Mayhem 135.5, Swerve 93: The worst thing for Mayhem right now would be for Cincy to sign Ja’Marr Chase to a huge extension.
Guns 112.5, Torpedoes 78: Can’t fault Torps for using a two TE formation this time, since they were the only players in their lineup that did anything.
Factory 110.5, Snappers 96: Who says kickers don’t matter?
MSG 98.5, Weasels 97.5: If Cam Akers had gained three more yards Weasels would’ve tied the score and won the tiebreaker by one yard.
SOL 96, Yankees 75: Never, ever start DeShaun Watson.
Maulers 87, Chumps, 71: Chumps started the preseason WR1, RB2, and PK1, and still got their butts beat.
Ruminations and Cogitations (Jerry’s Eating Rice edition)
Award time! Hard Luck to Weasels with 97.5. Dumb Luck to Maulers with 87. Bad Beat to Weasels (again). No Bench Mob but Torpedoes came close to grabbing the rare All In Award, with only 8 bench points.
The Player of the Week was Kirk Cousins (FA), with 35 points. You like that?
The other top scorers were:
RB: Tank Bigsby (FA), 24
WR: Ja’Marr Chase (Mayhem), 31
TE: Tucker Kraft (Snappers), 22
Week 5 Overreactions
- The best QB in New York is … Daniel Jones?
- It took a few weeks but Derek Carr finally Derek Carr’d, so who’s next? I’m looking at you, Sam Darnold.
- Jayden Daniels 2024 hype = RG3 2012 hype.
- The Saints have left the NFC South chat.
- If SMU beats Pitt on November 2, they’ll play in the ACC Championship Game.
The Titans had their bye week, so sadly there’s no Will Levis Bonehead Play of the Week, so instead let’s look at Week 5 Coaching Chowderheads.
First up is Buffalo’s Sean McDermott. With the score tied 20-20 and :32 left in regulation, the Bills were backed up on their own three yard line. Rather than run the ball and go to overtime, the Bills threw three straight incomplete passes, which only took 16 seconds off the clock and allowed the Texans to keep their timeouts. Buffalo punted from their end zone, and the Texans had time to run a play and kick the game-winning 59-yard field goal.
Where McDermott got too risky, Bengals coach Zac Taylor did the opposite. After Lamar Jackson fumbled in overtime, Cincinnati took over on the Baltimore 38 yard line. Needing any score to win, Taylor elected to go super conservative, with disastrous results:
1-10: Chase Brown rush for 0 yards
2-10: Brown rush for 3 yards
3-7: Brown rush for 0 yards
4-7: Evan McPherson 53 yard field goal miss (due to a fumbled hold)
After that, Derrick Henry did this and the game was over.
And today, Raiders coach Antonio Pierce announced that there will be a QB competition in practice this week between Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell. Because those always work out well.
Three coaches, three chowderhead decisions. My guess is they’re all gone at the end of the year.
Top 5 Plays of the Week
5. The Angry Run of the Week goes to Tank Bigsby
4. Patrick Surtain had a 100 yard pick 6
3. Jordan Love and Jayden Reed teamed up for a ridiculous throw and catch over three defenders
1. This one goes on the shortlist for Play of the Year
Bonus: Houston pulled off the Suplex of the Week
Bonus bonus: Fat Guy INT!
Trivia question: who was the last Chiefs RB to have as many carries (27) as Kareem Hunt had in week 5?1
I’ve done a little analysis on the proposed defensive scoring changes that we bandied about before the draft. You may recall that the proposal was to double the scoring for defensive points allowed and yards allowed.
If the new rules were in place through week 5, the average points increase per defense would be 2.7 points per game, as shown in this snazzy chart:
The yellow columns are the current weekly scores. The green columns are the scores with the proposed rule changes. The blue columns are the variance between the two, and the red column at the right is the average points increase per game.
Points of (debatable) interest
- The Jets and Chargers would each increase by an average of 5 points per game, mostly due to the two largest weekly increases of 9 points in week 2 (Chargers) and week 3 (Jets)
- The top 12 defenses range from increases of 3 to 5 points per game
- Under this proposal, negative scores would not be doubled, so the Cowboys -1 in week 3 remains a -1
So what does it all mean? Assuming the trends from the first five weeks hold, I think we’re safe to increase the scoring next year. DST scoring would go up a little bit but not go through the roof. There have been a few spikes but for the most part I’d say the overall effect on defensive scoring is pretty mild.
I’ll continue to keep track of it and will post another update later in the season.
I’m guessing that most of you don’t care for Matthew McConaughey, but his Uber Eats ad with Christian McCaffery is my favorite commercial right now. Something about him going all in on the world’s dumbest conspiracy theory cracks me up.
Uni watch, week 5:
The Falcons have a ton of mix and match options with their various unis, but they finally got it right with this one
I don’t remember seeing the black jerseys with red helmets before, but that is sharp.
Speaking of sharp …
They need to go back to this look full time. There is no version of Broncos uniforms since 1997 that are better than this.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, I’m not a fan of this Saints helmet
The fleur-de-lis is too small, and it should be black on a gold background, like this:
Now that’s what I’m talkin ’bout.
The Commish Track is Sabotage by Beastie Boys. I used to think Paul Revere was the Beasties only good song, but Sabotage has really grown on me. That opening bass lick is killer. Brass Monkey still sucks though.
Stat of the Week – former Jets head coach Robert Saleh will make $20K per day at his new job: not coaching the Jets.
In recapping the best Rangers plays of the last year, I forgot one – Travis Jankowski made the catch of the year
This is for Mike, in case he’s not sure which game to watch this weekend.
The 80s Babe of the Week is Marilu Henner. Oh man, this one’s taking me back. I’m pretty sure she was my first celebrity crush. Nobody has ever pulled off the braless look better.
We’ll end on a Dad joke – I’m reading a horror story in braille. Something bad is going to happen, I can just feel it.
Good luck to everyone (almost) in week 6,
The Commish
- Kareem Hunt, week 16, 2017 ↩︎
Ruminations & Cogitations 
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