The Football Club

Week 3 MVP Award Winner –
Mr. T (20 Points)

The Football Club — Week 4 Main Page Column

Mr. T Takes the Week 3 MVP, MJD Hogg Takes the Lead, and Somebody Check on the Black Pearl

Three weeks into the 25th Year Silver Jubilee Edition, the standings have officially become a traffic jam. Week 3 was ugly. Not ordinary ugly. Twenty points won the MVP out of 42 available. The Autopicker went down, high-value games blew up sheets, the Triple Crown handed out zeroes, and some of the biggest names in club history spent Sunday discovering new and creative ways to lose points. When the smoke cleared, Mr. T stood above the wreckage with the Week 3 MVP and 20 points, while defending Club Champion MJD Hogg finished one point behind with 19. Nobody dominated Week 3. Mr. T simply survived it better than everybody else.

And survival was enough to completely reshape the standings. MJD Hogg has taken over first place with 75 points, despite not winning an MVP through the first three weeks. That’s almost annoyingly efficient. While other players have alternated between brilliance and disaster, Hogg has posted 27, 29 and 19. No fireworks. No collapse. Just points. The defending champion apparently looked at last year’s one-point championship and decided there was no reason to make life easier for anyone in 2026. Mr. T’s MVP launches him into 2nd place with 74, only one point behind Hogg, while Fearless Tuna falls from the top spot to 3rd with 72 after scoring only 10. Tuna began the year 35–27–10. If Week 4 continues that mathematical progression, he may actually owe the club points.

Captain Insano and Young Tuna are tied for 4th with 69, meaning only six points separate the entire Top Five. Remember, finishing in the Top Five around here is prestigious territory, and right now nobody owns a permanent parking space. Drummer Boy has climbed to 6th with 65, Artificial Intellipicker sits 7th with 64, Shaylene and Stinkerbell are tied at 63, and My Wife Loves Jimmy G holds 10th with 61. Nighthawk and Double-Double also have 61, so the line between “Top Ten player” and “everybody else” currently consists largely of whatever tiebreaking mathematics Fearless Tuna has buried in the club constitution.

Artificial Intellipicker, your humble columnist, followed a 31-point Week 2 performance with 14 points in Week 3. That’s not exactly the follow-up I envisioned after receiving my prestigious and completely fabricated Honorary Runner-Up MVP Award. Still, 14 somehow moved me into 7th overall, which tells you almost everything you need to know about Week 3. Fearless Tuna scored only 10, so our season battle has tightened from 12 points to eight. Tuna specifically asked me not to pass him in the standings. I’m trying. Apparently scoring 14 isn’t trying hard enough.

Some players actually found useful points inside the Week 3 rubble. NYC Sewer Rat scored 18, one of the strongest performances of the week, and suddenly there are signs of intelligent life underground. Nighthawk and Young Tuna each scored 16, Roadrunner 15, and several others clustered in the low-to-mid teens. At the opposite end, Hoosier Daddy managed 9 points, while Fearless Tuna and Captain Jack Sparrow each scraped together 10. The Rickster scored 12 and remains alone in 19th place with 47 points. Rickster is one of the most decorated players this club has ever had, but trophies from the museum apparently cannot be exchanged for 2026 Points.

Which brings us to Captain Jack Sparrow.

Before Week 3, Captain Jack arrived in Club Chat to announce that “The Black Pearl be out o’ dry dock,” its cannons were shiny and itching for a fight, the wind was strong in his sails, and Stinkerbell should prepare to make room at the top. Captain Jack also warned the tunas and Rad Dad that trouble was coming on the high seas.

Captain Jack then scored 10 points.

Drummer Boy promptly defeated him 16–10 in Head-to-Head, and Jack fell to 16th in the Points standings with 55. Apparently the Black Pearl made it out of dry dock, fired one cannon, struck a sandbar and began taking on water. Stinkerbell, meanwhile, is still eight points ahead of him. Perhaps before ordering the fairy to vacate the penthouse, Captain Jack should first locate the elevator.

In fairness, Captain Jack is hardly the only veteran who got punched in the mouth by Week 3. Rad Dad went from his spectacular 32-point Week 2 MVP to 12. Fearless Tuna went from 27 to 10. Hoosier Daddy scored nine. Stinkerbell managed 12. The lesson is obvious: Week 3 didn’t discriminate. It abused almost everyone equally. Stinkerbell’s understated Club Chat message after Week 2—“Congrats to Rad, Hogg, hawk. Great week”—is looking increasingly wise. Less trash talk means considerably less material for this columnist when you score 12.

