The Tape

01 · THE HONEST STANDINGSTwo teams at 4–1, and only one of them earned it

Record next to all-play (your record against every team, every week) and the new median record (did you beat half the league). Luck is real wins minus the wins your scores earned. Lucky and Robbed are flagged at a full win either way.

Alex and Natchez are both 4–1. Alex is 34–11 on all-play and 4–1 against the median; his record is his scores. Natchez is 19–26 and 2–3 against the median, and carries +1.89 luck, the most in the league. He has won two games with a score below the league median — Week 1, and again this week against Logan.

Jerome is the other end of it. 1–4 on a 22–23 all-play and a 3–2 median record, with −1.44 luck, the worst in the league. Logan and Pat are tied for the worst all-play at 8–37 and both are 0–5 against the median — but Logan is 2–3 and Pat is 0–5. Logan now has the fewest points for in the league at 565.72.

The schedule explains a lot of it. Natchez has faced the fewest points in the league, 568.52. Andrew has faced the most, 750.66 — more than any team has scored except Alex and Brent.

02 · THE MEDIANBy request: Jerome wanted the league median. He was right to.

His ask, his words: “Logan add Median score for league each week. Wanna see how f—ed I’m getting it, feels good.” The median is the middle of the ten scores — the average of the fifth and sixth. Beat it and you outscored half the league. Robbed = beat the median and lost. Stole = missed the median and won.

Checked against Yahoo on October 13, after Jerome questioned the math: all fifty team scores for Weeks 1–5 re-pulled, player by player, including stat corrections. One had moved — the Ravens defense in Week 4, 8.00 to 8.50, which put Louis at 150.42 instead of 149.92. It changed no result and no median. Every median above is the average of the two bold scores; check any of them on a phone calculator.

Why the median and not the average? The average gets dragged by one blowout. In Week 3 Louis scored 86.66 and pulled the league average down to 135.24, almost nine points under the median of 144.03 — so six teams beat the average that week and the lowest of them, Michael’s 141.06, outscored only four. The median always splits the league exactly in half, which is the question Jerome asked: did I outscore half the league and still lose? Run it the average’s way and Jerome is still robbed twice, the same two weeks. The person who gains is Michael, who would be robbed in Weeks 1 and 3 — his 141.72 and 141.06 beat the average both weeks and missed the median.

Jerome is the only manager in the league robbed twice: Week 1, 150.30 against a 144.39 median, lost by 1.82 to Andrew; and this week, 155.16 against 148.48, lost by 1.42 to Ernie. Two losses, 3.24 points combined. On a median record he is 3–2. On the real one he is 1–4.

Count the close ones and it is worse. Jerome has lost three games by two points or less — 1.82 to Andrew, 2.00 to Logan, 1.42 to Ernie, 5.24 points in all — and they are the only three games anyone in this league has lost by under three points. Week 2 is not on the robbed list only because he scored 104.08 that week, under a 125.50 median. He lost it by two anyway. Before anyone sends him flowers: section 04 has the other half of this story.

Every robbery has a thief, and the league has exactly as many steals as robberies — four of each. The two thieves are Natchez and Logan, with two each. Logan has never beaten the median. Not once in five weeks. He is 2–3.

The median itself is climbing. 148.48 this week is the highest of the five, and it is the bar Jerome cleared and still lost. The gap column is real wins minus median wins: positive means the schedule has been kind to you. It is a plainer version of the luck number above, not a second one — they are measuring the same thing at different resolutions.

03 · WEEK OVER WEEKAlex climbed six. Andrew fell four, to last.

Every score of the season, the weekly scoring rank, and the move from Week 4 to Week 5 only.

Last week this page asked whether Alex was falling or regressing. 173.30 answers it. He went from ninth to third, the biggest climb of the week, and left nothing on his bench doing it.

Brent is the story underneath. 136.26, 129.68, 147.00, 162.08, 180.92 — up every week since Week 2, first in the weekly ranking two weeks running, and 180.92 is the highest score anyone has posted this season. Michael’s 180.86 is the second highest, six hundredths behind. Brent has won three straight, and this week his starters beat their own projections by 42.46, the most of anyone. Andrew’s missed theirs by 27.85, the most of anyone the other way, and he went from first in Week 3 to tenth in Week 5.

04 · THE COACHING TAXThe narrator benched the best tight end in football

Points left on the bench: your optimal lineup minus what you actually started.

Logan left 42.84, the most anyone has left on a bench in any week this season. Isaiah Likely scored 32.40 on his bench, the most of any tight end in football this week, and Jared Goff scored 29.44 there too, behind a Burrow start of 25.60. His best lineup was 150.74. He lost to Natchez, who scored 140.14. The page is written by the man who did this.

Alex and Ernie set perfect lineups — 0.00 each. Ernie’s was worth the game: he won by 1.42. Jerome left 11.40, which is more than 1.42, and he will hear about that too.

Losses your own bench would have won: your best possible lineup that week beat what your opponent actually scored. Opponents held fixed.

This is the table the page owes Jerome, because it cuts both ways. His bench would have won three of his four losses — Weeks 2, 4 and 5. With his best lineup every week he is 4–1. He has been robbed cleanly exactly once: Week 1, a perfect lineup, lost by 1.82. The rest of the bad luck was sitting on his bench.

