Crew TNF: Stafford to Puka

San Francisco is at the Rams tonight, and every matchup on this week’s board has somebody in it. Two of them have somebody on both sides.

⚜️ K&G vs 🧪 CLI

These two are 14–13 across twenty-seven meetings, the tightest series either of them has. It has not felt tight lately. 🧪 CLI has beaten ⚜️ K&G twice in ⚜️ K&G’s last four games — 178.6 to 90.2 in week 13, then 158.5 to 91.4 in the 5th Place Game in week 17 — and those two beatings are half of the four-game losing streak ⚜️ K&G carries into tonight. It is the fourth-longest losing streak in franchise history.

Tonight each has a Ram, and the Rams’ quarterback is throwing to Puka Nacua.

🧪 CLI waited until round eleven, and took Matthew Stafford — the twelfth quarterback off the board. He has 117 starts at 23.4 PPG across fifteen seasons and nine franchises, and not one of those starts is for 🧪 CLI. Tonight would be the first.

Stafford scores 28.3 PPG in week 1s against 23.0 in every other week he has ever played.

🏎️ M&N vs 🦞 Doug

🏎️ M&N trails 5–11 here, which is not its worst series — that is 3–11 against 🧪 CLI — but it is close. It won the most recent meeting, 115.9 to 76.2 in week 13.

Each is starting a back it has never started before. 🏎️ M&N took Christian McCaffrey ninth overall and has never once put him in a lineup; he has 105 starts at 22.2 PPG for seven other franchises. 🦞 Doug took Kyren Williams in round three, and the same is true of him — 42 starts at 17.6 PPG, all of them for somebody else.

The one player here with any history at his franchise is Mike Evans, who has 146 starts at 16.0 PPG and sixteen of them for 🏎️ M&N, at 14.7 a game against 16.1 everywhere else. 🏎️ M&N is 7–9 when it starts him.

👨‍🍳 M&R vs 🕳️ TBH

👨‍🍳 M&R starts nobody. 🕳️ TBH starts Davante Adams, and this is the strangest number in the whole game.

Twenty franchise-and-player pairs in league history have logged forty or more starts together. 🕳️ TBH and Adams have the best record of any of them — 37–20, a win rate of .649. He scores 20.2 a game for 🕳️ TBH and 15.4 for the eight other franchises that have started him. The next best pair in the league is 👨‍🍳 M&R with Stefon Diggs, at .619.

🕳️ TBH drafted him in round four this year, pick 41.

🎣 DTTW vs ⚽ TPC

⚽ TPC starts George Kittle at tight end, and a kicker.

Kittle has 95 starts at 14.1 PPG and has been started by seven different franchises — 🦞 Doug twenty-six times, 💨 LTF fifteen, 🦅 Pwns thirteen. Never ⚽ TPC, which took him in round eight. Tonight would be the first.

There is one wrinkle, and it is not a kind one: Kittle averages 9.1 points in week 1 and 14.5 in every other week of his career. Six week-1 starts, and that is the gap.

💨 LTF vs ⏪ RTRO

💨 LTF was Sacko last year. ⏪ RTRO went 12–2. Tonight 💨 LTF has the Rams defense and ⏪ RTRO has nobody.

🦅 Pwns vs 🍆 ZJ

🦅 Pwns is starting a kicker.