Week 1: The Big Short
In 2005, Michael Burry noticed something. Not because somebody told him. Not because he heard it on CNBC. Not because he read the same Wall Street Journal article as everybody else and then repeated the same information back to people who had already read it. He actually did the research.
Burry, the eccentric hedge fund manager portrayed by Christian Bale in The Big Short, began combing through thousands of individual mortgages buried inside mortgage-backed security tranches. And somewhere underneath the Wall Street jargon, AAA mortgage ratings, and widespread belief that the American housing market was indestructible, he found an anomaly: the loans were shit.
Borrowers were being approved for mortgages they couldn't afford. Interest rates would eventually reset. Defaults and foreclosures would rise. And once enough of those mortgages failed, the mortgage-backed securities built on top of them would collapse. Burry saw it years before almost anyone else did, so he bet against the housing market.
The problem? Being the only one who’s right will often look a lot like being the only one who’s wrong to everyone else.
Burry had to continually pay premiums to maintain his position. Month after month. Year after year. Money kept leaving his fund while the housing market continued climbing. His investors became furious. His colleagues thought he had lost his mind. People wanted their money back. From the outside, Burry appeared to be lighting money on fire while stubbornly refusing to admit that he had fucked up.
But that's not what Burry saw. What everybody else saw as wasted money ($80M - $90M in annual premiums for 3 years), Burry saw as the cost of the investment. Because Burry knew something they didn't.
And eventually, the adjustable rates reset. Eventually, the defaults came. Eventually, the housing market collapsed. And when it did, the man everybody had laughed at suddenly looked like the smartest motherfucker in the room …. Total profit: $2.69 Billion!
Funny how that works.
Sometimes the smartest person in the room gets laughed at the most; usually by people who believe themselves to be his fantasy football peers but don't possess the research, foresight, or frankly, the fantasy intellectual capacity to understand what he's seeing.
Which brings us to the 2026 JNIC FFL Draft.
I already entered the draft with Jahmyr Gibbs at a cost of $63; one of the most valuable assets in fantasy football already sitting comfortably on my roster. But I had been doing some research. And somewhere inside the available running back market, I saw an anomaly.
His name was Kenneth Walker III.
Now, most people saw what the fantasy football community had always seen: a talented runner, explosive and productive, but never truly a three-down workhorse. So Walker fell through the cracks. And that's understandable when everybody is doing the same research, listening to the same podcasts, reading the same rankings, watching the same YouTube videos, and following the same fantasy analysts who are largely repeating some variation of whatever the analyst before them already said.
But while everybody else was researching fantasy football, I was researching football.
I listened to the training camp press conferences, coaching interviews, and the godfather of offensive innovation: Andy Reid. And somewhere in one of those press conferences, Reid started talking about Kenneth Walker's abilities and the running backs Walker reminded him of. I heard it, and I knew exactly what the fuck he was saying.
He wasn't talking about Clyde Edwards-Helaire. He wasn't talking about Isaiah Pacheco.
Andy Reid has coached some special running backs in his career. Brian Westbrook. Jamaal Charles. Guys who weren't simply handed the football on first and ten. Guys who could run between the tackles and the outside sweeps, catch the swing passes and check-downs, pass protect, and stay on the field for all three downs.
And then there was that little twitch in Reid's red handlebar mustache. That smirk was all that I needed to know. Add in the three-year, $43 million contract and multiply that with Patrick Mahomes suddenly walking around with a freshly donned knee brace.
That's when I saw it: the anomaly.
Andy Reid wasn't planning to use Kenneth Walker like the Kenneth Walker we'd known. He was planning to turn him into one of the increasingly rare commodities in modern football: a legitimate three-down workhorse.
That’s right. Kenneth Walker III - or how I’d like to refer to him moving forward: “K1. K2. K3.” (Y'all should probably start learning the name now.)
So I entered the draft with a plan: Kenneth Walker III would be my RB2. And one by one, I watched the other running backs in that tier disappear. I stayed quiet. Didn't panic. Didn't chase. Didn't get caught up in what everybody else was doing, because I knew who my guy was. Internally, I had already allocated a smooth $45 from my budget to get him.
Eventually his name appeared on the board. The bidding climbed. $30. $35. $40. We got into the forties and I was comfortable. Everything was going according to plan.
And then... enter Lance Miller.
"$50!"
Fuck.
