Week 3 Recap

The league high against the league's most cursed roster.

Buscho is 3-0 and he got there by doing the one thing this column told him to do. Brock Bowers returned and Buscho started him over Michael Mayer. Bowers led all Las Vegas players with 13 targets — the next closest had four — and posted 10 catches, 116 yards, a touchdown, and 27.6 points. Mayer scored 12.2 from the bench. That swap alone was worth 15.4.

Bijan Robinson was the headliner: 29 carries, 194 yards, two touchdowns, 35.3 points in Michael Penix Jr.'s first start since a torn ACL. Christian Watson added 22.6 with Jayden Reed out. Tee Higgins 21.0. The Penix call and the Reed call both landed.

Here's the absurd part: Buscho left 36.48 points on his bench — the most of any manager this week — and still won by 33. Bo Nix scored 25.14 behind Drake Maye's 5.76. Michael Wilson scored 25.9. Jakobi Meyers 19.4. His optimal lineup was 205.94.

And then there's Haas.

Haasinator5 played a perfect lineup. Optimal score: 136.32. Actual score: 136.32. Zero points left in reserve. He finally got the quarterback right — Jared Goff 19.36, Justin Herbert 13.74 on the bench — after three weeks of this column hammering that slot. Jaxon Smith-Njigba went for 35.36 and now has 104.06 through three games, the fourth-most by any player ever through three weeks. Luther Burden 19.8, Terry McLaurin 19.7, Javonte Williams 18.3.

He lost by 33 and he is 0-3 with the fifth-most points in the league — more than Tom DaBombadil at 2-1, more than alindeman at 1-2, more than Burrow My Face in TDs at 1-2.

New England's defense scored −1.0. Isaiah Likely scored 3.3. That's the whole difference between a perfect lineup and a competitive one.

Perfect lineup. Blown out by 33.

Decided by 0.44 points. Both managers took this column's advice. Only one got paid.

Last Thursday this column flagged three starters who looked likely to be inactive. Two of them were in this game.

Lindeman benched Rico Dowdle. Dowdle scored 0.00. In his place, Jordan Addison scored 21.0. That is the game. That is the entire margin and then some.

Sean benched Aaron Jones for Jaylen Warren. Warren scored 20.6 — 127 rushing yards on 17 carries plus three catches for 49, and that was after an 87-yard touchdown run was wiped out by a DK Metcalf holding penalty. Jones played and scored 14.2 from the bench. The swap gained 6.4 points.

Sean made the right call and lost anyway. Without it he loses by 6.84 instead of 0.44.

What actually cost him: Omarion Hampton scored 5.6 in a starting spot while Aaron Jones put up 14.2 and Quinshon Judkins 9.9 sat behind him. Start Jones alongside Warren and Sean wins 142.24 to 133.08. He left 9.60 on the bench in a game decided by less than half a point.

Lindeman's afternoon was the fix working twice over. Brock Purdy scored 32.78 — the correction this column demanded two weeks running — with four touchdown passes including a hook-and-ladder lateral from Mike Evans to Deebo Samuel. Christian McCaffrey 21.6, Jeremiyah Love 21.9 as Arizona finally handed him the backfield.

His tight ends were a disaster. Sam LaPorta 7.4 and Dalton Kincaid 3.8, the latter with a lost fumble. He won anyway.

First win of the season for alindeman. Cruelest loss of the season for the commissioner.

Closest game of the season — 0.44

The optimal lineup that would have won by 0.12.

Conte is 2-1 and rode Jahmyr Gibbs to 41.4 — 20 carries, 99 yards, two touchdowns, plus seven catches for 65 and a third score. Gibbs has now scored at least 23 in all three games and leads all running backs with 98.3 points on the season.

Harold Fannin Jr. finally showed up for 24.1, which this column has been waiting on since Week 1. Jacksonville's defense added 17.0. Josh Allen was a quiet 19.46 — two interceptions, 204 yards, saved by two rushing touchdowns.

