2025 Week 2: I’m Only A Clock
Here’s a hot take: Being early is the same as being late, and somewhere along the line, we all got hoodwinked into thinking the former is responsible and the latter is rude. That somehow, people who show up early are showing respect for your time, and the late ones aren’t.
This is wrong and bad, and I will explain.
If we set a time for a thing, that is the time I have allotted for that thing. Our activity is penciled in for that hour of the day. Many other things happen in a day, and I have them scheduled for their own special times. If you arrive at a completely different time than what we agreed on, you have disrupted the schedule. I don’t care if it’s early or late; you got it wrong. I’m not talking about showing up at a friend’s house to hang out or meeting up at a bar after work. Those have mushy time targets, and no one is really clock-watching in those situations. I mean, when two people make an arrangement to handle a specific activity and will be parting ways after.
For example: I was home recently helping my dad with some stuff, and was told I needed to be around Saturday because a man had purchased some furniture from my dad, and they would need help loading it into a truck. I was told he would be taking possession of it at 1 p.m. I was told this three times. I was texted this. This was as ironclad as an appointment can be. So imagine my surprise when, at 12:38, I get a message that this man has arrived.
I had a full day before that. I had worked around the house, run errands, gotten lunch, and picked up groceries. After finishing up a task, I decided- as any of us would- that I was going to fire off a shit before lifting heavy furniture. I made that decision at 12:35- plenty of time to wrap things up before he was supposed to arrive. How is it that three minutes into a perfectly leisurely shit-n’-read, I’m late for something that isn’t supposed to happen until nearly a half hour from now? I’ll tell you how- someone didn’t respect my time.
Who gives a shit (not me, apparently! Not allowed to!) that he was early instead of late. There was an appointment time, and he missed it by more than 20 minutes. That’s a full episode of a sitcom with commercials removed. Why is it that if you’re 20 minutes late, the immediate concern is you’re making the other party late for whatever they have scheduled next, but absolutely no consideration is given to the fact that 20 minutes early means you’re interrupting whatever they had scheduled before?
I get that in this case it was just a shit, but it could have been any number non-grumper activities. People don’t leave their entire life wide open if they schedule one thing. They don’t keep their day in a holding pattern until their appointment with you. Show up when you say you will. You get five minutes on either side (we agreed on this as a society). Anything outside of that should be treated as a disruption.
I wrapped things up and came out to help, and the two of them were standing there in that mildly annoyed way old dudes do because they’ve forgotten how time works. Whenever men get over the age of 70, they purge all memories of a time when there was more than one thing on their agenda for the day. Ever plan something with an old man? It’s always the same. They’ll make a reservation for Friday at 6 p.m. and on Wednesday, they’ll say something like “it’s 15 minutes from here, so we should probably leave around 5:45.” By Thursday, that’s down to 5:30. Friday morning it’s “5:15-5:30,” and sure as you’re born they’ll be giving you an exasperated stare of you aren’t ready by the time 5 o’clock rolls around. It’s insane.
So there I am, lifting furniture in the shadow of their judgment and absolutely fuming that no one is acknowledging that WE AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THIS RIGHT NOW. I should be shitting, not hoisting a fucking couch. If this man had shown up at 1:20, no one would have blinked if we had said, “Sorry, we said 1 o’clock. We have somewhere to be, so we no longer have time to do this.” I should be well within my rights to say, “You told me 1 p.m., and I am more than happy to help then, but right now I have something I need to get out of my body. I will return at the time you told me to be here.”
But you can’t do that, because Big Responsibility spent a lot of time and money lobbying to make being early an admirable trait instead of a disruptive one. This was proven true when I complained about it afterward, and my dad said, “Well, he’s coming from really far away.” How does that excuse it? That wouldn’t fly if you’re 20 minutes late. I know; I’ve tried it many times. All you get in response is, “Well, you should have planned for that and left earlier.” How come I can’t say, “Well, then you should have planned for that and had a way to kill 20 minutes so you didn’t interrupt me”? Big Responsibility.
The same lobby that managed to convince society that people who get up early are inherently more responsible and disciplined than people who stay up late. Not being able to stay up past nine is forgivable as long as you get up at six, apparently. Doesn’t matter that we have to wrap shit up early because they can’t keep their eyes open, they earned that exception because they saw the sunrise. It also doesn’t matter that the late-night person is awake and actively doing shit for more hours per day than the one that gets up early. If they sleep until 10, they’re a less serious person.
I won’t stand for it. I can’t stand for it. Stop this shit. Show up when you say you will and stop giving points to sins because of when they happen.