Now I'm sitting there trying to figure out whether Lance actually wants K1 K2 K3 or if he simply decided that his afternoon entertainment will consist of reaching into my wallet and forcing me to bid another ten dollars. Either way, the answer didn't matter, because I knew something Lance didn't know.
I wasn't leaving without Kenneth Walker.
So we kept going. $52. $55. $58. Once we crossed $60, I figured Lance would finally bow out. And with one second remaining...
"$61."
Motherfucker.
Eventually, I got him for $62. Seventeen dollars more than I originally planned to spend.
And this is where Michael Burry enters the story again. Because everybody else saw $62. I saw $17 in premiums. That additional $17 wasn't money wasted. It was the price required to maintain my position, because the value of a player isn't determined by what you hoped to pay for him. The value is determined by what he ultimately produces for your team. And I believed Kenneth Walker would produce significantly more than $62 worth of value.
Naturally, this being the JNIC FFL, somebody who hadn't done the research felt compelled to offer an opinion.
Enter Robert Anthony Johnson.
Crummy Johnson; a man with one of the lowest win totals of the 2020s. A man who hasn't won a playoff game since 2018. A man who has spent most of this decade occupying the exact fantasy-football space where confidence dramatically exceeds evidence.
Crummy looked at my investment and confidently announced in the chat “you fucked up when you drafted Ken Walker."
Ah. There it was. My Big Short moment. The investor pounding on Michael Burry's desk demanding to know why he's wasting money. Except in this version, the investor isn’t “fantasy-rich.” In this version, the investor has a sub-.500 record in the last decade, no playoff victories, and two Shitty emoji’s next to his name.
And Bobby wasn't alone. Sunday afternoon, another voice rang out. David "Dynasty-of-One" Duncan.
"Owen."
Now, unlike Bobby, I will give Dunc credit. Much of the noise that comes from Dunc is exactly that: noise. But the Dynasty-of-One at least backs up his chatter on the fantasy gridiron. Since rejoining the league in 2019, Dunc has remained consistently relevant; three championship appearances and a chip on his resume; constant playoff appearances. His counterpart? Not so much.
Which is what makes this partnership so fascinating. Dunc is essentially the accomplished friend in the group who keeps bringing his unemployed friend to the cookout and letting him talk shit like they share the same resume.
They do not.
In the seven years since Dunc returned to the league, Crummy no chips, no medals, has made the playoffs just twice; both from the sixth ranking. His playoff record during that span? 0-2.
Owen Two.
Yet somehow, this resume has not prevented Tone from becoming CNBC's Jim Cramer every time somebody else makes a transaction. Tone is always the first to tell you a player is overpriced. A roster is weak. A strategy won't work. A draft pick was a mistake. And every time he does, I find myself wondering whether we're all operating under some shared delusion that this man has earned the right to speak from a position of authority.
He has not.
If fantasy football takes were backed by collateral, Bobby's opinions would be subprime. No documentation. No verification. No assets underneath them. Just three years from a decade ago of eating off of a bad Claude Craig trade.
And yet, the confidence.
Anyways, Sunday evening ended, and Monday night arrived. Dre: 124.86 - Zach: 102.04. Dre had Jaylen Waddle remaining. I had Kenneth Walker. Twenty-two point deficit.
Dunc had already pronounced me Owen One. Bobby had already explained that I fucked up drafting Walker. The market had spoken. The analysts had issued their reports. The position had been mocked. All that was left was for trading to begin.
I watched the game on my phone while putting my son to sleep. Kansas City's first possession begins, and Kenneth Walker gets the ball. Then he gets it again. And again. And again.
By the end of Kansas City's opening drive, Kenneth Walker III had seven carries. Seven. On the first drive. He didn't even score the touchdown, and I didn't care, because at that exact moment, I knew. The investment had already paid off.
Forget the fantasy points for a second. Forget whether I won the matchup. Forget $45. Forget $62. Forget Lance Miller pushing the bid. Everything I had researched during the offseason was unfolding on my phone screen in real time.
Andy Reid wasn't rotating him like some committee back. He wasn't treating him like a situational runner. Kenneth Walker wasn't coming off the field.
And just like that, the crash had begun. What I didn't know yet was that Kenneth Walker wasn't simply going to validate my research. He was about to save my fucking week. Carry after carry. Catch after catch. Point after point. The deficit disappeared. "Owen One" disappeared. Crummy Johnson's draft analysis disappeared. And Kenneth Walker III single-handedly dragged my team from the jaws of an 0-1 start into the winner's column.
Final score: Zach, 134.64 - Dre, 125.56. Week One. 1-0.
