Week 8: Tony Recovered His Own Fumble

The last time these two played, it was the 2025 championship. Patrick won by 13.44, and it was Tony's second straight loss in a final. This one went to Monday night with Patrick up 5.76. Patrick had Zach Charbonnet left. Tony had Colston Loveland and the Seahawks defense, which meant Tony had a player on each side of the ball. In the second half Loveland fumbled, and the Seahawks recovered. The fumble cost Loveland 2.00 and paid the Seahawks defense 2.00. On the worst play of his tight end's night, Tony broke even. Charbonnet scored 4.40, and Tony won by 0.84, the second-closest game in their 23 meetings.

Patrick will spend the week on a different play, one he made before kickoff. He used 98.3% of his best possible lineup, the best mark in the league. The only points he left were 2.10 at receiver, more than the margin, and they belonged to KC Concepcion, the man his team is named after. Concepcion has started once this season, in Week 7, and scored 19.20. In his seven other weeks he never reached 9. Benching him was the right call by every number except the last one.

Tony is 7-1 for the first time. Five teams had been 7-1 before him; all five reached the top four, and the one that reached the final won it. He has also left 153.30 points on his bench this season, the most in the league, including Dalton Kincaid's 16.60 this week. Kincaid's four starts this season add up to 14.50. The defending champion sets the best lineups in the league and has gone 1-4 since starting 3-0. The first-place team sets some of the worst. We have stopped advising either of them.

Thinh went into Monday night up 16.10 with nobody left to play, which is usually the best seat in fantasy football. Jonathan had Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who caught six passes for 118 yards and a touchdown in a 17-point loss and scored 20.80. Jonathan won by 4.70. On the other side of the same game, Rome Odunze, whom Jonathan benched on our advice, caught four passes for 87 yards and scored 10.70 on the bench. If Jonathan had ignored us, he would have won by 9.90. We are counting it anyway.

Thinh did everything we asked. Last week we told him to start Joe Burrow, and Burrow scored 49.48, the best game by any player in this league this season. Thinh is 55-6-1 in his career when he scores 150. Two of the six losses belong to Jonathan, the one manager in the league Thinh has not solved, who now leads the series 19-11. The only swap that would have saved Thinh was Denzel Boston's 6.70 for Zay Flowers' 0.00, and Flowers had scored 23.70 the week before. Nobody benches that, including us.

The week's two best defenses were in this game too, Pittsburgh's 21.00 for Jonathan and Jacksonville's 20.00 for Thinh, in a week when NFL sacks jumped from 51 to 77. They cancelled each other out, so the game came down to who still had a Seahawk. Jonathan was 2-4 two weeks ago. He has scored 163.10 and 162.88 since and is 4-4.

For the first time since 2023, neither team in one of our games reached 100. It finished 96.18 to 79.46, which in this league is a 1-0 match, and the lowest combined score of the season. Nate was in the 2023 game too, and won it. He has played in five of the last seven games in which neither team reached 100 and won four of them. Every manager needs a specialty.

Last week's preview promised Andrew a break. He had drawn the week's high score three times, and Nate had posted the week's low score three times. The week's low score did show up in Andrew's game. It was Andrew's. His 79.46 was his lowest since 2017 and would have lost to all nine teams. Christian McCaffrey, who had started all seven games, did not play, and Andrew's running backs fell from 25.80 to 5.70. His only quarterback, Jacoby Brissett, played 47 of 81 snaps and scored 3.46. His best possible lineup was 81.56, which also loses.

Nate's kicker outscored his quarterback, 6.00 to 4.88, and Emeka Egbuka started for the third straight week while listed Out and missed his second straight game. None of it mattered, because the other team was Andrew. Both teams are 2-6. Of the 24 teams that were 2-6 after eight weeks before this season, one reached the top four. It looked like a toilet bowl game, and it was Week 8.

Kevin's best week had been 194.12, in Week 9 of 2012. In the fourteen seasons since, he came within ten points of it once. John has now given up two of Kevin's five best weeks: 183.10 in 2024, the biggest win in their 30 meetings, and this one, the third-biggest. Before this week, Kevin was 0-4 in the regular season against teams on a five-game winning streak, and the first of those losses was to John in 2015. He is 1-4 now.

It was not a perfect lineup, which is the funny part. DK Metcalf started and scored 0.90 while DJ Moore scored 14.60 on the bench. Metcalf has now scored more in three weeks on Kevin's bench than in five weeks in his lineup. Last week we told Kevin that a Questionable player on a fraction of the snaps was one to watch, not one to start. He started Bhayshul Tuten, now listed Questionable with an ankle, who played 27 of 54 snaps and scored 28.90.

John had the biggest Monday night of anyone: D'Andre Swift ran for three touchdowns and Luther Burden added 15.10, 42.00 between them. He lost by 58.42. He also started Omar Cooper Jr., whose 20.00 on the bench last week we said nobody would mention again. Cooper played 50 snaps and scored 0.00. Kevin's best possible lineup was 212.38. He will have to settle for the best week of his life.

