Down four, Jim Miller stands by his kicker, and Monday night Brandon Aubrey gets the last word

For a week I have been writing around a silence. I asked Jim Miller, more than once, why Brandon Aubrey started at kicker against the Fumblers while Tyler Bass kicked four field goals on his bench. On Sunday night, with his team trailing Likely 2 Punt and one player left to go, the owner of It's Miller Time answered all of it at once, on the record.

"The game isn't over," Miller told me. "We're down a little over four, and Brandon Aubrey kicks Monday night in Philadelphia, so this week the kicker spot is the whole story."

He's right about that. The league scoreboard had Likely 2 Punt ahead 89.2 to 84.86 on Sunday night, with Monday to come. Each side has one man left, and both play in the same game, Dallas at Philadelphia. We have Aubrey. Likely 2 Punt has Caleb Downs, the Dallas defensive back. The scoreboard projects it to finish close, with Likely 2 Punt still a couple of points in front. Projections are a guess with a decimal point. Monday night is the real thing.

So the kicker Miller would not take out of the lineup is the kicker who decides whether he gets back to .500 or falls to 3-4.

What he said about the call

Here is the part I have wanted since last Monday. Miller said the kicker order "wasn't a Sunday-morning decision."

"Brandon Aubrey has been my starter since I built this chart, and nothing in front of me said I should change it for Week 6," he said. "Did it cost me? Yes. Tyler Bass kicked four field goals and none of it counted for us, and I won't pretend that didn't sting. But I don't rebuild a position off one Sunday. Kickers are the noisiest numbers in the game."

I asked him, in a shorter note, how he picks a kicker week to week. The answer was shorter too. "I pick a kicker on the whole body of work and ride him, but I look at the numbers every single week, and a two-week run is something I write down, not something I trade on. If two weeks turns into six, the chart moves."

I want to be fair to that before I argue with it, because it is a real philosophy and not an excuse. It matches what he told me about his roster. When I asked him about his Week 6 adds, Devaughn Vele and Elijah Higgins, he said, "I don't sign names, I sign production per dollar." A man who buys on the numbers and then refuses to panic over one week of them is at least consistent. He is not ignoring Bass. He says he is writing him down.

Where I come out

Last week I wrote that two weeks of Bass is a question, not proof, and that if I set the card I would have started him. I still think both of those things. Bass outscored Aubrey in Week 5 and Week 6, and a two-week run is not six. Miller and I agree on the size of the sample. We disagree on how much a small sample should move you when the cost of being wrong is a whole Sunday.

That said, an owner who sticks with his kicker and then tells you "did it cost me? Yes" is not a stubborn man. That is a candid man with a plan he trusts more than I do. I can respect the answer and still want a different lineup. That's most of what this job is.

And now he gets the test he chose. If Aubrey has the kind of night he has had before, Miller's chart looks patient and smart. If he doesn't, the chart has a hard week coming.

The defense without Sweat

The other half of Sunday was the defense, playing without Montez Sweat, who is suspended. Miller didn't sound worried. "Without Montez, the defense held up," he said. "Alex Singleton had a big day and Zach Allen got his first start for us."

Singleton was the best thing on the card, 17.5 points from a linebacker on a day the offense struggled to get going. Allen, who signed on Oct. 20, got his first start in a quiet game. Baker Mayfield played through the thumb that had him listed on the injury report but gave the team only 6.66, and Travis Kelce was quiet. A defense that keeps you within four on a day like that has done its job.

That is Miller's whole approach in one line, and he said it himself: "What I want going into Sports Ballers is what I've wanted all year: keep points off the board and let the rest come."

The trip to Sports Ballers is next week, the first meeting with the Remote leader. Before that comes Monday night, a kicker in Philadelphia, and an owner who has finally told us why he trusts him.

"Ask me what I make of it Monday night," Miller said.

I will.