Fire the coach? Bring receipts.

The Monday-morning coaching audit

“I would’ve won if I started the right guys.” Fine. We checked.

Hindsight through Week 8: choose each roster’s best scoring legal lineup from its starters and bench, then replay the real schedule with both opponents optimized. Same roster, same week, same positions; no waiver pickups, trades, or IR players added. This is a hindsight ceiling, not a claim that every choice was predictable before kickoff.

Lineup: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 RB/WR/TE flex, 1 K, 1 D/ST. Each player is used once. “Only you optimize” holds opponents at their actual scores, so those records do not form a mutually consistent league. Ties stay ties; hypothetical tiebreak rules are not imposed.

M.J. left 42.20 points on the bench in Week 8—and still loses to Roboto’s best lineup. The lineup meeting deserves questions; the opponent also deserves some credit. Ditka and Globo already used their highest-scoring lineups.

Week 8: who sat on the points?

These are sets of substitutions; flex players may move into an eligible starting slot. They are not always one-for-one swaps at the same position. Only the stated week’s roster is considered.

Historical ESPN box scores were checked November 4, 2026. All 96 actual starter totals reconcile to league scores; optimal totals were independently verified across legal slot assignments. Hindsight uses the position shown by ESPN. Stat corrections and historical roster/eligibility changes may affect later reproductions.