My delight in winning the matchup was only surpassed by the speed with which the fantasy gods chose to publicly refute Robert Anthony Johnson's dumbass take. He couldn't even get one full week out of it. Not a month. Not half a season. Not even seven days. Kenneth Walker's first game as a Kansas City Chief. Immediate rebuttal.
Imagine having a take age so poorly that it doesn't survive the weekend. Bobby didn't miss by a little. There was no gradual erosion. No slow realization that maybe the original thesis was flawed. The man announced the investment was bad, the opening bell rang, and by Monday night the stock was ripping through the roof. That's not analysis. That's performance art.
And I don't know why I continue concerning myself with the fantasy football opinions of Crummy Johnson at this stage of his career. I really don't. At this point, there is enough historical evidence available that Bobby criticizing one of my decisions should probably be viewed as a positive indicator. Like an inverse ETF. If Bobby hates the investment, perhaps that's the buy signal.
Maybe I've been looking at this the wrong way all along. Perhaps Crummy Johnson isn't an adversary. Perhaps he's a tool. A market indicator. A proprietary JNIC metric. The Tony Johnson Inverse Index.
Whatever Tone says, do the opposite.
The reality is, I do care. And because I care, I will glory in the fact that the fantasy gods allowed his declaration to age faster than that bottle of my son’s milk that got mistakenly in the hot trunk of my car over Labor Day weekend.
And Dunc? Poor Dunc: "Owen." He said it with such joy. Such conviction. Like he'd already written the headline. Then Monday night arrived and Kenneth Walker erased all the funnies.
Perhaps next time, the Dynasty-of-One should wait until the market closes before issuing the earnings report.
And so Monday night ended much the same way The Big Short did. The numbers finally caught up with the thesis. The people who laughed stopped laughing. The people who questioned the investment suddenly had considerably less to say. And the man who paid the premium sat quietly knowing the outcome wasn't luck. It was research.
That's the part people never understand. When Michael Burry's position finally hit, everyone could see the money. What they couldn't see anymore were the thousands of pages he had read, the mortgages he'd examined, the data he'd studied, and the months spent looking like an idiot while everyone else enjoyed being comfortably wrong together.
By the time the payoff arrives, people only remember the payoff. They forget the work that made the conviction possible.
Same thing here.
People will see Kenneth Walker's points. They'll see the final score. What they won't remember is the training camp press conference. Andy Reid's comments. The contract. Mahomes' knee brace. The subtle signs that suggested Kansas City wasn't simply acquiring another running back. They were acquiring the running back.
And that's fine. Sometimes the market hasn't caught up yet. Sometimes your peers laugh. Sometimes they tell you you're burning money. Sometimes Robert Anthony Johnson tells you that you fucked up. And sometimes the only thing left to do is be still and wait.
Burry had to wait years for his thesis to be proven.
I had to wait until Monday night.
The market closed. Kenneth Walker cashed in. And Tony Crummy Johnson’s analysis became worthless paper.
Thank you, Kenneth Walker III.
1-0.
No Lovelost:
The Week 1 Worry-o-Meter
Every year after the first NFL weekend, we are split down the middle between the haves and the have-nots. Six owners start the year off gloriously optimistic at 1-0. The other 6, not so much. And we say it every year: “hey it’s only week 1. No need to panic.” And while the 16-year-old adage remains true, none of us can help but having that slight panic in the pit of our stomachs when one of our “elites” doesn’t meet expectations immediately out the gate, when our starter tweaks an ankle in the first half, or when our entire lineup collectively decides “let’s just chill today.”
With that said, I wanted to create a Worry-o-Meter to highlight, out of our six owners who started with a loss to the season, which should be vibing versus those that should be in full panic mode. Let’s dive in:
Level 1: Still Trusting the Process
Dre: Nothing to worry about here. Dre might’ve started with a loss on his 2026 record, but his season still looks bright. With Quarterback/Running back Josh Allen at the helm and Bijan holding down his RBs, Dre’s team should be fine in the season ahead. Mix in Christian Watson looking like a black Jordy Nelson on Sunday afternoon and Dre’s team scored 90 points between 3 players. One thing to keep an eye on is Jaylen Waddle. Waddle ended with one catch for two yards and didn’t get anywhere near the number of targets as his counterparts, Courtland Sutton and Pat Bryant. He finished with just 0.70 points. I foresee his stats improving over the course of the season, but a new receiver with a new QB, on a new team, with a new playcaller; it’s something to monitor.
