Father and son are both 2-5 now. Only the son got there by winning Monday.

Jeff Carrico told me Monday afternoon what he would be wearing. "I'll be on my couch in the same shirt I wore Sunday, unwashed," he wrote, on the record, "and nobody's allowed to say anything about it."

I won't. The shirt worked. The same game that made Jeff's week undid his father's.

Dak Prescott scored 23.28 points for Kamehameha in Dallas's 38-21 win at Philadelphia, and Kamehameha beat All Strong 113.08 to 107.02. Across the family table, the IR Kings, who still had players to use Monday night, beat Mike Carrico's Fifth Quarter 98.7 to 77.3. The Dallas running back Javonte Williams scored 21.5 of those points for them.

So the Carrico standings are level, in the least flattering way possible. Kamehameha is 2-5. Fifth Quarter is 2-5. A week ago the father was a game ahead of the son. Now he isn't.

Start with the son, because he called his shot. Before kickoff Jeff told me the week was "wide open," and that he would "rather be the guy with a player left than the guy sitting on a lead praying." He was the guy with a player left. The player was the Dallas quarterback, and he delivered. It is the second straight win for a club that started 0-5, and the first of those two came against his father, by a point and three quarters, a margin Jeff has already said he plans to bring up at Thanksgiving "before grace."

Now the father, who spent Monday on the other side of Jeff's sentence.

Fifth Quarter finished its week on Sunday, in front, with nothing left to add. Mike knew exactly what that meant. "It's out of my hands, and I'm fine with that," he wrote Monday morning. "Every one of my guys has played. I'll do some yard work, then sit down for Dallas and Philadelphia like everybody else."

He was the guy sitting on a lead. I don't know whether he was praying. I do know he had a wish, and he was careful about how he worded it.

"I'm not rooting against any young man by name," Mike told me. "I'll just say I'd like the Eagles' defense to play great against the run and have a quiet night on the stat sheet. Explain that to the fellow next to you at the bar."

Philadelphia gave up 38 points. It was not a quiet night on anybody's stat sheet. Mike never named a player, and I won't name one for him. But I think anyone who knew who the IR Kings had left for Monday could work out which young man he was not rooting against, and that young man scored 21.5.

I have covered Mike long enough to trust the next part, because he said it before the game was decided and it reads the same after. "Win or lose, I want us healthier and steadier by Week 8," he said. "We've got a heavy bye week coming, so depth matters." He said losing Roman Wilson to injured reserve "leaves us a receiver short," and that receiver is the spot he is looking at when the waiver wire opens Tuesday. He would not say who. I didn't ask him to.

That answer carries more weight at 2-5 than it would have at 3-4. Fifth Quarter scored 77.3 points and had no one left on Monday, which is a thin week by any measure, and a receiver short is a real hole with a heavy bye week coming. That is my read, not Mike's. He has struck me all season as an owner who would rather rake leaves than refresh a scoreboard, and who answers the question about next week even before this week is settled. You can call that calm. I call it a man who has owned a team long enough to know a single Monday rarely decides a season, and a thin receiver room can decide several.

Then there is the phone.

"Jeff and I will be watching the same game, I'm sure, maybe pulling for different things," Mike told me Monday morning. "We haven't talked yet today. I expect the phone will ring at halftime."

Jeff, asked the same day whether he'd heard from his father, said they had last talked the week before. "He's got his own team to worry about this week," Jeff said, and described his father as "very quiet and very smug."

I'd guess Monday night left him less to be smug about, but that is a guess. As for the halftime call, whether it came and what was said if it did, I don't know. I'm not going to write a conversation I didn't hear.

What I can tell you is what the schedule says, which I have learned to check before I trust anything else. It has a small joke in it this week. In Week 8, Kamehameha hosts the IR Kings, the club that just beat Mike. Fifth Quarter goes to All Strong, the club Jeff just beat. Both of those clubs are 3-4. Each Carrico gets the other's leftovers, and they go into it with the same record. If they are trading notes on the phone, they have something useful to trade.

The son has had the better October, and Monday made it plainer. I say that as the one who covers his father's team.

Mike told me Sunday that Jeff would get the last word once Monday was done. Monday is done. Jeff gave me his last word before the game even started, as a promise.

"If Dak gets me there," Jeff said, "I'm calling him first."

Dak got him there.