The Waiver Wire Has a Frequent Flyer

Eight Moves in Two Weeks

Two weeks into You Do You 4, the loudest number in the league is not a score. It is a transaction count. ComebackChris has made 8 roster moves already. The league median is 1. In other words, the typical team here has swapped out one player since the draft, and ComebackChris has treated the waiver wire, the pool of unclaimed players anyone can grab, like a personal shopping channel with free overnight delivery.

Churn is usually the smell of a team in trouble. This one is 2-0. And at least one of the moves has paid out in full: the week 1 pickup of kicker Chase McLaughlin has produced 27 points since he arrived, while Hunter Henry, the tight end cut to make room, has scored 0. That is the cleanest waiver swap you will see all year, and it was for a kicker, which somehow makes it funnier.

The wave has not crested, either. Romeo Doubs, Kayshon Boutte, Kaelon Black and Devaughn Vele all landed on the ComebackChris roster in the space of a few days. Nobody knows what the lineup will look like by Sunday. Possibly not ComebackChris.

The week 2 win was legitimate, 140.65 to 131.35 over Super Lamario World, a 9.3-point margin in a game where the loser scored enough to have beaten most of the league. But the all-play record, meaning how you would have done if you had played every team every week, is 10-8. That is the middle of the pack, wearing a 2-0 record like a borrowed jacket. It fits. It just is not paid for yet.

Two Games That Ended Around Halftime

Week 2 produced two blowouts that would each be the widest margin of most seasons. The Buckeye Boys beat Hender's Game 175.2 to 83.3, a 91.9-point margin and the biggest of the week. Diddy Bandits beat Kittle & bits 185.1 to 97.2, an 87.9-point margin, and it only finishes second because Kittle & bits made the afternoon marginally less bleak.

Diddy Bandits are now the team the other nine are quietly worried about. Their 378.4 points for lead the league, and their all-play record is a perfect 18-0, meaning across two weeks they would have beaten every other team every single time. The luck rating, a measure of how much your record is flattering you, sits at exactly 0. Nothing has been given. All of it has been taken.

The Buckeye Boys keep doing what they did in week 1, which is score an absurd amount, except this time the win came with it. The bench, though, remains a problem of abundance: 36.4 points left sitting, with 175.2 actual against a possible 211.6 with the right lineup. The season total of 60.45 bench points is the largest in the league, and the response was to claim Terry McLaurin off waivers, because apparently the receiver room was not crowded enough. At 16-2 in all-play and 1-1 in reality, this is the best 1-1 team in the history of being 1-1.

Hender's Game deserves a gentler word, because the worst version of losing 175.2 to 83.3 is knowing 119.8 was available. Puka Nacua started and posted a zero; Wan'Dale Robinson sat on the bench with 1.9. That is not many points, but it is more than none, and 36.5 total points stayed parked on the sideline. Check the injury report before kickoff. That is the whole sermon.

The Week 2 Awards

The Rubber Stamp

To Christian McAutoPick, the defending champion, for a 2-0 record that nobody has audited. The week 2 win over Fightin Honkies was 111.75 to 104.9, a 6.85-point margin, and 2 of the week's losing teams scored more than the winner did. The champ sits third in the standings with the ninth-ranked offense out of ten, an all-play record of 5-13, and a luck rating of +1.44, the highest in the league. Meanwhile the front office dropped Matthew Stafford and claimed Bryce Young, which is either a masterstroke or a cry for help, and with this team it has historically been both.

The Single Point

To Mud Dogs, who scored 132.75, the highest total of any loser this week and a number that would have beaten one of the five winners. Worse, the best possible lineup from that roster would have scored 149.6 against the 148.6 that All TDs, no Sacks put up. One point. The receivers did their part, 63.3 points and 47.7 percent of the total, in a full-PPR league where every catch is worth a point on its own. Everybody else on the roster owes them lunch.

The Complete Set

To Diddy Bandits, for the 18-0 all-play mark. There is no asterisk available for this one. We looked.

The Long Runway

To Kittle & bits, whose 197.1 points for and 2-16 all-play record are the lowest in the league, and who responded by adding the Tampa Bay defense. There are 12 weeks left. Last year this league had 12 teams and this year it has 10, which means fewer bodies to climb over. That is the most encouraging sentence available, and it is offered sincerely.

Week 3: One Undefeated Team Is Bluffing

Christian McAutoPick meets Diddy Bandits in the headline game, 2-0 against 2-0, which sounds even until you place the 5-13 all-play next to the 18-0. Somebody is about to find out what they are.

ComebackChris draws Mud Dogs, who are 0-2 with the receivers of a contender and the lineup card of a team that keeps leaving a point on the table. If the transaction count hits double digits by kickoff, nobody should be shocked.

The Buckeye Boys against All TDs, no Sacks is the real game of the week: 16-2 all-play meets 13-5 all-play, both sitting at 1-1 and both scoring like they should not be. Super Lamario World, 1-1 and unlucky, gets Fightin Honkies, 0-2 and unluckier. And Kittle & bits hosts Hender's Game, a matchup in which one side is going to feel a great deal better on Monday morning, and the other is going to check the injury report twice.