Halloween inspired me to try to work some tricks and treats into this week’s Take-O-Meter. I tried and failed, mostly. The NFL is scary enough, with decades-long overlords pushing propaganda, lust blinding consensus to the truth, and math haunting coaches like Freddy Krueger every night in perpetuity. Look out for some spooky (derogatory) wordplay mixed in when Kyle Shanahan and the San Francisco 49ers come up toward the end, but don’t get your hopes up for a bunch of jack-o’-lanterns, candy corn, bats, witches, or spiders. What I’m giving out this Halloween is a lot scarier: hard truths and bad jokes.
TOM reminders: The scale goes from 1 to 11 (the higher the number, the better I feel about the take), because 11 is bigger than 10. Read some of my previous Take-O-Meters to get up to speed on some of the fun we’ve had through seven weeks of the TOM project. If you’re a longtime Meter Reader, welcome back home. If you’re a Meter Writer (emailer), can you please update our thread with takes on what you want your favorite team to do before the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday, November 10? If you want to be a new Meter Writer, please email me your pleasantries, etc., at takeometer@spotify.com. Almost 100 (!) Writers are buzzing in my inbox currently; there are legitimately dozens of us. Dozens!
OK, stop booing and we can get to the show.
Kevin O’Connell is Nick Sirianni if Sirianni were hotter and called plays.
Before anyone gets mad, let’s start with some hard evidence. Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell is traditionally hot.
O’Connell is out-of-the-box hot, with a nice smile, pretty eyes, and a chiseled jawline. He’s also a hatfish, clearly, because if you type “kevin o’connell no hat” into Google, you don’t get too many glimpses of KOC’s hairline eroding like a soggy sandcastle stuck too close to the tide.
Every balding man enters a hat phase. Some never leave it because they don’t have Larry David’s swagger or Jason Statham's accent and body and aura. KOC is a good-looking fella in a hat. That’s obviously true. He’s also a blatantly mid offensive play caller.
O’Connell seemed like an instant success when the Vikings hired him in 2022. In his one full season with Kirk Cousins, who is still balling out today with the Las Vegas Raiders at 38 years old, KOC led Minnesota to a 13-4 record, an NFC North crown, and a home playoff game. The defense didn’t have Brian Flores yet, and a lot of the wins were magical, hard-to-reproduce fourth-quarter comebacks. But O’Connell’s Vikings lost only four games in his first season as a head coach, which was impressive enough to mask that his offense ranked only 13th in EPA per drive that season. But KOC’s offense hasn’t ranked better in any season since; it’s never ranked higher than 16th in EPA on designed running back runs. In O’Connell’s one season with eventual Super Bowl winner Sam Darnold, the dropback passing game ranked dead-on average again (16th) in EPA. Joshua Dobbs, Nick Mullens, and Carson Wentz—backup quarterbacks whom O’Connell has whispered to in 13 combined starts in Minnesota—combined for 17 touchdowns, 18 interceptions, 12 fumbles, and a 5-8 record. Do I have to bring up Jaren Hall or Max Brosmer? I won’t out of courtesy to the families and to stop shoveling dirt on the lede: J.J. McCarthy, who was the no. 10 overall pick in 2024 and whom KOC and the Vikings gave away for a fifth-rounder last month, is playing the best football of his NFL career out of earshot of O’Connell’s loudest, proudest whispers.
McCarthy went 20-of-28 for 252 yards, with zero touchdowns or picks and three sacks, in his first start for the New York Giants on Sunday. That was a week after he threw for over 200 yards in the fourth quarter when the Giants benched Jameis Winston while down big against the New Orleans Saints. In 287 dropbacks with KOC, McCarthy averaged –0.14 EPA per dropback, which is just a hair worse than what current Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray is averaging (–0.12) so far this season. McCarthy’s EPA is through the roof (0.22) on a small sample size of Giants dropbacks (49), but what Eighteen (Nine 2.0) is putting on film just weeks after jumping into a brand-new offense is special. McCarthy’s ball placement and confidence have been at a standard we haven’t seen from him since his Michigan days, when he led Jim Harbaugh’s Wolverines to a national championship in January 2024. But partly because we’ve seen this kind of play from McCarthy before, credit cake needs to get dished out to Giants head coach John Harbaugh and his offensive staff in addition to the fat slice that J.J. himself deserves. As for blame pie, I’m launching that in KOC’s cute face like it’s 1913.
