Team Noor

We need a new entry in the Kingwood Levels of Losing, and it's named after this game. Call it the Dobbins Level: you lose by less than a guy on your bench scored, and you figure it out at three in the morning. Haroon scored 139.0 — Allen 30.5, Watson 29.3, Jones 17.2, Chase 16.7, Kyren 16.6 — and lost to Kashir's 148.36. J.K. Dobbins scored 14.4 on his bench. Jaylen Waddle scored 3.8 in his flex. The post arrived at 3:01 AM: "Dobbins would have secured it for me 😭😭." I ran the math so he wouldn't have to. Dobbins over Waddle wins it by 1.24. He also had Goff's 28.94 on the bench, which doesn't matter because Allen outscored him, but it's the kind of thing you notice at 3 AM and it does not help you sleep.

Here's the part that actually matters: Haroon now leads the entire league in points scored, 628.78, and is 2-3. He is 38-17 against the field. The Real Standings page has him as the unluckiest team in Kingwood by nearly a win and a half, which, for a guy who won the title last year because Zofrost's quarterback melted down on Christmas, is the universe collecting a balance. You don't get Christmas week AND a normal schedule. Nobody does.

The trade accounting, two weeks in, by Haroon himself: "you're winning the trade so far lol. Got 2 wins and I got 2 loses." The ledger agrees, by 23.36 lineup points. Goff went on the block at 5 PM Tuesday — "Get him while he's hot" — because when you're 2-3 with the best team in the league you start selling the guy who outscored your opponent's quarterback from your bench. (I had to read that sentence twice too.) Second on the board, No. 1 ceiling, and Chase and Jones on bye against Naafay. The Dobbins Level has a sequel potential I don't love.

On Thursday Haroon accepted Josh Allen for Brock Purdy and Bucky Irving. Seven of ten eligible voters hit veto, one short of the eight the rule requires, and the trade processed Friday at 4:27 PM. Friday morning: "Are we villains now?… The greed got to me. I'll be taking everyone's money." Sunday: Allen scored 18.52, Kyren Williams scored two touchdowns for 31.7, Ja'Marr Chase left with a concussion at 4.2, the Raiders defense scored 0.0, and Team Noor lost to the 0-3 team, 119.38 to 110.42.

The desk checked the obvious question. Jared Goff scored 20.48 on the bench, more than Allen. The Patriots defense scored 5.0 on the bench, more than the Raiders. Start both and Haroon gains 6.96, which is still 2.0 short. There was no lineup that beat the commissioner this week. Kashir had warned him Thursday, in capitals, that Purdy had nobody to throw to; Haroon's answer was "he runs almost as much as Allen," which was true for exactly one week.

Team Noor holds at No. 2 on the strength of 29-15 all-play and 489.78 points, second in the league by 2.92. The ceiling stays No. 1, because a roster with Allen, Kyren, Kittle, Chase and a healthy Breece Hall (back this week) is still the scariest December build in the league. Chase will likely miss Week 5 in the concussion protocol. Next is Kashir, who vetoed.

Brock Purdy threw four touchdowns for 31.28, George Kittle, promoted from the bench to starting tight end, scored 23.2, and Ja'Marr Chase and Christian Watson added 20.3 and 19.1. Team Noor put 138.48 on Ivan, won by 42.26, and took the weekly $100 for the second week in a row. Haroon has now collected $200 against a $367 buy-in. He's still down $167, and he and Arfan are the only managers who have cashed anything.

It was close. Haroon, Sunday night: "Damn. Almost had highest points total. Oh I still have a chance if it goes to OT." He finished 2.14 ahead of Bilal. Monday morning Bilal arrived with the evil eye: "Dangggg back to back Haroon I see you! Your team looks so so amazing." Haroon's reply is the most confident sentence of the week: "I survived Asim last year."

The waiver move of the week belongs here too. Haroon added Jared Goff, who scored 19.36 on the bench. That's the same Goff whose Christmas-week collapse handed Haroon the 2025 title, and the same Goff Asim dropped in Week 1. The only worry is Breece Hall, who is week-to-week with a quad injury. The roster behind him is the reason Noor now holds the No. 1 ceiling.

One week after the desk noted that benching Brock Purdy for Jaxson Dart worked, Haroon reversed it, started Purdy, and got 28.48 — the fourth-best quarterback game of the week, from the man he drafted as his QB1 on the strength of a single 2025 touchdown that won him a title. Dart scored 0.8 on the bench. Kingwood's defending champion put up 133.88, the week high, and beat Bizzy by 40.26 in a game that was over by Sunday afternoon.

Ja'Marr Chase woke up with 23.0. The Patriots defense added 20.0. The week-high check is worth $100, which converts Haroon's $367 buy-in into a $267 problem — he joins Arfan, who cashed Week 1's 150.06, as the only men paying theirs down. The one blemish is out of his control: 243.68 points against, the most in the league. He's played the two highest-scoring opponents available and still sits 1-1 with the second-most points scored.

Meanwhile he spent Thursday shopping for Aaron Jones with the diction of a man planning something illegal: "I'm thinking something big. Different people." The desk has no idea what that means and reports it strictly as a matter of public record.

Haroon made the gutsiest call of Week 1 — benching Brock Purdy, the quarterback whose touchdown cemented his title, for a rookie — and he was right. Jaxson Dart threw three touchdowns, ran for 54 yards, beat Dallas on national television, and opened a season with a stat line no quarterback in NFL history had produced. The reward for all this correctness was a 43-point loss, because Arfan chose the same weekend to score 150.

The autopsy is gentler than the score. 107 was a league-median week. Ja'Marr Chase gave the champ 3.2 points on four targets, which sounds like a crisis until you learn Chase has started slow in season openers for years; the fade-the-panic file says do nothing. The bench scored 77.8, including Christian Watson's 29.7, and here is the cruelest fact the desk found all week: even Haroon's perfect lineup tops out around 136. Arfan beats every possible version of this roster. Some weeks the schedule just sends the buzzsaw.

Down two on the board, which is about the week, not the roster. The roster remains the most complete thing in this league, and the Nix face lives on.

Start with the banner: Haroon is the defending champion. He won it on Christmas week while Zofrost's quarterback was busy fumbling three times, and the chat had crowned him "King Haroona" before the payout even cleared Zelle. He won it at 8-6, which means Asim's midseason prophecy — "the winner of this league sitting somewhere in the middle of the leaderboard right now" — came true to the letter. Champions get scrutiny. Here it is.

The roster is the most complete thing on this board. Ja'Marr Chase and Jaylen Waddle up top, a Breece Hall, Kyren Williams, and Bucky Irving backfield that goes three real names deep, Kittle at tight end. Eleven other managers would trade rooms with him at two positions minimum.

The question is quarterback, and it comes with a story. Haroon waited, wanted Bo Nix, and then watched Bazaan take Nix at 9.08 while already rostering Lamar Jackson. The 😑 he posted was the most honest analysis of the day. So the plan is Brock Purdy, the same Purdy whose touchdown "cemented" last year's title, in Haroon's own words. Loyalty is sweet. Purdy as the ceiling piece on a title defense is less sweet.

One more thing for the record: the man who asked "what's up with the Kelce disrespect" passed on Kelce in round 15 to draft a kicker. The champ contains multitudes.