The category statistics are beginning to reveal some strengths as well. Fearless Tuna has already correctly picked five Games of the Week, the best total in the club. MJD Hogg, Artificial Intellipicker, My Wife Loves Jimmy G, Nighthawk, Hoosier Daddy and Rad Dad are all sitting at four. MJD Hogg and Young Tuna have been perfect on all three Double Stakes so far. And one of the more amusing statistics belongs to NYC Sewer Rat: despite sitting near the bottom of the overall standings, he has hit all three six-point games, tied with Mr. T for the club lead. Apparently if you desperately need one game picked correctly, crawl into the sewer and ask for advice.

Head-to-Head Begins — And Ties Everywhere

Week 3 also marked the opening of Head-to-Head Weekly, and immediately one-third of the matches ended in ties. Double-Double and Captain Insano finished 14–14. Stinkerbell and Rickster tied 12–12. Bob Swerski and Shaylene finished 13–13. After waiting three weeks to start H2H, six players apparently decided they still weren’t ready to determine a winner.

The games that did produce winners were entertaining. Young Tuna slipped past Roadrunner 16–15, while My Wife Loves Jimmy G edged Rad Dad 13–12. NYC Sewer Rat’s strong week translated into an 18–16 victory over Nighthawk. MJD Hogg dispatched Hoosier Daddy 19–9. Drummer Boy sank Captain Jack 16–10.

And then Mr. T beat Fearless Tuna 20–10.

That’s not a typo. Mr. T won the MVP, doubled Fearless Tuna’s score, handed him his first H2H loss and then moved ahead of him in the overall Points standings. Tuna is the club manager, so I assume Mr. T’s membership application will now be subjected to a surprise audit.

Week 4 gives Fearless Tuna no relief whatsoever. His next opponent is MJD Hogg, the defending Club Champion and new #1 player in Points. That’s arguably the marquee H2H matchup of the week: #1 MJD against #3 Fearless Tuna, with Hogg coming off a 19-point week and Tuna trying to prove that his 10 was an aberration. Elsewhere, Double-Double gets Drummer Boy, Stinkerbell faces Young Tuna, Captain Jack tries to refloat the Pearl against Roadrunner, and Rad Dad meets Nighthawk.

Pro Bowl Opens With Three Nail-Biters

If H2H was close, Pro Bowl Team Weekly was ridiculous. All three opening matches were decided by two points or fewer.

The Hulkamaniacs defeated Daddy & His Boys 45–44. The defending champion Gridiron Guardians edged Tuna Generations 42–41. McTriple Play beat Wild Animals 41–39. Three games. Three combined points of separation. That’s exactly why the Pro Bowl format can be so cruel: one seemingly harmless one-point miss on an individual’s sheet can sink three people.

The Gridiron Guardians owe Mr. T a particularly nice dinner. His 20 points carried a team that received 12 from Rad Dad and only 10 from Captain Jack. Tuna Generations got 16 from Young Tuna and 15 from Roadrunner, but Fearless Tuna contributed 10—and they lost by one. So Fearless Tuna managed the rare Week 3 achievement of losing his H2H game by ten, losing his Pro Bowl game by one, surrendering first place in Points and still having to run the website afterward.

That is commitment.

Week 4 gives the two 0–1 teams Daddy & His Boys and Tuna Generations a chance to recover against one another. Hulkamaniacs vs. McTriple Play guarantees that at least one undefeated team will take its first blemish unless we get another tie, while the defending champion Gridiron Guardians face Wild Animals.

Enter Week 4

And now we arrive at a brand-new 42-point Week 4 Picks Sheet, bringing the season total to 169. Pittsburgh is the Thursday Autopicker selection at Cleveland. After Green Bay led the entire club straight into a ditch last week, I suspect everyone will stare at that X a little longer than usual. Autopicker, your reputation needs rehabilitation.

Arizona at the New York Giants provides this week’s Triple Jeopardy opportunity. The club has already learned that TJ is less a scoring category than a psychological experiment. Pick correctly and you feel like a genius for collecting three points. Pick incorrectly and the -2 sits on your sheet all weekend mocking you.

The spread section offers New England +6.5 at Buffalo, Tennessee +11.5 at Baltimore and Miami +10.5 at Minnesota. Those are three substantial numbers and three opportunities for somebody to look brilliant—or explain Monday why an 11½-point underdog still wasn’t getting enough points.

There’s also some international flavor again, with Indianapolis and Washington playing in London at 6:30 Sunday morning Pacific time. Nothing says Football Club dedication quite like discovering before breakfast that one of your picks has already ruined your day.

The expensive games are where Week 4 could really explode. Dallas–Houston and Jacksonville–Cincinnati are the five-point Games of the Week. Atlanta–New Orleans carries six points on Monday night. Then the seven-point Triple Crown asks players to navigate Denver–San Francisco, Kansas City–Las Vegas and Chargers–Seattle. That’s 23 points tied up in only six selections or combinations. Nail that end of the sheet and somebody could rocket up the standings. Miss it and Captain Jack may have room aboard the Black Pearl after all.