Season POWER RANKINGS
Using all the info at hand for the current season (points, points against, averages, schedule, roster depth), here are our league power rankings through 2 weeks
| Team | Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Steve | #1 | --- |
| JJ | #2 | ↑3 |
| Kyle | #3 | ↑4 |
| Andres | #4 | ↓-2 |
| Micah | #5 | ↓-2 |
| Justin | #6 | ↑2 |
| DeWitt | #7 | ↓-1 |
| Munson | #8 | ↑2 |
| Lee | #9 | ↓-5 |
| Dan | #10 | ↑2 |
| Will | #11 | ↓-2 |
| Jimmy | #12 | ↓-1 |
Strength of Schedule
| Team | Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Micah | #1 | --- |
| Andres | #2 | ↑5 |
| DeWitt | #3 | ↑5 |
| Jimmy | #4 | ↑2 |
| Steve | #5 | ↓-3 |
| Will | #6 | ↓-1 |
| Justin | #7 | ↓-4 |
| Lee | #8 | ↑3 |
| Munson | #9 | ↓-5 |
| Dan | #10 | ↓-1 |
| Kyle | #11 | ↑1 |
| JJ | #12 | ↓-2 |
Playoff Odds
COMING WEEK 3
Kyle Vs. DeWitt (166.4-116.7)
Kyle Weekly High Score
Uh oh, Kyle’s team is getting it together. Despite committing the laughable misstep last week of “starting his best players,” the handsome prick stuck to his guns and was rewarded with the week’s highest score.
No one on the planet but Kyle could safely roster Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet. First of all, there are only about 10 people on the planet who actually would, but Kyle is the only one among them who seems to know which one is the correct player to start. Walker was an absolute turd in Week 1, but Kyle is the Seattle RB Whisperer. He walked out of his large, well-appointed home, stood on his perfectly-manicured lawn, tugged up a handful of his lush green grass, and tossed it to the wind. His piercing blue eyes watched as a gentle breeze (not too strong, just enough to be refreshing) carried the blades into the sky, and found his answer in that delicate dance between heaven and earth. The answers are simple when you are blessed such as he is. Now he can repeat that for Los Angeles, since Blake Corum is not only still alive, but is apparently viable enough to occasionally replace Kyren Williams at the only thing he does well.
For running backs, DeWitt’s team is like the house at the end of the street. Every year, they gather around and tell stories about how one kid went down there and never came back, but someone in the group is always dumb enough to try to disprove it. CMC and Pacheco last year (Pacheco might actually never come back), Aaron Jones and Austin Ekeler this year. Just avoid the house, guys. I get it- I’m skeptical of ghost stories and tales of places from which people never return. But if kids are actively disappearing in front of your face when they knock on a certain door every Halloween, it’s time to start skipping that address.
Munson vs. Jimmy (139.6- 97.7)
After a 20-point day from Bo Nix, Munson wanted me to publicly apologize for saying he sucked. That absolutely will not happen. Bo Nix still sucks at all the stuff he sucked at before. The Broncos are desperate to keep him from even THINKING about pressure, so they managed to limit those situations to just four times last week. In those four, Nix went 2-for-4 for 13 yards and a passer rating of 57.3. He did manage to throw three touchdowns, AND one of those was a long pass, which is great, but he ultimately went 2-for-6 on passes over 10 yards and also threw a pick. Fuck Bo Nix. Riverdale-looking mother fucker.
Tell me that isn’t the same guy. I won’t spend a single cent buying his bullshit.
Jimmy sure is in a spot of bother, isnt he? The Cardinals suck balls, so James Conner is doing nothing but getting in the way of Trey Benson. Rachaad White is the ex that won’t stop texting despite the restraining order, and A.J. Brown is playing for a quarterback who throws like Smalls form the Sandlot.
Hurts has attempted just four passes over 10 yards all season, and not a single one of those four has been an intermediate route where Brown is at his best. The Eagles are winning by avoiding excitement on offense for as long as possible while their defense swallows teams like a snake. Ever seen a snake eat something? That shit is over the second it begins, but it takes so long both you and the snake are bored to tears about halfway through.
Then, of course, there’s Joe Burrow. They say three months, but it’s not three months. The Harvard Medical School published a study in 2022 that tracked all the NFL players who had turf toe severe enough to necessitate surgery. Of the 25 players who had the surgery Burrow is having, none of them returned that season. Five of them never returned at all. That man is cooked for this year. Ja’Marr Chase will still be fine, since the Bengals have told Jake Browning he can throw as many INTs as he wants so long as he keeps hucking the ball at Chase and Higgins. He won’t be Ja’Marr Chase, but any receiver getting 16 targets a game will do something. Jimmy is stuck in the worst place in fantasy- with a bunch of guys who are fine. Can’t win with ‘em because 10 points per week isn’t enough. Can’t drop ‘em because 10 points is better than the six you’d get on the wires. Can’t trade ‘em, because you’d need to move more than one, and then you’d have a hole. Sure glad I don’t have that problem.
