Ok here's my excuse that I don't actually owe any of you ungrateful fucks but I'm delivering it anyways. I usually work from home Mondays, and write the bulk of the newsletter during work Monday morning. BUT Monday was a federal holiday (shoutout to my boy Columbus, love me some days off) and I'm obviously not going to do the newsletter while I'm not at work, so it got delayed. How does this impact you all? Well besides your rabid clamoring for my juicy insights and consistently hilarious tidbits, it doesn't. So everyone just cool your tits.

Imperialism Map

Recaps

Jake 87.56 - Ryan 130.46

Guys I swear this never happens. It's just been a while I promise it won't happen next time, I have a pill that can help with this. Nah, this was just your classic limp-dick shitshow. Stefon Diggs was/is the only bright spot in my lineup. That's not to take away from Ryan, but his team was pretty much just three people with Josh Allen (32.76) David Montgomery (22.9) and George Kittle (27.7). Jake can hope to turn it around next week against Nathan, but he's coming off a big game and Jake will be without Aaron Jones again and potentially Saquon. Jake's promising start is teetering on the verge of collapse, but Ryan turns around from a loss last week to return to his winning ways.

TK 90.34 - Nathan 146.36

Woah TK is human after all. And Nathan swoops in just in time to claim all that sweet sweet land on the imperialism map. Nathan only had 1 rough showing and that was from Jonathan Taylor (4.4) in his first game back, which will certainly improve. TK suffered the same fate as Jake, just not being able to get anything going across the board, and the loss of Justin Jefferson for at least 4 weeks is a huge blow. Fortunately for TK, he's in a position to afford a loss or two after starting perfect through four weeks, so as long as he can right the ship he shouldn't have much to worry about.

John Luke 79.34 - Collin 106.18

King Limp-Dick this week is John Luke, putting up his lowest score in over a calendar year. Not only was his defense his top scorer, they almost DOUBLED the next best player in Deebo Samuel (11.5). JL could have actually won this game with better lineup management, he only scored a 12% lineup efficiency this week. Granted, Collin wasn't much better at a 30%, and if he'd have played his best lineup he could have dominated with 189 points. But he managed to not need Joe Burrow's 30 or DJ Moore's 49 because he was playing a wet towel of an opponent. And he follows up one wet towel for another in Mike next week.

Mike 129.28 - Tyler 136.94

Speeaakkkinnggg of the devil. Mike actually put up a respectable showing this week and got a little shafted. 129.28 was the 6th best score by 1.18 points behind Ryan, so he doesn't even get a consolation Top 5 point. Justin Fields 40 points was only good for personal pride this week, but it wasn't quite enough to keep up with 33 from Goff and 32 from Tyreek. Mike's L slips him down to 1-9 on the season, which is his worst position through 5 weeks since 2011 (he was 0-5, back in the good ole days). Tyler sits in a tie for 1st right now, with a crispy $10 bill in hand from the weekly challenge and a hot Austin team coming to the plate.

Austin 187.82 - Garrett 146.52

Last but not least is the shootout we had in Austin-Garrett. Shootout may not be the right word because that sort of implies that it was close, and it wasn't really. But 146 is a good game no matter if you win or lose. Austin just went bananas and had two 30+ players and a 50+ in Ja'Marr Chase, who's finally making his 1st round pick worth it. Breece Hall (30.4) sort of came out of nowhere to rip off a big one and Puka Nacua (20.1) had one more big game before the return of Cooper Kupp. All of that was just too much to overcome for Garrett. Buddy, I care about you, please let go of Dak. He's keeping you down man. Travis Etienne had a great game, putting up 38.4 against the Buffalo defense, and Garrett got 2 more 20+ outings from DeAndre Hopkins and the Saints D, so he at least walked away with a Top 5 score and some scoring momentum headed into his matchup with the current #1 team TK.