There’s a question that has likely been brewing in the back of Kayla’s mind for a few weeks–the same question that the Cincinnati front office has been asking themselves, too.

For a few weeks, this question was dismissible. It was a nagging fear, a fruit fly swatted away with positive adjectives in injury reports. But after Week 4, the question is no longer dismissible. It demands attention, serious attention. And the answer is not clear.

The question: Will Joe Burrow bounce back?

How did we get here? For Kayla, it has been a sad saga, part of a larger tale of frustration. She was patient in the draft, grabbing Burrow 45th overall in the 6th round (second-to-last manager to grab a QB). This allowed her to stack her roster with McCaffrey, Barkley, Waddle, & Higgins, as well as a solid FLEX option in Gibbs.

Then she snagged Burrow, a reliable Fantasy bellwether and 5th-ranked QB overall. By all accounts, this was a caper–a steal. Leaving Draft Day, she had one of the strongest starting rosters of any manager in this league. Cincinnati was the presumptive Super Bowl Champion according to more than one analyst, and Kayla had a QB-WR duo from that squad that was almost sure to propel her to another Fantasy final.

Then it all fell apart.

A calf strain from summer practice was worse than the Bengals let on. Burrow (who, at +750, trailed only Patrick Mahomes (+650) for the 2023 MVP in the preseason sportsbooks) has averaged a mere 7.9 Fantasy points per game, throwing as many TDs as he has INTs. He’s currently ranked 31st overall.

Check out the chart below, which shows every attempted pass from Burrow in Week 4. Only 4 attempts beyond 10 yards and almost half of his completions behind the line of scrimmage. Don’t forget that Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins were running these routes. This is the type of pass chart you’d expect for a rookie QB, who need lots of safe reps to gain confidence. This Pass Chart does not tell a story of Cincinnati’s confidence in Burrow, even less so for a Fantasy manager.

The wild part: no one knows what to do about Burrow. Despite 3 abysmal performances (and 1 underwhelmingly average one), the consensus is that he should still be started. Cincinnati has no plans to bench him, and Fantasy pundits still suggest starting him. His history is too strong, his potential when healthy is too enticing. This leaves Fantasy managers like Kayla caught in a weekly quagmire, one that only gets even harder every day.

In Week 7, this quagmire will become a crisis when Burrow is on a BYE and Kayla’s backup QB (who, by the way, was benched in the 3rd quarter this weekend after throwing 2 interception and losing 1 fumble) faces the league’s most brutal defense against opposing QBs, the Buffalo Bills (who, consequently, have averaged 2 interceptions and 1 fumble recovery per game against opponents like Washington and Miami).

Less than a month ago, Kayla was filled with optimism to have a top tier QB with 4 years of reliability behind him. For the next 3 weeks, she will face a continuous crisis of sit vs start.

Here’s why I love this. It’s completely possible that Kayla hasn’t spent any time thinking about Joe Burrow. She could simply trust the app and count on Burrow to bounce back. Maybe she’s looked at the waivers and matchups and decided to trust in a veteran. Maybe she’s logging route trees and sees a promising offensive system in development. Maybe she’s watching game film and recognizes a few bad games as nothing more than a few bad games.

Fantasy football (much like football itself), is a game that can be enjoyed on many levels. You can pick the player you have a crush on, or you can spend afternoons looking at NFL Next Gen Stats. Either way can be fun. What a beautiful thing.

In the grand scheme of things, we’re talking about how well we can predict the accumulation of stats. This is a meaningless struggle. It doesn’t matter, beyond bragging rights and the potential for drinking whiskey out of a football-shaped bottle. You don’t have to fall into the rabbit hole to enjoy this game. But if you want it to matter, it matters. The more you learn, the more interesting it becomes.

Can Burrow bounce back? Absolutely. Will he? I don’t know. Nobody does.