O’Connell loudly tried to fix McCarthy’s footwork and overall passing mechanics during the 2025 season, a year after McCarthy became the first first-round quarterback ever to miss their entire rookie year due to injury. It reminds me of that video of Jim Harbaugh and his OC Mike McDaniel discussing handoff details not even two months ago. It’s never a good sign when coaches are trying to fix fundamentals in any month of the season after August. That can be a reflection of poor time management in the offseason or disagreements on the fundamentals between coaches and other coaches, or between coaches and players. Regardless, it’s a bad outcome, and the common denominator for bad outcomes at the quarterback position in Minnesota isn’t McCarthy, Murray, Wentz, Darnold, Dobbs, Mullens, Cousins, or Brosmer. It’s O’Connell. The common denominator for mid-to-bad Vikings offenses overall over the past five years is O’Connell. None of the quarterbacks on the KOC carousel have had any postseason success, and the pieces around O’Connell that have remained relatively constant over the past five years only make it easier to create the case against O’Connell being an offensive guru and QB whisperer.
O’Connell got away with McCarthy’s crash and burn in Minnesota because Nine and former general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who was hired the same year as O’Connell in 2022, ate most of the blame pie. The Vikings scapegoated Adofo-Mensah after he let Darnold walk in free agency, the KOC-Nine combination didn’t work, and Darnold won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks. But Kwesi didn’t trade McCarthy away for a fifth-round pick. O’Connell, Vikings ownership, and new general manager Nolan Teasley gave up on McCarthy.
Defensive coordinator Brian Flores, who is comfortably second behind Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald on the list of top defensive play callers, would have probably given up his role on KOC’s staff to take a head coaching job if Flores weren’t suing the league for racial discrimination in its hiring practices. (The allegations aren’t surprising, and this kind of investigation is overdue.) The Vikings quarterback room has been a clumsy carousel, but Flores has been one of the biggest advantages in football since joining KOC’s crew in 2023. And O’Connell’s offense is star-studded. Wide receiver Justin Jefferson is one of the best players in the NFL. The Vikings’ tackle tandem, Christian Darrisaw and Brian O’Neill, is up there with the best in the league. Tight end TJ Hockenson is still a good player at 29 years old. The list of the best pieces on the Vikings starts with Flores and multiple offensive players, not KOC. If Flores wants to come back in 2027 for whatever reason, maybe that alone is enough for O’Connell to keep his Vikings hat squarely on his head.
But with or without Flores, KOC can no longer escape the same hate that Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni gets every week. Sirianni fairly gets the “what exactly do you do here” treatment because he doesn’t call plays and the Eagles suck right now. But I’m asking now: What exactly does O’Connell do for the Vikings other than call (mid-to-bad) plays? The Vikings have the worst offense by EPA and success rate of any undefeated team this century, so please don’t bring up their 6-0 record. We sang and danced to that same fraudulent tune with KOC and Kirko in 2022 and again with KOC and Darnold in 2024.
Houston, we have a problem. And it’s DeMeco Ryans.
Enough is enough. Houston Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans is a lot hotter than O’Connell because he’s beautiful and bald (and a jacked-up former NFL linebacker who could probably still get 10 tackles in a game). But his seat needs to warm up to a temp a smidge closer to his sex appeal after he got sliced and diced by Eighteen at home.
The Texans faced the Bills, Bengals, Colts, Cowboys, Titans, and Jaguars before giving up 27 points (and two missed field goals) in an overtime loss to the Giants on Sunday. Quarterbacks Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Dak Prescott, and Trevor Lawrence all had success against the Houston defense, which maybe we can overlook because all of those passers are playing well at the helms of good offenses. The Colts and Titans haven’t put a good offensive performance together really all season, so it’s not surprising that the Texans defense played better in those games. Ryans also took back play calling before the Tennessee game in Week 5. But the performance against McCarthy in his first start with the Giants was vile. The final straw for me is Ryans’s defense getting gashed on the ground by a running back room that Harbaugh openly hates and a quarterback the entire world gave up on a million memes ago. We have to admit that Houston’s vaunted defense has taken a big step back. Here’s where the Texans defense ranks in success rate in six different areas so far this season and where it ranked the past two seasons:
Texans Defense Success Rate
Ryans hasn’t hired a game-wrecking offensive play caller in two tries between Bobby Slowik and Nick Caley. Ryans’s game management, specifically fourth-down decisions and timeouts, has been suspect at best. And now his defense, which should be Ryans’s bread and butter, is underperforming while it has arguably the league’s best defensive player (Will Anderson Jr.) and best cornerback (Derek Stingley Jr.), along with more than enough supporting talent at all three levels. With an easy slate of offenses coming up after the Week 8 bye, Ryans has as good of an opportunity to break out of a slump as any. The Texans will have the Chargers, Browns, and Colts for their next three games. I showed some faith in Ryans and his defense when he took over play calling after Week 4, but he needs to flip the narrative before they host the Ravens at home in Week 12 if I’m going to buy any more stock in beautiful DeMeco.