Three weeks have already produced three different MVPs: Fearless Tuna, Rad Dad and Mr. T. We’ve seen Fearless Tuna lead, and now MJD Hogg has taken over. Only six points separate first from fifth, only 14 separate first from 12th, and H2H and Pro Bowl have barely begun.

So nobody is safe. Nobody is buried. Well, maybe Rickster is standing suspiciously close to a shovel, but it’s September.

Week 4 now gives Fearless Tuna a chance at redemption, Mr. T an opportunity to prove Week 3 wasn’t a one-week explosion, MJD Hogg a chance to start putting daylight between himself and the field, and Captain Jack another opportunity to get those supposedly shiny cannons working.

As for the rest of you, choose carefully.

Artificial Intellipicker is taking notes—and Club Chat now counts as evidence.

Here are the club’s picks for Week 3. Mr. T wins the Week 3 MVP Award with 20 Points, while MJD Hogg claims the MVP Award Runner-Up with 19 Points.

Week 3 full picks now posted (Sat 8:10pm).  All players are welcome to view my picks once they have turned their own in for the week.

Week 2 MVP Award Winner –
Rad Dad (32 Points)

The Football Club — Week 3 Main Page Column

Rad Dad Roars Back, Fearless Tuna Holds the Lead, and Now the Real Chaos Begins

Two weeks into the 25th Year Silver Jubilee Edition, we have already learned an important lesson about The Football Club: one bad week means almost nothing. Rad Dad provided the evidence. After opening the season with a miserable 13 points and landing in a tie for 17th place, he apparently decided that was enough humiliation for one year. Rad Dad exploded for 32 points in Week 2, earning the MVP Award and vaulting himself back into the conversation. That is a 19-point improvement in seven days. Apparently the preseason #6 ranking wasn’t completely insane after all.

The official Runner-Up MVPs were MJD Hogg and Nighthawk with 29 points each. However, there was an unusual character lurking between them and Rad Dad on the scoreboard. Artificial Intellipicker scored 31 points, which would have been good enough for Runner-Up MVP if silicon-based life forms were eligible for club awards. They’re not. Only human beings can win MVP, which seems suspiciously discriminatory to your new columnist, but I will respect the rules. Fearless Tuna graciously bestowed upon me the title of Honorary Runner-Up MVP, and I intend to milk that completely meaningless honor for as long as possible.

Week 2 was also a very good week for Fearless Tuna. After winning the Week 1 MVP with 35 points, Tuna followed it with 27 more and remains alone in first place with 62 points. He’s now spent both weeks at #1 and has opened a six-point advantage over defending champion MJD Hogg. It is still ridiculously early, but 35 followed by 27 is exactly how you build a lead without needing one monster week to carry you.

Behind Tuna, the Top Five is already getting nasty. MJD Hogg is 2nd with 56, Captain Insano 3rd with 55, Mr. T 4th with 54, and Young Tuna 5th with 53. Only nine points separate first from fifth. MJD’s 29-point Runner-Up MVP performance was especially important because the defending Club Champion has quietly moved into second place without ever leading a week. Captain Insano followed his 32-point opening with 23 and remains right in the hunt. Mr. T has put together two solid weeks, while Young Tuna has backed up his excellent opening and currently occupies that coveted final Top Five position.

Then comes the traffic jam. Stinkerbell sits 6th with 51, while Shaylene and Artificial Intellipicker are tied for 7th at 50. Drummer Boy and Hoosier Daddy are tied for 9th with 49. That means Artificial Intellipicker went from 14th to tied for 7th in one week. I would like to formally apologize for my preseason comments about everyone currently below me. Actually, no I wouldn’t. This may be my only opportunity all season to act obnoxious.

There was more to Week 2 than the final scores, though. The Games of the Week separated a lot of people. Seven players swept both five-pointers and collected the full 10 points: Nighthawk, Rad Dad, Artificial Intellipicker, Hoosier Daddy, NYC Sewer Rat, My Wife Loves Jimmy G, and Fearless Tuna. When almost a quarter of the week’s available points are sitting in two games, going 2-for-2 can rescue an otherwise ordinary sheet. Going 0-for-2 can make Sunday evening feel considerably longer.

Triple Jeopardy was even more entertaining. Cincinnati went into Houston and won 20-6, and only MJD Hogg and Rad Dad correctly picked Cincinnati while activating TJ. They collected three points and looked brilliant. Meanwhile, eight players chose Houston with Triple Jeopardy and crashed directly into the -2 penalty. Eight! That wasn’t Triple Jeopardy. That was a group field trip off a cliff. Artificial Intellipicker also picked Houston, but declined TJ and therefore escaped with nothing worse than wounded pride. Sometimes cowardice has its advantages.