Will: No major concerns here either. I mean, George Pickens probably had his worst game of the season, and Egbuka should turn things up as the season progresses. You may need a different QB leading your team, and CMC’s role might be diminished, but he’s still getting high quality run share and targets. But you know Kyle Shannahan better than I do: do you think he’ll keep this running-back-by-committee approach to keep CMC fresh for a playoff run? I dunno personally, but Kaelon Black looked good and the Niners controlled the entire game. As a 49ers fan, that’s gotta be good thing in reality, but not great in terms of fantasy.
Level 2: I’m Taking Calls, But Come Correct
CJ: AJ Strikes Again. Not gonna lie Claude. I wanted you to keep AJ. I love that man, but there were too many questions around what he would bring to the table on a new Patriots team with a pretty chill, passive personality at QB. Not taking the talent into consideration, but Drake Maye is just a white version of Jalen Hurts: a calm-mannered, always saying the right thing type of quarterback. And when that behavior combines itself with peppered targets, Arthur Juan Brown turns mutates into the prototypical whining WR. That’s not good juju for your team. And now he’s on IR? Sheesh! Add that to the fact that Quinshon Judkins might not see a running lane all season, and you might have quite the keeper conundrum. And damn - Poor Pitts. That man hasn’t had a quality QB throw him a pass since his days at Florida. Week 1 - 1 target, 0 catches, 0 points. I saw that stat line and thought he might’ve gotten injured as well. Nope, he played the entirety of the game. Unfortunately, he’s got Cooper Rush skipping passes his way. Maybe Tua will be back for week 2 and … well, actually, nvm. Damn. Your saving grace - you might have the best fantasy quarterback of the 2026 season on your roster.
Good luck. :-)
Steve: No matter what category I plug him into, Steve was going to trust his process regardless. The irony is that taking trade calls is part of his process. Going with a Zero-RB draft strategy was a bold move, and after week one, it hasn’t paid off. But when you have CeeDee Lamb and Puka Nacua leading your WR group, you just need everyone else to be consistent with a random boom from just one player from the remaining lineup. Something to watch: Grey-bearded Matthew Stafford. Steve is going to chalk up that performance to a 17-hour flight and a divisional opponent that knows the Rams offense well. And that could very well be the case. But I saw Aaron Rodgers go from MVP to dud over the course of one year. The late 30’s ain’t no hoe. At Stafford’s age, he could sneeze wrong and fuck up his back again. Godspeed Stephen A.
Level 3: Everybody’s on the Trade Block!
Mel: I’ll say it again: it’s only one week. But damn, your roster is looking sus! With Bowers out, your team is very exposed. Omarion Hampton’s talent is there, but that Chargers offense looked like the JV team going up against the varsity squad in a scrimmage… against the Cardinals! James Cook will see better days, but I can’t say the same about the rest of your roster. Alec Pierce and Tet? I’m not sure why Dunc and Tone were so focused on my wide receivers when yours look like that. And after taking a quick glance, I noticed that no one on your roster except Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo scored in double digits. As a Giants fan, I’m sure that made you proud. But your roster is going to need some major improvements. I see a dollar-for-four-quarters type of trade happening in your near future with James Cook or Brock Bowers.
Zayn: Holy shit Zayn. You just had the week from hell. 53 points is one of the worst weekly outputs in JNIC FFL History. Maye throws 3 INTs on the last three possessions. Ja’Marr Chase is an afterthought for Joe Burrow (I think he’s low-key injured btw). Drake London … see everything I wrote about Kyle Pitts, copy, and paste it here. That ain’t getting better anytime soon. And what happened to Colston Loveland!?!? The Bears score 59 points and Loveland doesn’t record a single catch? Put that man on the block and get some pieces. The block is hot!!
Final Thoughts
A quick reminder as we get this season rolling: shit talk is not only allowed in this league, it is encouraged. It is part of the culture of the JNIC. But we do have to be careful not to let the jokes cross the line into anything that could be viewed as collusion or an attempt to interfere with owners making trades.
I know most of it is all in fun, but trades have to be allowed to move freely. Steve’s approach to negotiating is certainly uncanny, but it is also fully legal under the statutes of the JNIC FFL Constitution. So hear the man out. Hear every man out, for that matter. You are always free to reject a trade—especially if it is bullshit—but every owner should be able to negotiate without the league collectively poisoning the well.
It’s Week 1. Enjoy the win. Don’t overreact to the loss. And let’s have a great season.