Michael is the stranger case. Both of his losses were on his bench, so his best lineups would have him 5–0 — and he has left less on his bench across the season than anyone, 42.88. He is careful and still unlucky with it. Logan has left the most, 130.26, and his bench would have won two of his three losses.

05 · THE FIRST TRADEMetcalf for Henderson, and a dead heat

Every trade this season, logged from Yahoo’s transaction page and scored from the week it took effect. Points in a traded player’s old uniform never count for the new owner.

Five weeks in, somebody finally traded. Logan sent DK Metcalf to Louis for TreVeyon Henderson on October 7. Both started in Week 5. Both scored 5.80. Neither side has anything to say yet, which has not stopped either of them.

For the record: Logan has the worst running back position in the league at −80.3 for the season and traded a receiver for a running back. Louis has a −40.9 flex. The trade made sense on paper for both of them, which is exactly why it took five weeks.

06 · WEEK 5 PERFORMANCESThe best of it

Every starter and bench player on a league roster, ranked.

Michael had two of the top three: Jaylen Warren at 42.80 in the flex and Drake Maye at 39.96, the best quarterback of the week. Last week this page said Michael benched the best quarterback in football. He started him this time and scored 180.86.

Two of the ten sat on a bench, and both belonged to Logan.

07 · POSITIONAL EDGEFive weeks in, nobody has a strength that holds every week

Points above or below the league average at each slot, Weeks 1–5 combined.

Logan’s running backs are −80.3, the worst slot on the board, and Alex’s are +78.8, the best. That is the whole league in two cells.

The persistent-edge test — a slot five points above or below the league in every single week — now finds 0 strengths and 3 weaknesses: Jerome at receiver, Pat at tight end, Logan at running back. Through Week 4 Alex had both: running back as a strength every week, receiver as a weakness every week. This week his running back slots came in 6.4 under the league with Gibbs in the flex, and his receivers went 20.1 over it. Both streaks ended on the same afternoon. The three weaknesses that survived are the same three that were there last week. Good teams have bad weeks. Bad slots stay bad.

08 · LEADERSBy request: Jerome’s top ten at every position, Week 5

Every position, this week and the season, straight out of Yahoo under our scoring. Tap a position to open it. Red means nobody in this league owns him.

20 of the sixty weekly slots belong to nobody, down from twenty-two in Week 4. Every one of the week’s top ten running backs is on a roster. Pat Freiermuth was the third-best tight end of the week at 22.00 and is on waivers; Pat is −50.4 at tight end for the season. Season to date, 13 of sixty are unowned, ten of them kickers and defenses.

09 · AVAILABILITYWeek 6 is a bye-week massacre

Lineups as they stood Monday night, before waivers run. Bye-week starters are players in a starting slot whose team does not play in Week 6.

Pat is starting five players whose teams are off this week. Logan has two quarterbacks, and both of them are on bye — Burrow and Goff, the third- and fourth-best quarterbacks in the league this season. He traded a receiver for a running back last week and has to go find a quarterback this week.

10 · WEEK 6The waiver wire decides this one

Yahoo’s projections for lineups as they stood Monday night, before waivers, with bye-week starters counted at zero. A starting line, not a forecast.

Every one of these numbers moves before Sunday, and some of them by a lot. Pat’s 49.38 is what five empty slots look like; his best legal lineup from his own bench is 93.56, which still trails Alex’s current one. Michael is starting three bye-week players and is still projected behind Jerome even after fixing them.

Logan and Andrew is the one to watch, because it is the one the wire decides. Andrew has Mahomes and Kenneth Walker on his bench and gets to 122.10 by starting them. Logan gets to 92.48 by starting everyone he has, because he has no quarterback with a game and no kicker. Week 6 is also the Identity Report: six weeks of positional edge turned into a trade recommendation for every team. The league has made one trade. That number is about to be a target.

11 · PREVIOUSLY ON EPSOFFThe season so far, one thread at a time

Every thread carries the week it opened. A thread settled, confirmed or reversed for two straight weeks retires to the closed arcs.

Closed arcs

Can anyone beat Alex? (Wk1–Wk5) Natchez did in Week 4. Alex answered by beating Andrew by 78.02. Buffalo is carrying Louis (Wk1–Wk5) Reversed in Week 3 and stayed reversed. Allen scored 35.00 this week and Louis still lost by 39.06.

Three opened, two closed, and one thread that was fading — Jerome’s — came back with a number attached.

12 · WHAT TO WATCHThree open questions

The things Week 6 actually settles.

Is Brent the best team or the hottest one? Four straight weekly increases, from 129.68 in Week 2 to 180.92, and first in the weekly ranking twice running. He is 3–2. He plays Ernie, whose best lineup without Chase still projects 12.74 short of Brent’s.

Does Jerome get paid? He projects 134.09 against Michael’s 98.24. If he loses this one too, the median table needs a third column.

Who reads the wire? Pat has five empty starting slots. Logan has no quarterback. Andrew has 22.11 of points on his own bench. Waivers run Wednesday.