.72 points, the second-highest total in the league.

So the 4–2 record makes more sense once you notice opponents are averaging 136.79 per week.

Scoring a lot has not been optional.

Bosscoe Is 3–3 and Still Looks Better Than the Record

Bosscoe has now scored 775.66 points, third-most in the league.

The point differential is +52.82, also one of the strongest marks in the standings.

Record?

3–3.

The Week 6 win matters because it was not a lucky escape.

Bosscoe scored the most points in the league and submitted the best possible lineup.

If the production stabilizes, the record may eventually catch up with the underlying numbers.

King iRok Is 1–5 With the Fourth-Most Points in the League

This is officially absurd.

King iRok has scored 743.56 points.

That's more than:

Goonies at 4–2.

Estevan at 4–2.

kristian at 2–4.

Prestige at 2–4.

eduardobass7 at 3–3.

horns75 at 3–3.

King is fourth in league scoring.

Record:

1–5.

Why?

Opponents have scored 824.54, the most in the league.

That's 137.42 points against per week.

King just scored the second-most points of Week 6 and lost to the only team that scored more.

At some point, the scheduling department should probably stop making eye contact.

kristianP1 Continues to Make No Sense

Week 5:

176.34 points.

Loss.

Week 6:

78.06 points.

Win.

Season scoring:

734.48, fifth-most in the league.

Record:

2–4.

I have no analysis.

The numbers have become performance art.

Prestige Is Climbing Out of the Hole

0–4 became 1–4.

1–4 became 2–4.

The schedule is still ugly — Prestige has allowed 793.00 points — but the team has now won two straight and pulled within one game of the three teams sitting at 3–3.

A season that looked dead two weeks ago has at least started breathing again.

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Final Word

Week 5 was the week the scoreboard exploded.

Week 6 was the hangover.

But lower scoring did not mean less drama.

The biggest favorite on the board lost.

Bosscoe and King iRok played one of the cleanest, best-managed games of the season.

kristianP1 went from losing with 176 to winning with 78 because fantasy football enjoys psychological warfare.

Prestige WorldWide won again and suddenly has a streak.

Darius35 followed a perfect 165-point lineup with an 87-point collapse.

ALL BALLZ ITCH got 13 points from a kicker replacement that literally changed the winner.

And after all of it, four teams are sitting at 4–2.

The top of the standings is crowded.

The scoring leaderboard looks nothing like the win-loss leaderboard.

One of the league's highest-scoring teams is 1–5.

One team has now demonstrated that both 176 and 78 can produce exactly the opposite result you would expect.

And six weeks into the season, lineup management is starting to matter more because the margins are getting smaller and every win is beginning to carry a little more weight.

Week 5 asked how anyone could top 191 versus 176.

Week 6 answered:

Don't.

Just make the decisions matter.

Bring on Week 7.