I went through the Angels of Harlem box score expecting to find the move that lost this game, because there’s always one. So I built the best lineup that roster could have put out, every bench guy in the right spot, every zero gone, and it comes to 137.20. Jack Passers scored 137.85. Angels lose by 0.65 with a perfect lineup, and I’ve been staring at that number longer than I’d like to admit.
And look, Jack Passers earned this. They came in 0-8. Zero and eight. Then they set a lineup at 99.1 percent efficiency, which, for a team that hadn’t won a game all year, is honestly a little rude. Brock Bowers had 20.10. Sam Darnold had 19.82. Patrick Queen put up 15.75 from linebacker, and I’m not sure anybody had Patrick Queen down as the guy who’d help end the drought.
Now, Angels of Harlem. This is the commissioner’s team, and I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t make it a little funnier. Four starters scored zero. RJ Harvey, Zay Flowers, Tre Tucker, Za’Darius Smith. Four. A quarter of the lineup gave them nothing, and meanwhile Chop Robinson is sitting on the bench with 10.28, which is more than Justin Jefferson scored for them (10.15). I’d be annoyed about that one specifically.
But I ended up somewhere I didn’t expect. None of it cost them the game. Start Chop and you lose by 2.60. Fix the whole thing and you lose by 0.65. I went looking for the bad decision and there isn’t one big enough to matter, which almost never happens in fantasy, and I think it’s actually worse. With a bad bench call, at least you have something to be mad at.
I’ll say this in Angels’ defense, too. This was by far the best Jack Passers have looked all year. Through seven games their best score was 112.39, and they beat it by 25.46. They were averaging 101.3. Angels put up 124.97, which beats that by 23.67, so against the normal version of this team it isn’t close. They just got the one week where Jack Passers looked like a real team. It’s like bowling with a guy who’s never broken 150 and watching him roll a 230 the night you bet him lunch.
None of that shows up in the standings, though. Angels go to 3-6, which ends the two-game win streak that had dug them out of a 1-5 start. Jack Passers are 1-8.
Speed Inc is the team I’d be worried about. They’re 0-9, and as of this week, nobody’s down there with them.
