Ok boys, the round robin is in the books, its time for the gut check. Now, Gut Check is seeded by the offical standings, but seeing as the point of a round robin is to get a win-loss record for everyone, lets just take a gander at how everyone's record looks, shall we?

Team	Record	Notes
Tyler	7-2	Ls: Garrett and Mike
Nathan	6-3	Ls: Garrett, Tyler, Jake
Garrett	6-3	Ls: TK, Jake, Collin
Collin	6-3	Ls: Nathan, Tyler, Austin
TK	5-4	Ls: Tyler, Collin, Ryan, Nathan
Mike	5-4	Ls: Garrett, TK, Nathan, Collin
Jake	5-4	Ls: Tyler, TK, Mike, Collin
John Luke	2-7	Ws: Ryan, Austin
Ryan	2-7	Ws: Austin, TK
Austin	1-8	Ws: Collin

Man.. That L to Austin is looking worse and worse every day for Collin. This week, instead of doing recaps, I'm going to do previews for the Gut Check matchups! First, the admin stuff:

King of the Hill

Collin and Garrett still have their two strikes, but today its Mike and Tmo notching up their first strikes of the game. Only Nathan remains without a mark, now he needs to just ride it out and avoid a late-season collapse.

PREVIEWS

#10 Austin vs #9 John Luke

Yikes, not only are both of these teams grade-A bologna at 3-15 on the season, but they've also both given up one of their stars for next season's draft already. Throw in a TE emergency for Austin and a hospital ward on the bench for John Luke and we may just be looking at one of the worst games ever?? Only time will tell. The awful circumstances of this game are somewhat sad, as this is historically a very tight matchup. 9-8 record and only a 0.5 PPG differential, both in JL's favor, but success and glory aren't really in the cards this week. Important to note, these teams will play again in Week 15, which just might determine who takes home the infamous title of "Last Place", a position each of these teams has found themselves in once before (Austin in 2012, JL last year). To pile it on even further, there's a very slim chance that the loser of this game is eliminated from the playoffs...

#8 Ryan vs #7 Jake

Next up is an immediate rematch of a game that Jake 100% should have lost. Ryan failed to bench two players on bye, and had he swapped EITHER of them out for DeAndre Hopkins he'd have won. This matchup would have happened regardless, and in fact is one of only two Gut Check pairings that won't result in a 3 game series for the season, but it kept Jake at .500 and only a one-week gap (2 points) from a playoff spot. Now, all that being said, Ryan not being in the 9 vs 10 game is frankly a turnaround for him. Let's not forget that he was 0-12 after week 6, so a 4-2 (should have been 5-1) stretch over the past 3 weeks is pretty damn good from where he started. Can Jake notch another win against a Ryan team that doesn't actually have to alter their lineup this week? Or will Ryan continue clawing for his playoff dreams??

#6 Collin vs #5 Mike

Now we're getting into the mix of things. Whereas Jake and Ryan are rematching, Collin and Mike kick off a 2-game series this weekend, they play again next weekend. This could bode well for Collin, who historically has Mike's number. Collin sits at 8-4 against Mike, which includes winning the last 4 in the series. Collin will have a slew of byes to deal with this week, but will mostly have his starting lineup intact to try and beat a Mike team that just dethroned a top team in Tmo. Honestly, to me it feels like the 5v6 game is the game where both teams kind of get fucked. Like the bottom games are good because SOMEONE down there is going to get a boost in the rankings from a forced win, and the top games are good because someone is going to stay up there for the same reason, and even the losers can't fall too far. The middle game feels like it can just collapse someone's season if they don't go 2-0 on the week. I hope it's Mike's that collapses.

#4 TK vs #3 Tyler

Hell yeah another Tyler Bowl. These teams will also play a third game this year, but they get a breather between this week and their Game 3 with Austin (for Tmo) and Garrett (for TK, which I guess isn't really a breather but it's at least a different person). This is a matchup TK kinda owns, weirdly enough. He's 13-7-1 all time against Tmo, including a 5-game win streak that ended in Week 2 of this season. TK would love to start another streak, but the return of Nico Collins could make that hard. It certainly doesn't help that TK will be missing Kenneth Walker III and Brock Bowers either. TK's been the beneficiary of some fortunate timing (his 119 PPG doesn't imply that he be 6-3 on Top 5s while Tmo's 130 PPG has only put him at 5-4 in that regard), so he's going to hope that timing continues to work out and keeps him squarely in the playoff race.

#2 Garrett vs #1 Nathan

Do yourselves a favor and go back and read that again. #1 Nathan vs #2 Garrett. In 2022 those teams were #9 and #10 respectively. Nathan finished 9th or 10th in each of the last three seasons. But here he is, the top team in the land, carrying over 144 PPG on a sprint to the top seed. Garrett, with 141 PPG of his own, is still the reigning champ and won't make it easy. Best part? These teams have no byes in sight. Full strength going into a blockbuster matchup. And this will be the last time these teams face until the postseason, so Nathan needs a win to even up the H2H series 1-1 and let the points do the talking in the tiebreaker. This matchup features 4 of the top 5 WRs, QB2 and QB6 in the country, and The King Derrick Henry all in one game. This could be your championship preview folks, tune in on Sunday.

Are You Better than the Georgia Bulldogs?

ALERT ALERT Austin officially has a better record against the fake and generally bad fictional Georgia team than TK or Tmo, two teams currently in playoff position. I think it's only right to give Austin one of their playoff spots at the end of the season, anyone opposed??