My favorite phenomenon in this particular fantasy league is one owner's uncanny ability to turn it on in the month of October. Reapers owner, Nick Lewandowski, is our group's own Mr. October.

His birthday falling in the month, his love for scary movies, and pretty consistent fantasy success all point to this just being his month. Louie wins just about 65% of his October fantasy games historically, and now this year both of his wins this season have come in the month.

All of this does not seem to bode too well for The General, Julia Kurdys. Her team has had some of the greatest success of any team through five weeks in league history, and has been scoring at an unheard-of pace. Unfortunately, the gravy train seems to be leaving the station this week as one of her worst nightmares has come true: The Detroit Lions are on a bye...

Goff, Gibbs, and LaPorta—the holy trinity of the Hut's offensive production—were all enjoying a well-deserved vacation. Throw in Aaron Jones taking his own smoke break, and suddenly Julia was left trying to field a competitive roster with half her army on leave.

Believe it or not, this is one of the more historically significant rivalries in our young league's history. Both owners have made championship appearances, both have earned a ring, and both have consistently found themselves playing meaningful football deep into the season.

Through seven head-to-head matchups, the Reapers hold a narrow 4-3 advantage despite being outscored by The General by 77 points all-time. Nick has won more battles, but Julia has done more damage.

And while Julia has taken the last two meetings, Nick has always been at his most dangerous when the calendar turns to October.

After piecing together a workable roster, Julia actually found herself with a slight edge and was seen as a 52-48 favorite going into the week. A large chunk of this predicted success was predicated on waiver pickups paying off, returning players coming out big, and roster staples to not shit the bed.

When you need that many things to go right in a week, the general wisdom says that exactly none of them actually will.

Cam Skattebo (0.0pts) decided to make John Belushi proud by doing his best Blutarsky impression and dropping the mother of all goose eggs this week. This kind of thing just can't happen when you don't get any sort of production from A.J. Brown or either of your other starting receivers.

After not getting what The General needed, the Reapers saw their opportunity to capitalize and did exactly that.

A huge day from Trevor Lawrence (28.3pts) and the return of Jalen Coker set the stage for what would come over the rest of the day. Consistent production across the lineup was just what the Reapers wanted in this situation. Nothing too flashy, nothing more than they needed.

A couple of running back flex plays reaching double figures and a good special teams day ended up getting Nick's team just over the 130 point mark, and that was all she wrote on this one.

The Reapers secured their second win in the first three weeks of October, extending their all-time series lead over the General to 5-3. Now sitting at 2-4 with another October matchup still on the calendar, the defending champion isn't quite ready to be buried.

After all, the leaves are falling, Halloween is approaching, and Mr. October is just getting warmed up.