In this week's P.O. Box:

I knew Underdog had a hit on its hands when they tweaked the Eliminator contest in 2025 to feature head-to-head matchups from Week 2-16.

If you need a quick explainer, I wrote about it here:

I spent the entire second half of the summer researching, obsessing over, and drafting in the Eliminator contest knowing that the sweat would be elite and now we are here.

One of the downsides about traditional best ball formats is that there isn’t really much to sweat until Week 14. This boredom leads to some truly outrageous takes (“If I had 150 finals teams, I’d lose too!”).

But with the Eliminator’s head-to-head format, not only is there a single matchup to sweat each week, but you know exactly who your opponent is.

I’ve been getting tagged by people on X who are excited to take me out, sweating our matchup, and just generally jazzed up to be facing some familiar faces.

Patrick Donovan, who we’ve previously celebrated around here, once again has put the sweat experience on his back over at BBMDB.com. Not only can you easily see how many teams you have remaining (I started with 145 → 77 → 44), but you also can drill down to look for specific players across your portfolio:

And then best of all, you can click on specific matchups and see the entire roster for both squads ($100 side bet for the WellyMaker, Dink?!):

What’s crazy is that the sweat experience (and the trash talk) is just getting started. The prizes haven’t even kicked in yet—they start in Week 4 and then essentially double each week. By Week 11, eliminated teams will be walking away with $1K while the victor locks in a $2K min-cash.

Let’s hope Troy Franklin keeps balling so I can stay in the mix…

It’s been a few weeks since the Underdog Masterclass launched. Here are a few updates…

🤑 Testimonials. It’s been awesome to see people who took the class immediately find success.

Daniel finished 4th in the Wildcat…Paul had a sick ROI on just a few entries…and most recently, Jasta punched a ticket to the Dawg Bowl after taking the course:

📝 Course Updates. I created a few Masterclass channels in the Deposit Kingdom Discord so people can get notified about updates. These are the additions to the course since it launched:

Here is the direct link to my scroll down gems for Week 3. I will be adding these every Thursday afternoon for subs.

🎧 Blender Podcast. I hopped on the Unexpected Value podcast with Jordan Cooper this week. We chopped it up about the course, his experience selling a similar DFS masterclass, and the edges in the Underdog draft games. Listen here.

🛒 Promo. The 20% discount is over, but you can still get 10% off the course with promo code BADGE at checkout:

🤯 BLOCK PARTY & BULLY THE SIMS: Week 3 DFS Strategy, Top Plays, & GPP Picks. JMToWin and Youdacao share how they are attacking the slate on DraftKings.

⏰ OFF & ON THE CLOCK: Week 3 Underdog DFS (Top Plays & Scrolls). Fun slate breakdown with Nez. Here are the pick ‘ems if you’d like to tail:

CORE: https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-KO7xXT2SxM
TITANS/COLTS: https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-vOWU4jO84B
TD: https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-5yRS5zrQo6
GB/CLE: https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-i3QUHZ7b1x
9 ROUTE: https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-cWxKcvUEgs
10/10: https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-NAjKr2Jbxx
CHI/DAL: https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-I4DLR8we0E

🔮 Week 3 NFL DFS Strategy for Underdog and DraftKings. This week’s Fantasy Life DFS column hit on:

I also hosted the “Week 3 DFS Jam” on the FL YouTube channel where I busted out the Randomizer wheel to draft some unconventional teams.

🤓 FANTASY LIFE: Newsletter Roundup. This week in the newsletter we recapped the big Week 2 scores, lamented the QB injuries, reacted to the rookie RB panic, and shared a sleeper WR to stash.

I regularly write the Fantasy Life Newsletter. Get it in your inbox free every morning:

💪 THE SWOLECAST: Week 3 NFL DFS Picks. Great performance from Tuttle this week.

🎉 BATTLE ROYALE BASH: Let’s Bink A Tourney For An Unemployed Guest. Another blend of familiar faces (Lou & Krutches) along with some new guests (dcharns & Jordan Smith).

☣ LOLZ: If I Had 150 Lineups, I’d Lose Too. We hit on the hot best ball topic that took X by storm.

📈 STAT CHASING: Usage Trends, Buy Lows, & Week 3 DFS Plays. Mandatory listening to get prepped for the slate imo.

☕ POURTFOLIO REVIEW: Big Scores & WR Sleepers (Week 2 DFS Recap). A big pick ‘em hit saves the day.

After Dark is back in its regular Saturday night (8pm ET) time slot. Underdog crusher D4VE returns to talk Week 3 strategy and draft some teams…

Then we’ve got the Week 3 DFS Cram at 10:30 am ET on Sunday:

For After Dark shows, you can become a YT member for access or subscribe on Spotify for a private RSS feed (I post the video/audio there directly after the show).

And then we’ll have the ShipCast at 4pm ET. We really need this Cowboys/Bears game to be good:

🚶 Book #6 for August (COMPLETED): Playworld: A Novel by Adam Ross.

Alright, we finally wrapped this up. Overall, I really liked the writing and the world building but I found the pace to be excruciatingly slow and plodding. I think if this were half the length it could have been a much more enjoyable experience, but the extended tangents really dragged it down.

I haven’t picked out a new book yet. Any suggestions? Maybe back to a nonfiction…I’ll have something picked out for next week.

🚶 Book #6 for July (COMPLETED): Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir by Craig Mod.
☁ Book #5 for June (COMPLETED): Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
🐊 Book #4 for May (COMPLETED): Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades by Rebecca Renner
🍌 Book #3 for April (COMPLETED): The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen
💉 Book #2 for March (FINISHED): Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe.
🐃 Book #1 for February (FINISHED): The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

Got a question for me? Reply to this e-mail and I’ll get back to you…