Dan Campbell was simply right to go for it.
The Detroit Lions have gone for it on fourth down 22 more times than any other team since Dan Campbell took over as head coach in 2021. Campbell gets a lot of heat for his fourth-down aggressiveness after losses, but this week he is getting shit-talked after a game he won because of a fourth-quarter fourth-down decision. With the game tied at 17 and 4:53 remaining in the fourth quarter on their own 22-yard line, the Lions gambled on fourth-and-1-and-a-half with a fourth straight touch to running back Jahmyr Gibbs. The Green Bay Packers sent a run blitz and snuffed Gibbs in the backfield. Packers rookie kicker Trey Smack, who’d missed a 26-yard chip shot wide right earlier in the game, missed a 35-yard field goal after the turnover on downs, so the Lions got the ball back with the score still tied and orchestrated a 10-play, 71-yard scoring drive to win in regulation.
“I know what you’re conceding, but I also know without any doubt that we’re getting the ball back with plenty of time to answer and rebuttal whatever they’ve done,” Campbell said about the fourth-down decision in a presser this week. “It’s really that simple. … I want to leave it in our hands and take it away from anybody else.”
Curling athletes and fans know that a pregame contest called last stone draw is always played to determine who will get the advantage of throwing the last stone or, as it’s more commonly known, the hammer. Earning the hammer (final possession of the ball) in football isn’t as simple because it’s determined by how teams manage the clock and timeouts, which is a constant math headache for NFL coaches every week. Coaches other than Campbell, obviously, who is able to see it for what it is: “really that simple.” Campbell would rather have the ball back down seven after a failed fourth-down conversion than punt the ball away and risk giving Green Bay the opportunity to drain the clock on a long scoring drive (like the Lions did during their game-winning possession with the hammer). Campbell also understood that there was a chance the Lions would get the ball back with the game still tied at 17 if, say, Green Bay’s rookie kicker missed a second easy field goal. Detroit won the game because although math is incomprehensible dark magic to most coaches, it’s frustratingly simple for Campbell.
Do you have any effing idea how easy this is for Campbell? This is an effing joke. Almost as much of a joke as Detroit’s play sequencing that set up Campbell for the decision on fourth-and-short. Gibbs turned a short pass off play-action into a 9-yard gain on first down. He made it third-and-less-than-a-yard after a second-down run up the middle out of heavy personnel. On third-and-1, Lions offensive coordinator Drew Petzing called another play-action pass with routes downfield and Gibbs as the checkdown in the flat. Quarterback Jared Goff eventually threw it to Gibbs behind the line of scrimmage, and Gibbs was tackled for a loss. The Lions went to Gibbs again on fourth down with an under-center run out of heavy personnel, and the rest is fond history for the Detroit faithful because Campbell knows what the hell he’s doing. It’s easier to poke fun at Campbell’s fourth-down decision because behind every joke is a little bit of truth and hindsight is never false. It’s harder to steal people’s attention by criticizing Petzing’s play calls or the team’s execution because that requires nuanced jabs, not just a polarizing cheap shot that your favorite Instagram guru calls a hook. Not everything is a punch line.
A fair criticism of Detroit’s offense, I’d argue, is that Petzing’s play calling can get overreliant on Gibbs. If you’re going to give Campbell or the Lions shit, knock them for blowing a second-and-1 opportunity and pressing the Gibbs button four straight times on the most important possession of the game. Even if the math is that simple, Campbell and Petzing’s offense can’t be that simple.
