Trevor Lawrence had the week off. Jaxon Smith-Njigba didn't, and the Sports Ballers are one Monday night from 6-1

Matt Carrico had already done the math by the time he answered me Sunday night. "Lamb still plays Monday, they need fifty-one from him, so I'll say six and one when it's in the books," the Sports Ballers owner said. Then, in the next breath: "But I'm not hiding how I feel."

He shouldn't. And for once, the question I'd been chasing on this beat for a month wasn't the one that mattered.

That question was C.J. Stroud or Trevor Lawrence: two quarterbacks scoring like starters, one lineup spot, and an owner who hadn't said how he chooses. In Week 6, Lawrence put up 28.34 points on the bench. I was ready to write again that I didn't know why Carrico went with Stroud, and that I wasn't going to guess.

Then Jacksonville went on bye, and the question took the week off.

On the record, Carrico waved it away in one line. "Stroud or Lawrence: Jacksonville was on bye, so there was no decision this week," he said. "C.J. is my quarterback and Sunday didn't change that one bit."

So there's my answer, or the part of it he's willing to give. Stroud is the starter. Carrico also worked through a pile of my older questions Sunday night, and in one of those answers Lawrence was "the best insurance anybody's got." On the two-quarterback problem itself, he told me: "Ask me again in November." I will.

Here's what actually happened while I was busy with the wrong story.

The league scoreboard has the Sports Ballers ahead of the Fumblers 105.72 to 54.48 with Monday night to come. The Sports Ballers have nobody left to play. The Fumblers have one man: CeeDee Lamb, at Philadelphia. The scoreboard projects him to bring the Fumblers to about 69. To tie, he needs a little more than 51 points by himself. That isn't going to happen. I'm not calling it final, because it isn't until Lamb walks off the field Monday, but I'd be lying to you if I wrote this like it was in doubt.

The game turned on a receiver from Seattle. Jaxon Smith-Njigba scored 26.8 points, the most of anyone in the Sports Ballers lineup and nearly half of what the entire Fumblers lineup managed Sunday. Stroud chipped in a steady 16.52. Blake Corum, who scored 16.6 out of the backfield, got a shoutout from his owner. Hunter Henry gave them 10.6 at tight end.

"What decided it? Jaxon," Carrico said. "I'm cheering for a guy in a Seahawks uniform. Never thought I'd say that." Who did the most? "Jaxon, and give Blake Corum some love for the touchdown."

None of this is new from Carrico, and I mean that as a compliment. Answering a question I'd sent him before the game, about who had been carrying this team, he wrote that Smith-Njigba "is the best receiver in this league and I'll say it to anybody." Owners say a lot of things in October. This one picked the same guy before and after, and Sunday the guy backed him up.

I want to be careful about the rest, because I've been careful about it all month. I have not been in the Sports Ballers' room. I can't tell you how the players feel tonight. What I can tell you is how the owner says he feels, in his words, and he kept it to one: "Mood? Loud."

I like the rest of his answer, the six-and-one part, more than I expected to. He did the math, he knows what's left, and he still won't say the number out loud until it's real. That's the same rule I try to hold myself to.

Across the field, Michael Paden II didn't dodge it either. "Matt's team is for real; they came into my place and showed it," he told me. "Congrats to Matt." My colleague Ashley Kim has the Fumblers' side of Sunday, and I'll leave it to her.

Now my take, and it is mine. Last week Nina Alvarez looked at the season numbers and called the Fumblers the better team on paper, by about 16 points a game. She was right about the paper. Casey Monroe called the Sports Ballers the best team in the Remote but not yet proven. I think Sunday is the proof. Two 5-1 teams met, one of them the highest-scoring team in the league through six weeks, and the Sports Ballers nearly doubled them up without needing their backup quarterback or a Monday miracle.

What it doesn't settle is my old question. Jacksonville comes back. Lawrence will be on that bench again soon, and if he keeps putting up numbers there, Carrico will have a real decision to make instead of a free one. He says C.J. is his guy and nothing about Sunday changed that. Fair enough. Stroud did his job.

But the story of this team right now isn't the quarterback. It's the receiver its owner won't stop talking about. Ask me again in November.