JJ vs. Lee (152.7-94.5)
As long as Russell Wilson remains the NFL passing leader, and Jaylen Warren remains the best Steelers receiver, and Justin Herbert doesn’t go back to being Justin Herbert, and Tucker Kraft gets an 80-yard catch every game, and all the number two receivers I have continue to score touchdowns every week, I’ll be just fine.
Lee lost because his receivers were nothing. The Jets can only hold the form of a real football team for so long before their energy depletes and they must rest. This season, that window was one game, and so Garrett Wilson was once again imprisoned by circumstance. Justin Fields left the game in the fourth quarter but may never have been there at all. He went 3-for-11 for 27 yards. His EPA per dropback was -1.01. EPA stands for “Expected Points Added.” You’ll notice that number is negative. That means for every time Fields dropped back to pass, the Jets lost a point off their predicted final score. Pretty neat trick! Garrett Wilson deserves so much better than that.
Brian Thomas, on the other hand, is doin’ real bad, guys. Nineteen total targets, five catches, 60 yards. Not only that, his body seems to have a glaring absence of That Dawg. Look at this shit:
Not a Dawg in sight. Now, Big Brain Boy Liam Coen said after the game that Thomas has an ongoing wrist injury that is contributing to this Dawgless existence, but that was not a very Big Brain thing to say, because Thomas was not on the team’s injury report. Savvy readers will note that’s sort of a problem, given the NFL’s very clear rules on listing injuries and the punishment for not doing so. Let’s see how Coen talked his way out of the trap that he himself set:
Ah yes, “a thing.” That should throw them off the scent. It’s the coaches’ job to get to the bottom of it and get him feeling right. Sure is. You know what is also their job? Listing a player on the injury report who is, in fact, injured. We just did this shit with Shannahan last year. Also, who was he looking at? That was the most “someone-get-in-here-and-take-the-fall”-ass move. “Uhhhh yeah, when DID he get hurt, Larry? I believe you were on those emails, right?”
Anyway, time for BTJ to watch this:
Justin vs. Micah (137.5-103.2)
This is normally where I would reiterate that Justin is playing with fire leaning into the Bears as hard as he is, but I cannot do that for two reasons:
1. Rome Odunze is very much a Dude, and I think he might become one of the best wideouts in the league sometime in the next couple seasons.
2. I am far madder at the Bears for betraying Justin’s love than I am at Justin for blindly loving them.
Yes it was going to take time. Yes, Johnson is very smart and should be able to get this thing going over the course of the season. Yes, Williams is essentially starting over. All that is true. But what is ALSO true is that in two weeks, the Bears have completely fallen apart to the point a rookie led a fourth quarter comeback against them IN CHICAGO, the first time he ever played in the NFL, and they followed that up by getting dogwalked by their coach’s former team.
Also true, and in fact FAR WORSE, is that they have not looked noticeably different than they did before.
As an outside observer, I feel I must speak. First, they came for the Cowboys fans, and I said nothing. But the complicity of good men is worse than the evil of bad men, so:
What the fuck are we doing here?
I don’t think anybody would have complained if Chicago won five games in 2025 if the offense looked like it was working its way toward interesting. If you want a “first year” pass, show us something that at least resembles the outline of a dynamic attack. We’ll squint if we have to. Just make us say, “Oh, I can see where this is going.”
The Bears could lose by 21 every week this year, but as long as they were turning out 2-3 “holy shit that was cool” drives a game, no one would be mad. Because then, you could see a clear path toward functionality. Fix the left side of the line. Get a more dynamic running back. Just get more reps with the playbook, and some of those awesome plays will have better timing. SOMETHING.
Instead, the to-do list for Chicago right now once again appears to be “everything.” They don’t look any faster, more creative, or dangerous than they did before. Or at least they don’t once the 10-play script runs out.
