The Bottom of the League Beat Everybody

He arrived averaging 114.72 a week, the worst figure in the league, having won by 26 the previous Sunday. He left on 159.58, the 342nd-best score of the 3,054 in league history and the highest anybody managed in week three.

Which matters mostly because of who it was against. Four managers have been here for all eighteen seasons — Yim, Hart, Gosling and Geenen — and every pairing among those four has met in every completed year the league has played. This is the most-played of the six: thirty-one meetings since week two of 2009, three clear of the next. Six of them came in the playoffs, where Geenen leads 5-1 and has put Yim out in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013 and again last December. Two of them ended level, in 2013 and 2016, which no other pair in eighteen years has managed once.

And it keeps swapping hands. Yim led it for most of the 2010s. Geenen drew it level through 2021 and went ahead in 2022, Yim took it back across 2023 and 2024, and it was dead level at 14-14-2 as recently as ten days ago. This puts Geenen in front at 15-14-2 for the first time since 2023. Nothing about thirty-one games has separated them and this one will not either.

For the record: Brock Bowers caught ten of thirteen for 116 and a score, Joe Burrow threw for 282 and three, and Geenen started the right eleven — 159.58 out of a possible 160.58, a 99.4% week beaten only by Gosling's perfect lineup in week two. Yim's 103.54 went 0-11 on the all-play and Oronde Gadsden returned 0.00 from tight end.

Brock Purdy went 15 of 27 for 297 and four touchdowns, one of them from 80 yards, and ran for 34 more: 39.28. He also had a 45-yard touchdown run wiped out by a holding call, in a game his manager lost by 3.96. Bijan Robinson carried 29 times for 194 and two scores: 35.30. That is 74.58 from two roster slots, the third-largest two-man haul of the season.

The other nine gave him 70.60. Blake Corum 3.50, Trey Smack 1.00 on two extra points and a blocked field goal, and the Eagles with a single point on defense — brutal output in a game decided by four.

Behind them sat Bo Nix on 28.14 and Kenyon Sadiq on 23.50. Sadiq alone over Corum was worth 20.00. Hart left 26.00 on that bench and has now left 95.06 across three weeks, thirty points more than anybody else in the league.

Ghost took it with his first win of the season. Jahmyr Gibbs ran for 99 and two, caught seven for 65 and another, and finished on 41.40 — the third-biggest start of Season XVIII. It needed to be: Ghost managed 83.5%, the worst lineup of the week, with Juwan Johnson's 24.30 and Cooper Kupp's 14.60 watching.

Allen threw for a fraction of what he has been throwing for and finished on 16.46, his worst week in this league by 22.20. Schmidt won by 48.52 anyway, because Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught ten of fourteen for 128 and two scores and George Kittle took six for 82 and two more — 61.56 from a receiver and a tight end.

The expansion Nashville Nights are now 3-0. Patrick Mahomes has now scored 80.58 on his bench across three wins, nice depth. Keenan Allen added 18.30 to the pile this week and Jamo started showing signs of life with 8.90. Schmidt has left 56.38 behind in three weeks and has not lost a game.

Drew went the other way entirely. He scored 176.78 in week two without touching his lineup; he scored 108.60 in week three without touching it either. That is a fall of 68.18, the steepest anybody has managed this season. Matthew Stafford threw 55 times for 390 yards and still only came to 24.90, because two of them were intercepted, and the New England defense that scored 23.00 seven days earlier returned minus 1.00. Rashee Rice led the entire early slate in target share at 39.1%, a career high, and it came to 15.80.

Two weeks of doing everything right and losing produced a third week of doing slightly less right and winning by 14.98. Drake London caught nine of ten for 194 — the 68-yard one and two more past forty — and finished on 29.40. Christian McCaffrey added 21.60, Chris Olave 19.70, and Minnesota's defense chipped in 17.00 from a slot that gave him 1.00 in week one.

It was his least tidy lineup of the season: 87.0%, 22.00 left behind, and Michael Wilson sitting on 25.90 after being dropped for Dontayvion Wicks, who returned 5.20. Benching Wilson was right in week two and expensive in week three, which is the whole game in one slot.

Javier is 1-2 and has now lost two in a row. Lamar Jackson's 24.44 and Fred Warner's 17.00 were the best of it; Dalton Kincaid's 2.80 at tight end and Rome Odunze's 7.40 were not, and Wan'Dale Robinson scored 18.70 from the bench behind Odunze.

He started Green Bay's defense and it cost the Turkeys everything, returning a negative 2.00 while Jacksonville on his bench scored 17.00. That one slot was worth 19.00 in a game he lost by 3.74 — the narrowest game of the week and the 135th-narrowest of the 1,527 ever played.

Everything else nearly held. Matthew Golden went 21.00 from the flex, Jaylen Warren 20.60, Luther Burden 19.80 and Dak Prescott 20.94. Four starters over nineteen is usually a win. Warren also had an 87-yard run called back for holding, which is the second thing in this game worth more than the margin. It came to 120.04 because KC Concepcion returned 2.90 and David Montgomery 6.80.

Dinsky needed all of 123.78 and did not have much more. Christian Watson's 22.60 and Kenneth Walker's 21.30 carried it, and Hunter Henry gave him 1.50 from a tight end slot he had already changed once. Baker Mayfield was only in the lineup because Caleb Williams had strained a hamstring; he returned 13.28 and dislocated his thumb doing it. Both of Dinsky's quarterbacks are now listed Out, and he is currently down to start Mayfield again in week four.

For two weeks Trevor Lawrence started and Jared Goff sat, and in week two that call cost 29.62 — the biggest benching of the season. So Orvieto swapped them. Goff threw for 269 and two and returned 23.36. Lawrence, on the bench, threw for 182 and three and returned 25.78.

It was, otherwise, the best-managed week of his season by a distance: 98.3% efficiency after 76.6%, 2.42 left behind, and the 2.42 was precisely the gap between the quarterback he benched and the one he started. He lost by 14.94.

Dave C did the beating with the quarterback he had also just promoted. Tyler Shough threw 42 times for 255 and four touchdowns and survived two lost fumbles to finish on 29.80. Garrett Wilson caught ten for 107 and a score, Harold Fannin took 24.10 from tight end and CeeDee Lamb added 20.20. 155.80 is his best week of the season by 24.28.