Fudge Friends did almost everything right and lost by 15.58. Ja'Marr Chase 24.8. Derrick Henry 21.9 on two more touchdowns. Trevor Lawrence 20.78. Bhayshul Tuten 17.0. Dallas Goedert was correctly benched and scored 0.00.

The miss was at receiver. Xavier Worthy scored 4.0 in a starting spot while Deebo Samuel scored 18.4 on the bench, and Tony Pollard added 13.6 behind DJ Moore's 12.7.

Run the optimal lineup and Fudge Friends score 148.88. Conte scored 148.76.

They lose this game by 0.12 points instead of 15.58. That is the difference between a bad week and a nightmare, and it was sitting on the bench the whole time.

Optimal lineup wins it by 0.12

Vindication at tight end, and the second perfect lineup that lost.

George Kittle scored 26.2. Two weeks ago he scored 18.0 on Max's bench and cost him the closest game of the season. This column said it twice. Max started him, Kittle delivered his second straight 80-plus-yard game with three touchdowns over two weeks, and the crusade is officially over.

The third alarm didn't land the way it was written, though, and it's worth being straight about that. Zay Flowers played and scored 15.4. The reporting said brace for an absence; he suited up. Max had benched him — and got away with it, because Matthew Golden scored 21.0 in that spot. The recommendation was right for the wrong reason. Jalen Coker's 3.8 is where the real hole was; start Flowers there and Max scores 138.24.

Kyren Williams added 21.8. Lamar Jackson 20.44. Amon-Ra St. Brown went quiet at 11.9 after two monster weeks.

Chuck is the other perfect lineup. Optimal 98.38, actual 98.38, nothing left on the bench — and it was the lowest score in the league. Joe Burrow was fine at 22.58, Kenneth Walker 21.3, and then the floor fell out: Montgomery 6.8, Godwin 5.5, Mark Andrews 5.4, Malik Nabers 7.6.

Nabers is the story there. Playing through a dislocated shoulder with Jameis Winston throwing him six targets in a nor'easter, he has gone from a coin-flip worth arguing about to a receiver nobody can start with confidence. New York's offense has looked lost since Jaxson Dart's season-ending surgery.

Two straight weeks under 100 for Chuck, and no lineup decision to blame for either.

Kittle 26.2 — the crusade ends

The Rams split the difference, and a tight end cost a game for the third week running.

Tom is 2-1 and got there on the back of the correction he made last week. Mahomes started and scored 16.94 with Hurts at 13.62 on the bench — a smaller edge than the 10.8 he gave away in Week 2, but the right side of it again. Garrett Wilson went for 26.7 on ten catches against Detroit. Davante Adams added 20.7, his second straight big week with Puka Nacua out.

And Louie's Matthew Stafford, the quarterback throwing to Adams, scored 23.4 from the bench. Louie started Tyler Shough instead and got 24.8, so the call was correct by 1.4 — the one bench decision he got right.

The rest of them cost him the game. Tucker Kraft scored 6.6 while Jake Ferguson scored 9.3. That is three consecutive weeks Ferguson has outscored Kraft from Louie's bench — 20.3 to 3.5, then 9.3 to 6.6 — and this time the margin was 4.34. Tetairoa McMillan managed 3.7 while Rachaad White put up 11.1. DK Metcalf 12.1 behind Justin Jefferson's 5.2.

Louie left 19.90 points on the bench and lost by 4.34. Second week running he's been the sloppiest lineup in the league; the first time he got away with it.

Drake London justified the Penix hype with 28.4 — nine catches, 194 yards against Green Bay on Thursday night, after six catches for 80 yards across his first two games combined.

Tom's soft spot was catastrophic in a way that has nothing to do with this week's score: De'Von Achane scored 1.7 and tore his ACL. He's done for the season.

Ferguson over Kraft, three weeks running