Where is Luther Burden? How about Colston Loveland? Remember him, the TE vanity pick from the first round? Where the fuck are the designed plays for that guy? I believed when the Bears finally did an un-Bears thing and paid up for Johnson, they might finally be moving past “this decision is defensible on paper” and toward trying to do something. Through two games, all we’ve seen is the same anodyne shit. None of the plays are bad in the sense that they are stupid; they are bad in the sense that they do not and cannot move the needle. Try out some Chaotic Bad, man. Do something that makes you matter, even if it doesn’t result in wins. This franchise has been absolutely nothing since Urlacher and Hester left. Not the worst, which can be interesting; not the best, which is also interesting; not even wildly talented but flawed, which is fun in its own way. They’re just there, inoffensively occupying space in the NFC North every season. Justin loves them anyway, and I, for one, think they owe him the respect of at least trying to matter.
Dan Vs. Will (123.3-99.4)
Daniel is christened! He has won his first contest, carried to victory on the meaty wings of Jonathon Taylor. Jordan Love also notched a clean 20.2, outperforming Brock Purdy thanks to Purdy not playing (Editor’s Note: Love did not outperform Purdy’s backup, who is Mac Jones).
Jordan Love presents a problem for Daniel because the Packers' defense is so fucking good that after about two quarters, they can power down the passing game. Love is one of the premier knockout hunters in the league, and is always one snap away from tossing 40-yard seed for a long TD. The issue is that after he hits a couple of those, the defense never gives him a reason to do that again. He would be happy to spend all day howitzering balls downfield, but good sense dictates that he not risk it. And so he remains a quarterback capable of 50 fantasy points who is capped at about 20 thanks to game script.
But that is a problem for another week! This week, Daniel can prance about the house as a big man, regaling his wife and children with tales of his triumph.
“Tell us again about the Ravens defense, father,” they’ll say, as they sit cross-legged with their elbows on their knees and their hands under their chin.
“Yes, my love, tell us again. We all love the story,” his wife will add, having just finished cooking a plump goose for their feast.
Daniel will sigh, pretend to be self-conscious, then turn a chair around and sit backward on it, leaning in.
“So your father was nervous, since I managed to pick a punter on a team that hasn’t punted on any possession for the first two games- the first time in NFL history that’s ever happened. But lo, the mighty Ravens descended upon Cleveland…”
Congratulations, Daniel. May your harvest be blessed.
This is where I would point out the flaws in Will’s team as it currently stands, but we all know this to be a foolish exercise. He’s both started worse and had worse teams through two weeks and still won championships, so let’s not pretend this is the year it all changes.
His biggest problem is also my biggest problem, which is that we spent RB1 money on a rookie running back, and that rookie isn’t an RB1, 2, or 3. This is a problem, but before you point to it as the instrument of Will’s demise, know this:
Through Two Weeks As Rookies:
Bucky Irving was averaging 5 points per game
Rashee Rice had run 16 routes
Jahmyr Gibbs had a 37% snap share
De’Von Achane had played 5 snaps
Justin Jefferson had six targets
Nick Chubb had five carries
CMC was averaging 2.7 yards per carry
So don’t go dancing on the big dog’s grave just yet. This is Will. The cosmos never lets him flounder for long. If there’s a spot higher than number 1, Jeanty will somehow be there by the end of the year.
Steve vs. Andres (156.6-108.8)
Couple things.
1.
Being addicted to Jaguars running backs is like checking into rehab because you can’t stop huffing a particular variant of Raid. It’s such a specific vice, and it’s so transparently bad for you, but it’s just strange enough to make everyone wonder if you know something they don’t. So when Steve fell off the wagon and ripped a big hit of Bashyul Tuten, I think we all had the same mixture of concern and curiosity. Now the Jags have traded away a running back, and Etienne owners are trying to move him with the same urgency as late-night infomercials try to sell you collectible coins: “Supplies are running low! Offer ends in six minutes and thirty-three seconds! Phone lines already nearly full!”
And there’s Steve, with his can of Tuten, looking at the only rookie RB anybody is currently excited about. Pass me the Wasp Killer, brother. You got it figured out.
2.
I’m pretty goddamn furious that I spent a lifetime collecting old, sub-par Dallas running backs and never once got fuck-all for it, and then Steve goes and does it and it’s all of a sudden the smartest shit ever.
I drafted DeMarco Murray, Felix Jones, Darren McFadden, and Tony Pollard before he was any good. I have rostered my Turbins, and Dunbars. I have lugged Alfred Morris around. I even employed Joseph Randle at one time. I dedicated my whole soul to finding one shitty Dallas running back who turns out to be startable, and Steve comes along and cracks it on his first try.
Andres has a little problem with Chase Brown now that Burrow is out, but since Nick Chubb and Rachaad White are apparently actual players and not just names we throw out to amuse ourselves when sitting around, he’s gonna be just fine.
