The Dread
Sheet

Every score, and how last week's picks did against them: 4-1 for the week, 27-13 on the season. The one miss was the most expensive kind: trevorh84, picked to lose by 14.1, won by 48.04. The other four favorites all won by more than the pick's margin.

PA doubles as schedule luck. All-play is the record against all nine teams every week. Wk 8 bench is what the best possible lineup would have added. Two teams benched more than they lost by: winniehartley (57.3, lost by 48.04) and She'sTheMann (24.7, lost by 14.15). trevorh84 and Team Fawley share the best all-play, 49-23, and trevorh84 is fourth in the standings. Team Fawley has faced 1,173.99 points, the second-most, and is 6-2 anyway. Smallwood Retrievers has faced the most, 1,204.48, and its all-play, 32-40, is better than two teams' with more wins.

Top Performers

Best actual starts, and the bench decisions that'll sting longest.

winniehartley has two of the five benched spots, 41.9 between them. Last week's start/sit and free-agent calls, scored. Right and followed: Trevor Lawrence for Tyler Shough's bye (19.4), Caleb Williams for Brock Purdy's bye (14.0), James Cook over J.K. Dobbins (18.1 against 1.3), Harold Fannin for Isaiah Likely's bye (23.4), Josh Allen over Jacoby Brissett (27.6 against 4.5), Dalton Kincaid for Alvin Kamara's bye (18.6), Rome Odunze for Davante Adams (12.7), Colston Loveland for George Kittle's bye (11.5), the Bengals defense, which trevorh84 took (21.7), and the kicker and tight end for No. 5 (Hockenson 15.8). Right and ignored: the Jaguars defense over the Browns (24.4 against 17.0), Courtland Sutton over AJ Barner (9.3 against 4.3), Pat Freiermuth at tight end (11.6 on the bench; Kyle Pitts started, 2.6), and Bryce Young for Lamar Jackson (11.4 against 0.0). Wrong and followed: Parker Washington over Matthew Golden (3.6 against 20.9), Hunter Henry over Blake Corum (6.0 against 13.3) and Germie Bernard for Chris Olave's bye (8.0). Wrong and ignored: RJ Harvey for Christian McCaffrey's bye. Harvey scored 0.0 and is now on IR. Saquon Barkley over Rhamondre Stevenson was a wash, 12.4 against 12.0. Of the players Team by Team listed Out, Rashee Rice (18.3), DJ Moore (16.6), Tyler Warren (5.8, benched) and Jeremiyah Love (2.3, benched) played. Lamar Jackson, Breece Hall and Emeka Egbuka scored 0.0.

Every move since the last blotter ended on Oct 26, pulled across both transaction rounds so nothing between editions slips through. Two went through waivers and fourteen were free agency, first click wins; trevorh84's three claims for Josh Jacobs failed. Green is a player arriving, red a player leaving. Times are Eastern. Fourteen of the sixteen added a player who started that week, and five were bye-week fixes at kicker or defense.

The real 14-week schedule played out 50,000 times. Each team's weekly mean is a 50/50 blend of its optimal Week 9 projection and what it has actually scored, with a 27-point standard deviation; top six make it. Same method as last week, so every change below is the week, not the model.

trevorh84's title odds rose 18.0% to 28.0%, the biggest title gain, on a win and the third-best Week 9 projection. Team Fawley won and its title odds fell, 22.1% to 9.4%: its Week 9 projection is 124.8, with a starter Out and its only defense on bye. She'sTheMann fell 17.8% to 11.7% after its loss. H00dedWizard rose 63.0% to 74.0% and jfinau 34.9% to 45.1%, both on wins, though H00dedWizard's 144.5 projection counts two players listed Out (see G4). OldeRowanRiot fell 10.1% to 1.5%, and its chance of finishing last rose from 10.6% to 23.7%. Smallwood Retrievers won its first game and its playoff odds fell, 2.8% to 0.8%, because everyone above it won too; its chance of finishing last is still the highest, 43.5%. Six games remain.

Five predictions for Week 9, timestamped before kickoff so they can be wrong in public again. Each side's number is its best legal lineup, not what its manager will actually start — Team by Team, below, has that gap.

G5 is the surest pick of the season, at 89.0%, past Week 7's 81.6%. The soft one is G4. H00dedWizard's 144.5 counts Mike Evans and David Montgomery, both listed Out on its bench. Zero them and it is 130.1, and jfinau is the favorite by 13.1. No other pick flips: zeroing Deebo Samuel, on IR, moves G1 from 12.3 to 12.8. Pittsburgh and Tennessee are on bye, and the projections already count those players at 0.0. Eight Questionable players are in these numbers, including Christian McCaffrey (22.7) for trevorh84 and Drake London (17.4) for winniehartley. The numbers stay as Sleeper has them. Come back Tuesday and find out how this one aged.

Ranked on each team's best legal Week 9 lineup, which is why the order differs from the odds table. The bench gap is what that lineup beats the one actually set, if nothing changes before kickoff. Pittsburgh and Tennessee are on bye: eight starters on six teams, and Team Fawley and Smallwood Retrievers have their only defense or kicker on bye.

Every unrostered player with a real projection, tried against every rostered player on each team, through the same optimal-lineup math as everything else on this page. One suggestion per team: whichever drop-for-add raises that team's best-lineup total the most.

Jonah Coleman is the best add for five teams, at 14.2, the best free-agent running back by 3.5. RJ Harvey, Denver's lead back, is on IR. Only one team gets him. The Chiefs defense, dropped Thursday, is the best add for three, and Jason Myers for two. The Myers row is a bye-week hole for Smallwood Retrievers, and the Chiefs row is one for Team Fawley; both have nobody else at that spot. H00dedWizard's +3.0 undersells it: with its Out players zeroed, Coleman for Marvin Harrison is worth +9.4. A.J. Brown, dropped Thursday, projects 13.2 but is listed Out. NoseyNabers' row would drop Omarion Hampton, a starter, for Coleman.

Every pair of rosters, run through the same optimal-lineup math: does swapping these two players raise both sides' best-lineup total? Ranked by whichever team benefits less — the point is mutual upside, not a heist.

The gains are small this week: no side gains more than +4.1. Row two fills Team Fawley's bye-week hole at defense with jfinau's spare, the Jaguars. Matthew Stafford, in row five, is Questionable. These are one-week numbers, and none of them is worth reshaping a roster for.