The Fightin' Longshanks beat the Millennium Falcons 201.0-166.65 in Week 6, which is the kind of game where both teams showed up, both teams played well, and one team just happened to remember that the goal is to score more points than the other guy.
Ryan's Longshanks came out swinging like they'd been personally offended by the previous five weeks of mediocrity. De'Von Achane dropped 33.0 points. Drake London added 31.8. Cam Skattebo, who sounds like a rejected Pokémon character, contributed 31.0. That's three players over 30 points, which is either excellent roster construction or dumb luck. Probably both.
The 201-point explosion marked the second-highest scoring game in Longshanks history, trailing only whatever god-tier performance Ryan put together that one time he accidentally set the right lineup.
"I knew we had a good week when I stopped checking my phone after the 1 p.m. games," Ryan said afterward. "Usually that means someone tore their ACL in warmups. This time it just meant Ian was already screwed and didn't know it yet."
Ian's Falcons, meanwhile, put up a completely respectable 166.65 points, which would've beaten roughly 75% of the league this week. Unfortunately for Ian, he was playing the other 25%. Rico Dowdle went off for 33.9. Drake Maye threw for 31.85, proving that sometimes rookie quarterbacks remember how football works. Malik Washington and Tyler Warren combined for 43.7 points, which sounds great until you remember it wasn't enough.
"We scored 166 points," Ian said, his voice carrying the exhausted tone of a man who just realized the universe has it out for him. "That beats half the league this week. But Ryan decides to have the best game of his season—second-best ever, apparently—against me. Of course he does."
The real problem for Ian wasn't that his team underperformed. The problem was that Davante Adams forgot he was Davante Adams and put up 7.9 points. Courtland Sutton contributed 2.7, which is what happens when you start a wide receiver on a Thursday night against a defense that remembered they get paid to tackle people. RJ Harvey chipped in 6.5, continuing his season-long tradition of existing without excelling.
"I'm not saying we're back," Ryan added, probably while refreshing his team's point total to make sure it was real.
When you're facing a team dropping 201, you need everyone to ball out. Ian got two guys over 30 and a bunch of guys who showed up for their shifts but didn't exactly punch the clock with authority.
The Longshanks improve to 3-3, which means Ryan is back to being aggressively average with occasional flashes of competence. The Falcons remain stuck in the standings purgatory where you're not bad enough to give up but not good enough to feel confident about anything.
"I'm not saying we're back," Ryan added, probably while refreshing his team's point total to make sure it was real. "But we're also not the team that scored 113 two weeks ago. So either I figured something out or the fantasy gods owed me one."
The head-to-head series between these two sits at 12-19, with Ian still holding a comfortable lead in a rivalry that's been going on since before anyone in the league had kids or mortgages. This week belonged to Ryan, though, and it wasn't close despite Ian doing literally everything a reasonable person would expect from a winning team.
Some weeks you score 166 and cruise to victory. Some weeks you score 166 and lose by 34 because your opponent's entire roster decided to have career days simultaneously.
Welcome to Week 6, where Ryan remembered how to play fantasy football and Ian learned that sometimes putting up a great score just means you get to lose in style.