Week 4 · October 6, 2026

Kupp needed a win.
Pablo won by 1.52.

Kyren Williams scored 36.70. The kicker added 19.00. Kupp these nuts is still 0–4. There are losses you can shrug off; this probably isn’t one of them.

Elsewhere, Tetairoa McMillan and Nico Collins made 135.82 look insufficient, CeeDee Lamb carried the Marathoners into the 3–1 pack, and JSN-etration left a winning running back on the bench. Plenty to get into this week. First, a moment for Kupp.

01 · The receipts

Around the league

FINAL · MARGIN 16.36

JJ has a bigger problem than the record

Local MILFs wanna SHOUGH119.04

JJ Is Innocent102.68

Chuba Hubbard’s 25.90 was the difference here. SHOUGH got another 26.00 from Cam Little and Seattle’s defense, enough to win comfortably despite neither starting receiver reaching double digits. A tidy way to get back to .500.

JJ’s fourth loss came with 10.30 points from the two running backs, 5.70 from Ja’Marr Chase and a zero from Ladd McConkey. C.J. Stroud and Brock Bowers combined for 43.68; there was only so much they could fix. The bench offered little help at those positions either. At 0–4, JJ needs production, not just a more favorable opponent.

FINAL · MARGIN 5.42

The Stevenson score will be hard to unsee

Robs Retards125.48

JSN-etration120.06

Kenneth Walker put up 30.90. Tee Higgins added 26.70. JSN-etration still lost, and this one comes with a particularly irritating piece of arithmetic: Rhamondre Stevenson’s 18.40 sat on the bench while David Montgomery scored 4.30. Swap those two and JSN wins by 8.68.

That is hindsight, of course. But it is very accessible hindsight, right there in the app. Travis Kelce’s 3.50 and a single point from Kansas City’s defense did not help. Across the matchup, Malik Nabers supplied 23.20 and Jake Bates delivered 18.00—13 more than Evan McPherson. Both teams are 2–2. Only one has to spend the week looking at Stevenson.

FINAL · MARGIN 1.52

Kupp comes up 1.52 short

Pablo Pledgescobar135.50

Kupp these nuts133.98

Kyren Williams scored 36.70 and Will Reichard kicked in 19.00. On most weeks that would be a promising start. Davante Adams, Kalif Raymond and Dalton Schultz then combined for 12.70, and Kupp’s first win slipped away again.

Pablo’s two backs, Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs, supplied 45.40. Zay Flowers added 25.80, enough to absorb Parker Washington’s 2.00 and get Pablo to 3–1. No apology necessary, but perhaps keep the celebration brief. Kupp is 0–4 after scoring enough to beat six of the other nine teams.

FINAL · MARGIN 13.86

The team name had a pretty good week

I Love Tets149.68

Puka Nachewa135.82

Tetairoa McMillan: 45.20. Nico Collins: 30.80. That is 76.00 from two receivers, more than half of I Love Tets’ entire score. When the player in your team name does that, you are entitled to be annoying about it.

Puka Nachewa got 31.30 from Javonte Williams, cleared 135 and finished second in league scoring. There is not much to litigate here. Even replacing Stefon Diggs’ 8.50 with DK Metcalf’s 16.50 would have left Puka 5.86 short. Tets had the best score; Puka had the wrong opponent.

FINAL · MARGIN 6.50

Lamb did the heavy lifting

The (Half) Marathoners126.92

Two in the Puka120.42

CeeDee Lamb’s 41.30 accounted for nearly a third of the Marathoners’ score. Joe Burrow supplied 23.72, and that cushion mattered: Emeka Egbuka, Jason Myers and Denver’s defense combined for just 10.30. The Marathoners finished 0.04 below the league average and won anyway.

Two in the Puka got 27.70 from Puka Nacua and 22.70 from Jonathan Taylor, then only 2.00 from Saquon Barkley. Alvin Kamara’s 22.80 was on the bench. That swap would have more than covered the 6.50-point margin, though it is easy to pick a lineup on Tuesday. Both teams remain in the four-way crowd at 3–1.

02 · This week’s column

What do you tell a team that scores 133.98 and falls to 0–4?

“Set a better lineup” is technically an answer. It is also a great way to make yourself unwelcome.

The awkward thing about Kupp’s week is that both complaints are true. The matchup was rotten luck. There were also enough points on the bench to win it. Neither fact does much to soften the other.

Start with the luck. Kupp scored 133.98, fourth-best in the league. Against six of the other nine teams, that is a win. Against Pablo’s 135.50, it is another week without one. Meanwhile, SHOUGH won with 119.04. Kupp scored 14.94 more and got nothing for it.

Then open the bench tab, if you insist. Drake Maye outscored Jared Goff by 5.68. Quinshon Judkins outscored Christian McCaffrey by 5.60. Devaughn Vele had 17.40 to Kalif Raymond’s 2.60. Any one of those substitutions clears a 1.52-point gap. You do not need an elaborate best-ball reconstruction to find the win.

But naming the right substitute after the games is free. Judkins over McCaffrey is a very easy decision when the scores are already beside their names. Beforehand, there is a reason those players ended up where they did. The numbers here tell us what happened, not whether the original call was sensible.

For Pablo, the math is simpler: Robinson, Gibbs and Flowers put up 71.20, Matt Gay added 16.00, and the final total was just high enough. Pablo has the league’s most points and a 3–1 record. Kupp has 452.68 points for the season—more than another team sitting at 2–2—and no wins.

Four weeks is still a small sample. It is also a long time to wait for your first win. If Kupp is in a bad mood this Tuesday, let the man be in a bad mood.

03 · A few acknowledgments

Give them their due

Player of the week

Tetairoa McMillan

45.20 for I Love Tets, the highest individual starter score of the week. Collins’ 30.80 was excellent too; it somehow gets second billing.

The unlucky loser

Puka Nachewa

135.82 would have beaten every team except Tets. Puka faced Tets. Sometimes the explanation is that short.

Respect the kicker

Jake Bates

18.00 in a matchup decided by 5.42. Nabers led JSN’s opponent in scoring, but Bates deserves a mention in the thank-you text.

04 · After Week 4

A crowded top, an uncomfortable bottom

Pablo leads the four teams at 3–1 on points. JSN has more points than three of those teams and sits fifth at 2–2. Kupp and JJ are still looking for win number one.

#	Team	Record	Points for	FAAB left
01	Pablo Pledgescobar	3–1	558.62	$64
02	The (Half) Marathoners	3–1	511.90	$194
03	I Love Tets	3–1	509.52	$154
04	Two in the Puka	3–1	489.02	$190
05	JSN-etration	2–2	544.44	$143
06	Puka Nachewa	2–2	532.96	$170
07	Local MILFs wanna SHOUGH	2–2	464.88	$200
08	Robs Retards	2–2	438.18	$200
09	Kupp these nuts	0–4	452.68	$110
10	JJ Is Innocent	0–4	419.06	$138

Display sorted by wins, then points for. Division and playoff seeding rules may produce a different official seed order.

Sources & editorial notes

Scores, player identities, rosters, records, and FAAB come from the Sleeper league, retrieved October 6, 2026. All-play compares each team’s Week 4 score against the other nine teams. Lineup swaps use actual Week 4 scores and eligible positions; they illustrate hindsight, not pregame recommendations. No manager quotes or group-chat events are invented. Scores remain subject to platform corrections.