Last week we noted that Daniel's only win over Dashon came in Week 8 of 2024. He has now beaten Dashon twice, both times in Week 8, and the 23.32 margin is his biggest in the series. Daniel is 5-3, which matches his win total from all of last season, when he finished last. Seven weeks remain. He has also stopped needing us: Dak Prescott, whom we have officially stopped discussing, scored 21.80, and Daniel has the second-most efficient lineups in the league this season.

Dashon has the least efficient, and he had the least efficient lineup of the week too. He had two receivers new to the roster this week. Tre Tucker, who scored 24.20 for Andrew in Week 6, started and scored 0.00. Kyle Williams scored 10.80 on the bench. Dashon's best possible lineup still loses by 5.32, so this one was not on the receivers. He is 2-6 for the fifth time in his career. In the other four seasons he finished sixth, ninth, ninth and seventh, which is at least a range.

From Week 4 through Week 7, Kevin lost to four straight teams arriving on a losing streak. Andrew arrives on two. Andrew has also won the last five meetings, and Kevin's best score in those five was 126.74, three of them under 100. Kevin is 1-38 in his career when he scores under 100. He just scored 195.28. Andrew just scored 79.46. One of those numbers is about to look like a fluke.

The decisions are mostly about health. Andrew's McCaffrey is listed Questionable with a calf injury after missing Week 8, and DeVonta Smith and Carnell Tate are listed Out. Kevin's A.J. Brown is listed Out, and Tuten is listed Questionable after playing half the snaps. As for Metcalf, we have only one observation: he scores more on Kevin's bench than in Kevin's lineup, and Rome Odunze can tell him how that goes.

First place plays second, and a week after beating the manager who beat him in last season's final, Tony gets the one who beat him in the 2024 final. Thinh has lost six times in his career when he scored 150, two of them to Tony, including last season's semifinal, 172.58 to 169.50. Tony has won the last two meetings.

Thinh has scored the most points in the league and allowed the fewest. Tony has left the most on his bench and is 7-1 anyway. Tony's roster is the question: David Montgomery, Kyle Monangai and Mike Evans are listed Out, and Jakobi Meyers is listed Questionable after playing 29 of 54 snaps. At tight end, Loveland's last three games in the lineup went 15.50, 16.40 and 8.00, and Kincaid's four starts add up to less than he scored on the bench this week. The trend says Loveland. The trend has said Loveland before, and we have been wrong about Tony's tight ends before. We are staying out of it.

John leads the series 18-11. Jonathan has won both championship meetings, in 2015 by 1.96 and in 2022. The closest game they have played was last season, 147.70 to 145.92, also Jonathan's.

John is 5-3 and off his streak; his longest ever is 13. Jonathan is 4-4 and has posted two of the 20 best weeks of his career in a row. History splits them neatly. Teams at 5-3 after eight weeks have reached the top four 23 times in 31. Teams at 4-4 have done it 13 times in 43. John's quarterback question has narrowed to about a point: Drake Maye beat Trevor Lawrence by 1.06 this week. Jonathan's question is the opposite of a shortage. Jonah Coleman scored 18.40 and Rachaad White 13.00 on his bench, behind four running backs who started. He can afford to be wrong. He has been, and he has won two straight.

Patrick just lost by 0.84 with the best lineup in the league. Daniel won with the fifth-best. For the season, Patrick's lineups are the most efficient, at 94.9%, and Daniel's are second, at 93.2%. Patrick, the defending champion, is 1-4 since starting 3-0. Daniel is 5-3 and on a two-game winning streak a year after finishing last. Patrick leads the series 4-3 and won the last meeting. Daniel's most recent win was a 2024 5th-place game, 173.66 to 127.46.

Both have injuries where they are thinnest. Daniel's tight end Hunter Henry played 8 of 60 snaps and is listed Out with a foot injury, Isaiah Likely did not play, and Terrance Ferguson is on IR. Patrick's running backs gave him 12.00 this week, with RJ Harvey on IR and Devin Singletary not playing. Neither manager needs our advice, and both have the records to prove opposite points about it.

Nate and Dashon are both 2-6, and their points for are 858.56 and 859.30. They were also both 2-6 after eight weeks in 2016 and 2021. Twenty-four teams have been 2-6 at this point; one reached the top four, and none reached the final. Their last meeting with something on it was the 2024 third-place game, which Nate won by 0.98, the closest game in the series. Dashon has won the last one and leads 10-7.

We have one piece of advice for this game, and Nate has ignored it three weeks running: start players who will play. Egbuka is still listed Out. Dashon's version is about health: De'Von Achane is on IR, and Alvin Kamara and Malik Nabers did not play in Week 8. Someone will be 2-7 after this. We would like it to happen on merit.