Krumpin: BREAKING NEWS — Kittle Corn buys a running back, BNF sells one and calls it depth

By SKIP KRUMPIN, Senior Columnist, Unlicensed League Psychiatrist

Sept. 29, 2026

SAN JOSE, CA. (FAKE NEWS AP) -- Kittle Corn acquired running back Bucky Irving, wide receiver Khalil Shakir and the medical file of running back Jonah Coleman from BNF on Tuesday for running back Jadarian Price, wide receiver Devaughn Vele and quarterback Mac Jones, a three-for-three deal accepted roughly nine seconds before somebody in the BNF front office remembered what a healthy running back looks like.

Through three weeks the trade reads 62.6 points to 44.8 in Kittle Corn’s favor, which is the number BNF will be shown all season by everyone in this league. The number that matters is smaller and meaner. BNF has been starting De’Von Achane on injured reserve in an actual running back slot — a 0.00 projection, in pen — with Coleman as a second IR body behind him, and it was filling the W/T slot with Xavier Hutchinson at 5.72 projected and two percent started, a number that suggests even the relatives have stopped. So BNF went and got a pulse: Jadarian Price (9.90 projected) becomes a living running back, and Devaughn Vele (8.77 projected) becomes a real W/T option. Then look at what that does to the Week 4 projection, which is nothing. BNF traded the best player in the deal and bought itself a lineup that scores the same.

Kittle Corn’s end is worse news for the rest of the room. The W/R slot that Price was holding gets upgraded to somebody who is started in 83 percent of leagues, Shakir arrives as a bench body with a Buffalo offense attached, and Coleman arrives as an IR stash, which is the cheapest thing in fantasy football and the only piece of this deal that cannot help on Sunday. Out the door go a flex running back, a bench receiver and a third quarterback: Mac Jones, 0.00 projected, zero percent started, zero percent rostered, a player who has now been traded in this league twice and has yet to be wanted once.

Kittle Corn has kept an open trade desk since Week 2 — “Kincaid and Goedert are also available for the right price,” the team posted on Sept. 19 — and this is the first time the desk closed with somebody else’s best player walking in.

“Irving was always going to be a Kittle Corn,” the team said in a statement written entirely in the past tense. “We were simply waiting for the market to agree with us. Mac Jones was a keepsake.”

“We addressed running back,” BNF said. “We addressed wide receiver. We addressed the whole roster. That is why the roster is bigger and the points are the same.”

The grade

Kittle Corn: A-minus. Best player in the deal, paid for with a flex running back, a bench receiver and a quarterback it was never going to start. The only deduction is Coleman’s IR tag, which turns a three-for-three into a two-for-two with paperwork. Grade is for the process, not for the Sunday.

BNF: B-minus. There is a real case here: the IR slot was bleeding, Price and Vele stop the bleeding, and this week’s projection is flat rather than worse. The problem is the ceiling. BNF sold the one running back it could have built around and took on a fourth quarterback to complete the set. Fixing a hole by selling the best player in the deal is not fixing a hole, it is moving it.

“Do your worst,” the rest of the league said, which is not a quote, it is a request.

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