The time for the Raiders to start Fernando Mendoza is now.
Las Vegas Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak told reporters on Sunday that the team would consider “everything” after the team’s blowout loss to the Los Angeles Rams, including benching veteran starter Kirk Cousins for rookie no. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza. The Raiders haven’t been in a rush to play Mendoza because the plan, starting up top with part-owner and Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady, is to sit Mendoza behind Cousins until the young man is ready. And even though Mendoza is suited helmet-to-cleat and ready to rock on the sideline every week, I’ve been adamant since July that the Raiders should wait to start the Nandolorian until after the Week 13 bye week so that he gets the extra week to prepare for three straight home games (Chargers, Broncos, Titans) and then the Cardinals and Chiefs on the road in Weeks 17 and 18. Nando would get all three Raiders division rivals and two easy nonconference opponents before his rookie season ends, which is better than making his first career start in the last week of the season, like Patrick Mahomes did as a first-round rookie QB in 2017, or in Week 1 next year, after an offseason of unearned media hype. The Raiders, Kubiak and Brady included, must have a similar plan because Kubs quickly nipped any thought of Mendoza starting this week, not even 24 hours after he said that he’d consider it. Kubiak told reporters on Monday that Mendoza will play eventually, just not this week, and that there’s no “quarterback controversy.”
So why did Kubiak consider it at all after the game? He’s said things before in the heat of the moment that he probably shouldn’t have, but Kubiak told a sideline reporter in the middle of a game that he was going to win that game only because that’s how he felt. I imagine he felt like he wanted to evaluate Cousins after Sunday’s loss because—even though Cousins leads the league in passing touchdowns and ranks highly in a bunch of other traditional passing stats—he isn’t playing that well. The Kubiak offense is putting Cousins in a position to succeed, definitely, but he isn’t maximizing what’s open on the field because he’s practically immobile now that he's 38 years old and his arm talent is almost all the way gone. Pass rushers don’t need disciplined rush lanes because Cousins can’t escape outside of the pocket, and if Cousins doesn’t stand in and take every hit he can, he’s going to miss plays while falling away from pressure against blitzes. Las Vegas got blown out against the Patriots and Rams because the defense stinks. But the Raiders can’t score 24-plus points on every team in the league because Cousins—in addition to the lack of talent at receiver and interior offensive line—is holding the offense back. Kubiak and other Raiders fans who’ve watched every snap of the season can see why it could be worthwhile to reevaluate Cousins as the starter over Mendoza because the young buck has better mobility and arm talent in his sleep than Kirko does now. But Kubs is also right to trust the process, not rush it. Maybe Mendoza would elevate the Raiders offense right now, but it’s a question no one is making Kubiak answer. At least not yet. Competing for late January is an important step in rebuilding the winning culture the Raiders have missed since the late, great Al Davis’s final glory days in the early 2000s, but forcing Mendoza in before it’s necessary would be a misstep that it seems Brady and Co. are smartly avoiding for now.
The Colts maximized the return for DeForest Buckner and Quenton Nelson.
The consensus, from my gut read of the internet and my group chats, is that the Indianapolis Colts got cents on the dollar for two aging stars on expiring contracts. Seattle Seahawks fans are buzzing about getting All-Pro guard Quenton Nelson (30 years old) for just third- and fifth-round picks, and San Francisco 49ers fans are happily reuniting with defensive tackle DeForest Buckner (32) in exchange for just a fourth-rounder. A natural reaction to that from other fan bases, including some Colts Meter Writers initially, was that Indianapolis got robbed by rushing Nelson and Buckner out of the building two full weeks before the November 10 trade deadline. I had similar thoughts racing through my brain-rotted skull in the moment, but after reading Tom Pelissero's writeup on the trades in The Sweep, I see both trades differently.
The league's interpretation of Nelson and Buckner, because they're both older players set to become free agents in March 2027, is that they’re more valuable now than they would be after two more weeks of games. But could Seattle or San Francisco have been more desperate two Sundays from now? The 49ers, who have familiarity with Buckner after having drafted him seventh overall in 2016, are on a bye and play the Raiders the Sunday before the deadline. Buckner is 32 years old, with 12 games missed due to injuries in 2024 and 2025. Pelissero noted that Buckner's experience would have capped his compensatory pick value at a fifth-round pick if he changed teams as a free agent in the offseason, so the Colts getting a fourth is already a net-positive return. The 49ers were probably always going to be the top of the market for Buckner, regardless of when the deal got done.
