Salami Tsunami vs Arctic Sheepshaggers — Week 3 Recap

The Result

Salami Tsunami throttled Arctic Sheepshaggers 129.96 to 76.44, a 53.52 blowout. Dennis's squad blew past its 113.12 projection to land at 129.96, while Thomas's team cratered — projected for 98.45 and delivered only 76.44. One team beat its number by a wide margin, the other missed by an even wider one. That's the whole story right there.

The Correction

The preview called it: Salami Tsunami (Dennis), by 14.78. The actual margin came in nearly four times larger at 53.52. Verdict: correct. Season record now stands at 5 of 18. I'll take it, though I'd have taken the same pick with less margin for error if I'd known what was coming.

Who Delivered, Who Didn't

Bijan Robinson was the whole ballgame — 34.3 actual against an 18.05 projection, basically doubling his number. Michael Wilson quietly went off too, 20.4 versus a modest 10.07 projected. Josh Allen actually undershot his mark, 16.96 against a projected 23.5 — a quarterback who was expected to be the engine and instead just rode shotgun while the running back carried the week.

On the other side, nothing worked. Tetairoa McMillan managed only 2.7, the Los Angeles Rams defense scraped together 3.5, and Tucker Kraft fell well short of his 9.56 projection with just 4.6.

The Bench

This is where it gets painful for Thomas. Matthew Stafford sat and dropped 16.9 while Tetairoa McMillan started and returned 2.7 — 14.2 points left on the table. Kalif Raymond put up 18 on the bench while Tucker Kraft started for 4.6, another 13.4 wasted. Terry McLaurin posted 16.7 unused while Malik Nabers started and got 5.1, costing 11.6. And RJ Harvey's 7.7 sat idle behind a Rams defense that scored 3.5, a 4.2-point gap. Add it up across those four decisions and there was a mountain of points on the sideline that never got the call.

The Swing

Marked no on the lineup-decision question, and the numbers back it up. The single biggest bench regret was 14.2 points — nowhere close to erasing a 53.52 margin. Even every bench regret combined wouldn't have flipped this one. This game wasn't decided by a lineup call; it was decided by Bijan Robinson doing Bijan Robinson things and the Sheepshaggers' whole roster falling flat at once.

Positional Results

The running back column is where this game was won — a 42.6 delta that no amount of receiver production could climb out of.

Standings Impact

Both teams sit at 1-1, but the vibes are opposite. Salami Tsunami looks like a team building real margin, while Arctic Sheepshaggers just posted its floor performance in a season where the stakes are blunt: six wins gets you to the playoffs, four or fewer puts you in the Pink conversation. With 11 weeks left in a 14-week season, there's plenty of time to recover, but the human power rankings already had this pegged as a mismatch — home at a consensus 6, away down at 8.8 — and the result did nothing to argue with that read.