By a Fraction

There have been 1,513 games in this league. Exactly one was closer than this one.

Schmidt's first game as a member of the League of Champions was decided by 0.14 — behind only Hart over Zoz by 0.06 in week ten of 2023, and ahead of everything else in eighteen years. First meeting between these two franchises. It will be hard to top as an introduction.

The game was lost in the two slots nobody thinks about. Gosling got 1.00 from Harrison Mevis and 1.00 from the Chargers defense. Schmidt got 7.00 from Jason Myers and 3.00 from the Giants — a defense that watched New York convert nine of ten third downs, a rate only one NFL team has bettered in a game this century, and paid him three points for the privilege. That is the whole margin and then some: a single made field goal anywhere in that lineup flips the season's opening weekend.

Hart won this by 43.98 and managed the worst lineup week in the league by a distance. His optimal eleven scored 197.10. He started 135.84 of it. That is 68.9% efficiency — every other manager in the league cleared 86%.

Jalen Coker caught eight of nine for 138 and two scores, 33.80, more than anybody on Hart's roster, and did it from the bench. That is not a fluke he can be forgiven for missing: across their last eight games together Coker has gone 36-516-6 to Tetairoa McMillan's 24-387-2, 15.5 points a game against 9.3. Brock Purdy put up 27.10 sitting beside him while Bo Nix started and fumbled three times for 4.44.

It was the twenty-seventh counting meeting between these two, one of the three longest-running pairings in the league. Geenen still leads it 14-13.

Yim put up 176.46, the 124th-best score of the 3,026 in league history, and not one of her starters reached 25. Nobody had a monster; it was spread across the whole lineup — eight of eleven in double figures, a defense that scored a touchdown, and a tight end who caught two of them.

Ghost had the roster everyone liked. Post-draft rankings had him first. He scored 124.86, which on most weeks is fine, and went 1-10 on the all-play, which means it wasn't. Jahmyr Gibbs did his part with 32.60 and half of Detroit's scrimmage yards. Justin Herbert managed 15.26 and Jordan Addison caught nothing on two targets.

Yim leads the series 8-4.

Javier started Lamar Jackson for 25.96 and left Jaxson Dart's 31.60 and Jordan Love's 22.48 on the bench. Dart was the most efficient quarterback in the NFL last week at +0.73 expected points added per play — first of everybody with fifteen dropbacks — and he watched the whole thing from Javier's bench, in a week where the man across from him got 4.10 from Matthew Stafford.

That was the game. Drew's skill players mostly held up — St. Brown 28.70 on ten catches and a 35.9% target share, Evans and Chase Brown both useful — and it did not matter, because the quarterback slot was a 22-point hole before anyone else touched the ball.

Jeanty's 32.70 on 23 carries and two scores was the highest individual total on either side. Javier's 93.9% lineup efficiency was second-best in the league.

Back-to-back winner of XV and XVI, and he opened Season XVIII by putting four players at 26 or better before the kicker and the defense added 23 between them.

Derrick Henry went 24 for 144 and three touchdowns — his nineteenth career game of 100 rushing yards at thirty or older, a figure only Walter Payton and Emmitt Smith have ever bettered, and he does not turn thirty-three until January. Trevor Lawrence threw four and finished second in the league in efficiency. Zay Flowers took 60% of Baltimore's targets while he was on the field, the highest share of any receiver in football. Isaiah Likely caught all eight of his and ran 91.6% of his routes from a receiver's spot.

Zoz's 138.00 would have beaten seven other teams. It went 7-4 on the all-play. Wrong week.

Out of 3,026 individual scores across eighteen seasons, this one sits 49th. Top 1.6%. It came from the roster the league's own draft ballot graded last, and the post-draft rankings put eleventh.

Caleb Williams was the highest-scoring player in the league: 269 passing, two through the air, ten carries for 65 and two more on the ground, 41.26. He was third in the NFL in efficiency and he owns the four fastest quarterback runs of the last two seasons outright, the quickest at 21.01 miles an hour. Chicago's 59 points were the second-most in a season opener in NFL history and their six rushing touchdowns tied the all-time record for one.

He did all of it with Kyle Pitts at 0.00 and Cameron Dicker at 2.00. Two starting slots produced two points and he still put up 189.