Her running back got the ball: IR Kings beat Fifth Quarter and turn to three straight Remote games

Susan Herzog is a Dallas Cowboys fan. On Monday night, by her own account, she was pulling for two Eagles. By the end of it, the one Cowboy she was counting on had done the heavy lifting.

The IR Kings beat Fifth Quarter 98.7 to 77.3 to finish Week 7, a win that snaps a one-game skid and moves Herzog's team to 3-4. Javonte Williams scored 21.5 points in Dallas's 38-21 win in Philadelphia, and the IR Kings went from a team talking about how much a loss would sting to a team that had just won.

"I'm a Cowboys fan rooting for two Eagles tonight," the IR Kings owner told me Monday afternoon, a few hours before kickoff. "Write that down, because it will never happen again."

So I have. The two Eagles were Jalen Carter and Cooper DeJean. The third man she had left was one of her own Cowboys, Williams. "I need all three of them," she said. "Six points isn't a lot, but I'm not putting it on one man's back." Made to pick, though, it was Williams, "because he's my running back and Dallas is going to give him the ball." Then, for the Eagles: "I wouldn't say no to a Jalen Carter sack, either."

Six points was her number going into the night. Williams's 21.5, by itself, more than covered it. She didn't want to put it on one man's back, and she didn't have to, but if she had, she had picked the right man.

What I keep coming back to is something she said before a single snap was played, when the loss was still very much on the table.

"2-5 would sting, I won't pretend it wouldn't," she said. "But it doesn't change who we are. The division games are where you catch people, and we have to win the close ones. Same plan either way."

It did not come to 2-5. But I take her at her word that the plan is the same, and the plan is the next three weeks.

Susan let my questions sit for a week before she started answering them, so when she talks now, I listen to every sentence. Look at the league schedule and the Remote arrives all at once: at Kamehameha on Sunday, then It's Miller Time at home, then the Sports Ballers at home. Three straight division games. The Fifth Quarter win came outside the division, so the IR Kings are still 1-2 against the Remote. This is the stretch where they can move the standings with their own hands instead of watching other people's scores.

The rest of the Remote did not sit still. The Sports Ballers beat the Fumblers 108.72 to 76.38 and sit at 6-1, three games clear of the IR Kings and the clear front of the division. It's Miller Time held off Likely 2 Punt 97.86 to 93.2 and is 4-3, one game ahead of the IR Kings and their opponent in Week 9. Kamehameha, which came into the week in last place, beat All Strong 113.08 to 107.02 behind 23.28 points from Dak Prescott on Monday night. That is a second straight win, and it puts Kamehameha at 2-5.

Here is my take, and it is mine, not Susan's. The game I would worry about first is the one that looks easiest on paper. Kamehameha went winless in the division through six weeks and now has two wins in a row, and a team that has just found its feet is a harder Sunday than its record says. If "win the close ones" is the plan, it starts on the road against a club that has stopped losing them.

The Sports Ballers game in Week 10 is the one everyone will circle, and it should be. But the IR Kings can only make that game matter by arriving at it with something to play for, and that depends on the two weeks before it. A win at Kamehameha would get them back to .500. A win over Miller Time the week after would at least pull them even with a team that is one game ahead of them right now.

There is one more thing she said that I want to respect as written. I asked about Christian Kirk, who came off injured reserve before Sunday's game. "Christian was just back off IR and he didn't get going Sunday," she said. "I didn't expect fireworks in his first week back. He's a pro, he'll earn his snaps, and where he sits on my chart I'll keep to myself for now." So I won't tell you where he sits. I don't know, and she has made it clear that is her business until she decides otherwise. What I take from it is patience, not a demotion: an owner who expected a slow first week and got one.

And because I am who I am, I will say again what I keep writing. Close games are kicker games. If you want proof from this very week, look at Miller Time, the IR Kings' Week 9 opponent. Brandon Aubrey, the Dallas kicker, put up 13 points on Monday night, and Miller Time won by 4.66. Take away Aubrey's 13 and that game goes the other way.

The IR Kings have their own. Daniel Carlson made field goals from 58 and 51 yards in Week 6, the kind of kicks that win the close ones Susan is talking about. Fifth Quarter did not come down to him this time. A team built on catching people in the division is going to need him in the last minutes of more than one of these Sundays, and I don't think that is a small thing in a three-week stretch like this one.

The Cowboys-fan-for-Eagles arrangement, Herzog promised, was a one-night deal. It worked out fine for her, and the Cowboy was a big reason why. The plan is not a one-night deal. She told me what it was before she knew how Monday would end, and it has not changed now that she does. Same plan either way.