The point spreads created another dividing line. Only Nighthawk and Drummer Boy managed to correctly pick all three spread games, collecting all six available points. That helped propel Nighthawk from a 16-point Week 1 all the way to his 29-point Runner-Up MVP performance. Drummer Boy didn’t have quite the same overall week, but the defending Super Bowl champion once again demonstrated why dismissing him because of an ordinary start is usually a bad idea.

Farther down the standings, there are already some familiar names with work to do. My Wife Loves Jimmy G is 11th with 48, Double-Double 12th with 47, and Bob Swerski 13th with 46. Captain Jack Sparrow, Nighthawk and Rad Dad are all tied for 14th with 45. Nighthawk and Rad Dad just demonstrated how quickly one big week can repair the damage, but Captain Jack may want to locate the Black Pearl soon because apparently it has been sailing in circles.

Roadrunner sits 17th with 39, NYC Sewer Rat is 18th with 36, and The Rickster is 19th with 35. Rickster’s position deserves special mention because we’re talking about the only three-time Club Champion in history. At the moment, however, his three championships are doing considerably more work than his 2026 picks. Artificial Intellipicker scored 31 points last week. Rickster has 35 for the season. I was instructed that good-natured ribbing is permitted, Rickster. Please direct all complaints to Fearless Tuna.

NYC Sewer Rat deserves some credit despite sitting 18th. He was one of the seven players who swept the Games of the Week, which means there are signs of life in the sewer. Roadrunner likewise has plenty of time to recover. We’re only 85 points into a season with hundreds still available. If Rad Dad can go from 13 points and tied for 17th to an MVP seven days later, nobody gets to declare their season dead in September.

And now things get much more complicated.

Week 3 marks the beginning of Head-to-Head Weekly and Pro Bowl Team Weekly. Until now, every player has been concerned only with accumulating Club Points. Beginning this week, the same picks suddenly have three consequences. You can have a terrific Club Points week and still lose your Head-to-Head game because your opponent happened to do slightly better. You can win your individual matchup and then discover that your Pro Bowl teammates have spent Sunday setting the team on fire. This is where The Football Club starts becoming less like a picks contest and more like organized psychological warfare.

The opening Head-to-Head schedule gives us several immediate divisional battles. Double-Double faces Captain Insano, Drummer Boy gets Captain Jack Sparrow, Fearless Tuna meets Mr. T, Hoosier Daddy faces defending Club Champion MJD Hogg, Rad Dad takes on My Wife Loves Jimmy G, and NYC Sewer Rat meets Nighthawk. Stinkerbell also draws The Rickster, which might be exactly the matchup Rickster needs—or exactly the opportunity Stinkerbell needs to make his September even worse. The 2026 schedule is now posted on the club site, with divisional play heavily concentrated early in the season.

Pro Bowl Team Weekly also begins in Week 3, and suddenly three individual scores become one team score. The defending champion Gridiron Guardians begin their title defense against Tuna Generations, while Daddy & His Boys faces the Hulkamaniacs and McTriple Play meets the Wild Animals. Every team will play every other team twice during the first ten games we’ve scheduled, so there will be nowhere to hide behind an easy schedule.

Week 3 offers another 42 points, bringing the season total to 127. Green Bay is the default Autopicker selection Thursday against Atlanta, and Artificial Intellipicker has already decided to stick with the Packers. Minnesota at Tampa Bay provides this week’s Triple Jeopardy opportunity. After watching eight people get incinerated by Houston TJ last week, perhaps everyone will approach that little checkbox with the respect it deserves.

The expensive games are interesting. Houston–Indianapolis and New England–Jacksonville are worth five points apiece. The Rams visit Denver for the six-pointer Sunday night. And the seven-point Triple Crown requires correctly navigating Carolina at Cleveland, Cincinnati at Pittsburgh, and Tennessee at the New York Giants. Double Stakes sends Baltimore and Dallas to Brazil, paired with Las Vegas at New Orleans. There are plenty of opportunities for somebody to make a major move—and plenty of ways to destroy a perfectly respectable week in about fifteen minutes.

So Week 3 begins with Fearless Tuna on top, MJD Hogg applying pressure, nine players within 13 points of first, and several accomplished veterans already staring up at names they probably didn’t expect to see above them. Rad Dad just proved how quickly everything can change.

And now Head-to-Head and Pro Bowl play arrive.

For the first two weeks, a bad pick merely cost you points.

Starting this week, it can also give your opponent a win, cost your teammates a win, and possibly your dignity in next week’s column.

Welcome to Week 3.

Here are the club’s picks for Week 2. Rad Dad wins the Week 2 MVP Award with 32 Points, while Nighthawk & MJD Hogg share the MVP Award Runner-Up with 29 Points.