If the season ended today . . .
1. Sons of Liberty (8-0)
2. The Dirty Yankees (5-3)
3. Deep Snappers (4-4)
4. Maulers (5-3); beat Weasels
5. Weasels (5-3)
6. Damn the Torpedoes (4-4); outscored MSG
7. Multiple Scoregasms (4-4); beat Factory
8. Freedom Factory (4-4)
9. Big Guns (3-5); beat Gretzky
10. The Great One (3-5)
11. Season 28 Champs (2-6)
12. Electric Mayhem (1-7)
Factory 119, Torpedoes 62.5: Torpedoes were a single Tyler Higbee catch away from a dreaded triple goose-egg
Great One 116.5, Mayhem 83.5: Mayhem’s lost season drags on
Weasels 115, MSG 67: Weasels’ RBs (Swift & Irving) outscored MSGs (Taylor & Gordon) 47 – 9
SOL 109.5, Guns 103: Guns’ TE’s did them in, getting outscored by SOL TE’s 29.5 – 1
Maulers 100, Snappers 80: It must’ve hurt Maulers’ GM watching his own TE shred the Cowboys like that
Chumps 96, Yankees 74.5: If Yankees could have played Tyler Huntley in addition to Lamar Jackson, they would have had an extremely rare Triple Lindy (three players combining for a negative point total)
LEAGUE BIDNESS
Back in week 7, before my hospital stay (more on that below), I was notified of an accepted trade on Thursday.
Chumps gets Tyler Allgeier
Snappers gets De’Zhaun Stribling (IR)
As I’ve written about before, in 25+ years I’ve only ever rejected one trade. This was the closest I can remember that I’ve come to rejecting a second one.
Back in the day the issue was that two friends, both of whom are long gone from this league, obviously colluded on a trade to avoid a bye week crunch. One guy traded away an injured player on bye and received a healthy player who wasn’t on a bye. I rejected it and told them to resubmit with two active players, which they did, and then I approved it.
At first glance the week 7 trade looked similar. Two owners – who are related – trading a healthy RB for an injured WR. The IR element was a key part of the trade as well, as Snappers’ owner planned to move Stribling to their IR slot once the trade went through in order to get their roster legal.
After contemplating it for a few minutes, I approved the trade for two reasons. The first was that there was no bye week crunch involved, and the second was that even though the participants are related, I’ve seen no indication that anyone in the extended Brown/Clark/Marshall/Goss/Blackwood family has any interest in colluding with one another. From everything I’ve seen they all want to kill each other, fantasy football wise.
The final piece is that I approved the trade just minutes before kickoff Thursday night, which was too late for Snappers to move Stribling to IR. Jimmy asked me to do it – with the request coming just before kickoff – and I did.
The lesson here is that the only thing I’m really looking for with a trade are signs of obvious collusion. If the players involved are healthy and not on a bye, I’ll pretty much approve anything.
COMMISH BIDNESS
This has been a shitty month.
To recap, I had kidney stone surgery almost a month ago and had a stent put in. Ten uncomfortable days later the stent was removed. Three days after that – the day of the Stribling trade – I came down with a fever that I couldn’t shake.
After five days and nights of alternating fever chills and flop sweats, I was admitted to the hospital a week ago. They eventually determined that I had a kidney infection and kept me in the hospital on IV antibiotics for seven days. They finally released me yesterday with oral antibiotics to take for another seven days. So I’m back home finally but still taking the day off work, hence the early R&C.
The lesson here is… drink water. Drink ALL the water. I think the stent removal is what caused the kidney infection and hospitalization, but the stent wouldn’t have been needed if I’d been drinking enough water to keep the damn stone from growing in the first place.
So drink more water ya filthy animals. Trust me, you don’t want any part of what I’ve been through the last few weeks.
Ruminations and Cogitations (Make It So edition)
Sorry but this is going to be a light one this week.
Week 8 Awards: Hard Luck to Guns with 103. Dumb Luck to Chumps with 96.
Team of the Week
| QB | Joe Burrow | Great One | 42 |
| RB | Tyler Allgeier | Chumps (bench) | 31 |
| RB | Bhayshul Tuten | SOL | 27 |
| WR | Tee Higgins | Guns | 27 |
| WR | Ja’Marr Chase | Mayhem | 20 |
| TE | Brock Bowers | SOL | 24.5 |
| WR/TE | Adonai Mitchell | FA | 20 |
| PK | Tyler Bass/Drew Stevens | Factory/FA | 16 |
| DST | Jaguars | Factory | 27 |
| Total | 234.5 |
Top 5 Plays of the Week
5. The Raiders’ Dylan Laube had the first kickoff return TD of 2026
4. The Jaguars’ Bhayshel Tuten housed one from 39 yards
3. Not to be outdone, Tony Pollard housed on from 41 yards and trucked a dude at the end
2. J.J. tipped one to himself
1. Gardner Minshew to Michael Wilson with :06 seconds left, just like they drew it up
Non-NFL Play of the Week
This may shock you to learn, but through my 20s I was somewhat emotionally stunted. I tended to respond to unpleasant news with “Oh that’s sad,” rather than with actual tears. I doubt I was unique in that regard, I’ll bet a lot us were like that at that age. I was young and stupid, and still ingrained with the notion that men don’t cry.
The first cracks developed in my 30s once my daughter was born. Suddenly any shlocky pull-at-your-heart-strings type of movie ending or song, particularly if it had a father/daughter theme, would make me blink back a tear. Weddings were especially bad for me when the father of the bride would give his speech. Everyone else would be smiling and laughing, but I’d have tears streaming down my face, wondering how I would ever get through it when the day came for me to give that speech.
Now I’m well into middle age, and a year and a half past my divorce, and now I can’t even predict when something will get me. A song lyric here, a movie scene there, and suddenly I’m crying. And it doesn’t even have to be about marriage or divorce or children growing up. Case in point, I was sitting in my hospital room last Thursday when I saw the news that Patrick Stewart had died.
I know, I can feel you rolling your eyes, but I’m serious. I’m not a Star Trek guy; The Next Generation was the only Star Trek show I’ve ever watched. In the last year or two I’ve come back to it and rewatched a lot of episodes. And if you’ve ever seen TNG you know the obvious truth – that show was completely dependent on the character of Captain Picard, and on Patrick Stewart’s performance. If that character had sucked, or if he had sucked playing him, the whole show would have collapsed.
But on rewatch it’s really amazing how often Stewart elevated some preachy themes and sometimes clunky dialogue, and in so doing turned the show into something that resonates with me.
So there I was alone in a hospital room, crying at the news that Captain Picard was gone. I’ve always known that certain musician deaths are going to hit me hard (Springsteen, Billy Joel, Paul Simon) but I didn’t see this one coming. Farewell, Captain. Maintain course and speed.
The Commish Track is Saturday In The Park by Chicago
Funniest Vid Ever
Fail videos are always made better with a Sneaky Ninja
Stat of the Week
The WAG of the Week is Taylor Swift. You had to know it was coming eventually.
We’ll end it with Bruce, from 2005’s Devils & Dust
I got God on my side
I’m just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear’s a powerful thing
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It’ll take your God filled soul
And fill it with Devils and Dust
Good luck to everyone (almost) in week 9,
The Commish
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