I Eat Ass

Sunday, 4:05 PM, Ivan to the group: "My whole team is up for grabs." Asim, who has never once let a trade mention go unanswered: "What you looking for my guyyyy." Ivan: "A bag of chips and a hug everyone's not producing lol." Then: "I'm just venting because I'm not doing to hot lol 😂." I've read a lot of fantasy chat this season and that's the first thing anyone's said that I'd put on a T-shirt. Ivan is 1-4. He scored 75.3 this week, the lowest number in the league, 0-11 against the field, and he has now allowed 643.96 points, the most in Kingwood by 36. The 2024 champion is in the Tyson Zone of bad luck, where nothing that happens to him would surprise you anymore.

The box score is a mystery novel where everyone did it. Mike Evans, acquired Thursday from Bilal, caught 22.8 in his debut — fine! Christian McCaffrey 15.8 — fine! Jalen Hurts 13.0, sure. Then Jeremiyah Love ran for 2.2, Carnell Tate caught 1.1, the Steelers defense scored 1.0, and Jameson Williams scored 17.7 on the bench while Tate started. The trade sent Quinshon Judkins to Bilal for Evans and David Montgomery, and Montgomery promptly hurt his groin Sunday and is week-to-week, because of course he did. Ivan also spent Tuesday and Wednesday negotiating a second deal with Kashir — Love and Judkins for Jefferson — right up until the Bilal offer arrived and he took that one instead. Kashir is still mad about it. Kashir is also his next opponent.

Last on the board, down two. The all-play record says 18-37. The scoring says nine percent under the league average. The record says 1-4. For the first time this season every number I have agrees with the group chat. The hug is still available. I don't know about the chips.

Ivan scored 101.42 and lost by 63.82, because the opponent scored 165.24. That's three losses in a row for I Eat Ass, which has now allowed 520.3 points, the most in the league by 49. Quinshon Judkins (18.6) and T.J. Hockenson (18.4) were the lineup's best; Jalen Hurts threw for 93 yards. Carnell Tate scored 17.0 on the bench a week after Ivan picked him up, and Keenan Allen and Zach Ertz joined the roster in the week's quiet moves.

Ivan's one contribution to the chat was the most consequential sentence of the week: "I didn't vote and didn't know about the trade." The commissioner's trade had passed with two abstentions, his and Haroon's, and the revote fight followed. Ivan said he'd have upheld. He then asked how to find future votes and turned on trade alerts, which, in this league, counts as civic engagement.

Down three to No. 10. The formula is hard on a 1-3 team at 18-26 all-play, even one scoring near the league average. The ceiling falls to No. 10 as well: the McCaffrey-Hurts core is real, but the depth behind it has been cut and re-signed four times. Next is the commissioner, at home.

Ivan scored 96.22, the eighth-best score of the week, and drew the one team that put up 138.48. Christian McCaffrey (19.6), Jeremiyah Love (19.4) and Chris Olave (15.2) played their part. Jalen Hurts managed 12.62 in a 27-7 loss, and with Dallas Goedert ruled out, the replacement tight end, T.J. Hockenson, scored 2.1.

The detail that matters for December is in the backfield. MarShawn Lloyd, whose inherited Green Bay job prompted this desk's formal Week 1 apology, got four carries and scored 2.8 on the bench. The job looks thinner than it did three weeks ago. Ivan also added Carnell Tate off waivers after Bizzy let him go; Tate scored 8.8 on the bench.

The move from 6th to 7th is mostly the method. With results now weighing about 70 percent, a 1-2 record with a 14-19 all-play mark is a 7th-place résumé, and the ceiling slips from 6th to 8th for the same reasons. Ivan, per custom, said nothing in the chat. Next is Bizzy's first game with CeeDee Lamb.

A week after hanging 132 and inheriting a starting running back by pure atmospheric luck, Ivan scored 86.86 — more than only Naafay — and took his first loss. The failure was concentrated at the positions that were supposed to be boring: Dallas Goedert limped to 0.9, Jameson Williams caught 4.3, and Jalen Hurts was held to 16.16 in a game Philadelphia never needed him to throw in.

The stars did star things. Christian McCaffrey posted 20.6, Chris Olave 18.6. And the week's one lineup decision was a genuine wash: Quinshon Judkins took the flex over MarShawn Lloyd and scored 7.3 to Lloyd's benched 7.6, a 0.3-point mistake the desk mentions only for completeness. The loss also came against the No. 1 team on this board, which buys some forgiveness.

Ivan holds at six. The 132 and the 86 are both real; two weeks in, the desk's job is to admit it doesn't yet know which one is the impostor.

Let the record show the desk pays its debts. In August this column called MarShawn Lloyd at pick 67 the largest reach in the draft by a wide margin, and promised a front-page apology if he somehow took the Green Bay job. He took the Green Bay job. Jacobs is exempt indefinitely, the trade acquisition Kaleb Johnson played zero offensive snaps, and Lloyd led the Packers backfield in carries in Week 1. The apology is issued in full: Ivan saw a starting NFL running back where the market saw a backup, ninety picks early, and he was more right than the market.

Now the paragraph the lawyers required: the job produced 3.7 points — 13 carries, 37 yards — in a 39-22 loss, with Chris Brooks out-snapping Lloyd on passing downs. A role is not yet a payday. Ivan won by 22 without needing it anyway: Hurts 24.7, Olave 23.2, Goedert 21.7, and the sharpest waiver move of the week, Devaughn Vele — the exact name the national columns begged everyone to add — scoring 16.4 from the bench on day one of employment.

The 2024 champion is 1-0, up two spots, and ESPN's rankings presumably still adore him. For once, the desk can't argue.

Housekeeping first: Ivan is a champion. He won this league in 2024, beating Kashir in the final, and then followed it with a 4-10 title defense that landed him eleventh. Both of those seasons live in this roster.

It's the widest bet near the top of this board. Christian McCaffrey and Jalen Hurts as the engine, Jeremiyah Love in the second round, Quinshon Judkins in the fourth. If McCaffrey stays upright and one rookie hits, this team beats anybody in a one-week playoff round. That's the pitch, and it's real.

And then there is the pick. MarShawn Lloyd, 6.07, pick 67, ESPN price 166. Ninety-nine picks early, the largest reach in the draft by a wide margin. Asim's theory, offered in the chat with a laughing emoji, is that Ivan "only drafts names he knows." I regret how well the evidence fits, including the part where ESPN's own rankings apparently love this team, because the last time everyone agreed Ivan was doing it wrong, he won the whole thing.

The final rounds returned a dividend: Jeudy and Ridley arrived a combined 26 picks past their price, which against a 99-pick invoice is a coupon.

Eighth, with a ceiling well above eighth and a floor that involves the word "attrition." If Lloyd somehow takes the Green Bay job, the apology will run in full, above the fold.