RN

Monday morning, Asim looked at Mustafa's roster the way you'd look at a car that's been in a flood: "Can you even have a starting line up wtf lol. 7 injuries and 2 byes. How is that even possible." Mustafa's answer was a man closing the garage door: "I'm not trading man. I'll see yall next year." Then Wednesday at 5:06 AM he picked up Jacoby Brissett, and on Sunday Brissett scored 24.78. Isaiah Likely scored 26.9. Will Reichard kicked 16.0, the Vikings defense added 13.0, and RN beat Bazan with Barkley, DeVonta Smith, McConkey and DJ Moore all questionable on the bench and Mahomes and Kelce on bye. Picture the lineup card. Now picture it winning. That's the week.

The chat gave it the respect it deserved, which in this league means Asim did a whole bit. "Idc what anyone says the best win of the week goes to my boy @Mustafa. Against all odds. Back against the wall. Whole team hurt." Mustafa: "lol I got lucky but I appreciate it AD." He also stashed Marvin Harrison Jr. through an actual NFL trade to Houston, and Nabil was offering Deebo for him within the hour, which is Nabil's version of a sympathy card.

Now the cold part. RN is 2-3, but 15-40 against the field with the fewest points in the league, and the formula puts it dead last. I'm moving it to eleventh over Ivan on the strength of the week, because a team that won with that lineup card has earned one rung, and because Barkley is "hopeful" for Sunday and Mahomes and Kelce come back from bye. The real question is what this roster looks like in three weeks when everybody's healthy, and the answer might be "the team I ranked sixth in August." Next is Yaseen, and his four Panthers.

RN scored 74.6, lost the IHOP Bowl to Asim by 18.02, and dropped to 1-3 and 12th in the standings. Will Reichard, the kicker Mustafa added on Wednesday, led the team with 19.0. Saquon Barkley pulled a hamstring minutes into the game and scored 1.5; he's week-to-week and projected for Weeks 6 to 8. DeVonta Smith sat. Ladd McConkey scored 0.0, DJ Moore 2.2, Travis Kelce 2.5. Tyreek Hill is on the roster as a free agent who has not played. Mustafa's assessment at 1:48 PM Sunday: "My team cooked man. And it was already chalked."

Mustafa's week was otherwise spent as the man who built the rule. The eight-veto threshold that let both trades through was, by his account and everyone else's, his, from an earlier term as commissioner. Yaseen: "Mustafa set the rule a few years back so he could manipulate a trade to go through for him." Mustafa's defense was that the bar has to be high because managers veto "for no reason" and "just to be funny, without ever assessing the actual trade." He also announced the podcast: "Let's setup a podcast to discuss this blockbuster trade."

Last on the board for the first time, and last on the ceiling list too. RN is 12-32 against the field, 12.9 percent below the league scoring average, and its two best running backs are a hamstring and a sophomore slump. Mahomes and Kelce are on bye this week. Next is Bazan, which is also missing its quarterback.

RN lost to IVaafay 110.24 to 98.74, and the best player on the roster was a defense: the Vikings scored 19.0. Patrick Mahomes managed 15.94, Saquon Barkley 8.5, and Omarion Hampton 5.6. No bench swap covers an 11.5-point margin; Kyler Murray's 10.42 was the best of the reserves. It came against the one opponent Mustafa had publicly hoped would lose.

The transaction log was busier than the scoreboard. Mustafa added Jonah Coleman ("my number 1 waiver wire pick") days before Coleman went on IR, spent the week offering "Orlande Gadsen" to anyone listening, and added Tank Dell. Then at 7:54 AM Tuesday he dropped Coleman, Gadsden and Dell in the same minute. Bilal: "Bro @Mustafa not oronde gadsden!!! Are you crazy?!" Asim's Puka-for-Saquon-and-Smith trade offer was declined: "Plus I only have two RBs why would I trade one of them."

There's a bigger thread running underneath all of it. Mustafa suggested the last-place punishment be "IHOP for 48 hours"; Asim raised it to 72 and reserved a seat: "We chillin at the bottom." Next week is RN vs DEDDYBABA, the IHOP Bowl, and Arfan has already requested the rivalry coverage. RN drops to 10th.

Patrick Mahomes gave RN 28.98, the third-best quarterback game of the week, and the roster set it on fire. Saquon Barkley managed 2.5. DJ Moore, started at wide receiver, finished at −0.1 — a number that means he actively removed points from the team. And Travis Kelce scored 20.6 on the bench, which against a 19.72 margin of defeat is the kind of arithmetic the desk is legally required to print: the benched tight end alone flips the game.

Last week's luckiest winner — a 0.06-point escape at 3-8 against the field — met a 3-8 all-play week without the escape hatch and lost to Kashir by 19.72. The regression the Real Standings page promised arrived on schedule, wearing a Chiefs jersey and asking why nobody else showed up.

Mustafa's week otherwise consisted of auditing Arfan's paperwork ("Daddy is 9th bro" — accurate, of Mustafa) and announcing "Deshaun Watson is back," a piece of news with no detectable fantasy application. Down one. The Mahomes games can't keep being cover for the rest of it.

Mustafa — whose team is now simply RN, and the chat knows why — beat the commissioner by 18, banked the win his believers spent all preseason demanding, and immediately became the first case study in the Real Standings project: 107.06 was the ninth-best score of the week, a 3-8 mark against the field, and the largest luck surplus in the league. He outscored three teams. The schedule handed him one of them.

The win was real where it counted. Isaiah Likely — the pick the frozen grades docked forty spots — led the team with 23.8. Mahomes closed it out on Monday night. DJ Moore's 18.5 watched from the bench and wasn't needed. The costs were real too: McConkey left with a chest injury, Kyler was concussed out in the first quarter, and Charbonnet went to IR. The People's Champ is winning and shrinking at the same time.

Down two on the board, and the desk is aware of exactly how this looks: the publisher lost this game by 18 and is ranking the winner eighth. The numbers in the first paragraph are the entire defense. The chat is invited to litigate, and probably already has.

Mustafa's draft weekend, in sequence: a projection tool put him last in playoff odds, Asim posted the screenshot, Kashir demanded to know why the machines hate this team, and the ADP math handed down a C- draft grade. Then the desk actually watched the roster and ranked it sixth. Somewhere between last and best there is a real team.

The depth is legitimate. Saquon and Omarion Hampton up front, a receiver room that runs five deep in DeVonta Smith, McConkey, DJ Moore, Marvin Harrison, and Godwin, plus Mahomes and Kyler at quarterback. The bench might be the best in the league, which is both the compliment and the problem: Kelce at pick 180 — eighty-four past his ESPN price, the largest value gap in the draft — was acquired while the chat priced his wedding as a production risk, but Kelce and Likely can't both start, and Likely at 8.01 went 40 ahead of price for half a job.

Last season ended with Yaseen telling Mustafa he was "talking like he made playoffs." The man ran this league for years and has earned better heckling than that.

Sixth is respectable. The machines still owe him an apology. I don't yet think they'll owe him one in December, and I look forward to the chat explaining why I'm wrong.