Trading Nelson to the Seahawks for a third- and a fifth-rounder on the same day is harder to parse. Nelson is only 30 years old and still playing at a high, high level. He's also a Colts freakin' legend. Nelson should have four to six more years as a legit starter, regardless of whether Seattle signs Nelson above the Raiders’ record-setting Tyler Linderbaum deal before 2027, trades him for similar draft capital they spent getting him this week, or lets him walk for a high compensatory pick chance. The Seahawks, Bears, Eagles, Packers, and probably more teams not in the mix before Nelson was dealt could have considered upping the highest bid to a third and a fourth or even two third-round picks depending on injuries and game results in Weeks 8 and 9. Imagine if the Seahawks lose on Monday night at home to the Bears. Do you think they'd consider sweetening the deal to get Nelson in the building ASAP? What if the Bears lose? The Packers have two tough games coming up (Panthers on Thursday night and then the Patriots in Foxborough). Does their offer change if they lose any of those games? Pelissero reported that both deals weren't "about doing right by the players," but I don't see how giving away one of the franchise's best all-time players at 30 years young two weeks before the deadline is anything but an early Christmas gift for Nelson and the highest bidder. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the highest bidder in this case is one of the most well-run organizations in the league.
Gayle Benson will finally fire GM Mickey Loomis.
I won’t belabor the point after going in on Mad Man Mickey Loomis in The Ringer’s Week 7 Winners and Losers staff column, but I want it known that I fully understand that Loomis has been with Tom and Gayle Benson for decades. I also am aware that Loomis is believed to be the executor of the Benson trust. I don’t give a flying fuck. The decisions Loomis has made for the Saints since Tom died in 2018 have been dastardly, and Gayle already fired Loomis once, from his role as executive vice president of basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans, another team Gayle owns now, in 2019. Loomis can’t even admit his roster is old, but he can tell everyone (twice) how many games second-year head coach Kellen Moore has been on the sideline. How many playoff appearances do the Saints have post–Drew Brees? Zero. How old will Tyler Shough be on his next contract? Thirty. How long has Loomis been looming large and in charge of the Bensons’ football team? Twenty-six years. Shough wasn’t even 1 year old when New Orleans hired Loomis. A lot has changed since then, not much for the better beyond one Super Bowl with a Hall of Fame QB–coach combination. IDK. Maybe it’s Moore’s fault. Did you know he’s coached only 24 games now, one more than 23?
The 49ers are a real Super Bowl contender.
The San Francisco 49ers—believed by many to be the best team in football when they were undefeated going into Week 7—lost to the Atlanta Falcons last week. Maybe you’re eager to throw the game away because wide receiver Mike Evans and other 49ers starters were out injured, because the game was on the road, or because every team gets to burn the tape once or twice. Or maybe you just forgot because it was a full internet year (week) ago. Either way, you shouldn’t overlook that game. It was a mad genius dog fight between 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and Falcons DC Jeff Ulbrich, and Ulbrich got the better of Shanahan and former MVP front-runner Brock Purdy. Ulbrich has maximized Atlanta’s no-name defensive unit all season, but shutting down San Francisco is Ulbrich’s best work to date. The Falcons defense forced Purdy into boneheaded decisions he doesn’t usually make, and Shanahan did everything he could without Evans and with running back Christian McCaffrey in and out of the lineup because his “leg died” during the game. Tight end George Kittle also made sure the media knew they had only four active receivers against the Falcons. Burying concerns about how the 49ers offense performed against a good defense like Ulbrich’s under injury excuses makes sense because Evans, CMC, and seemingly every other player on the 49ers roster can’t stop getting injured. Evans has had quad, hip, groin, ribs, foot, ankle, and Achilles injuries all come up THIS SEASON. At this rate, the injury bug could eventually swallow his head, shoulders, knees, and toes in time to dine on his eyes and ears and mouth and nose before New Year’s. McCaffrey has recovered from bilateral Achilles tendonitis and is now battling random cases of zombie leg. I haven’t even mentioned the substation because it’s a made-up fairy tale debunked by Pablo Torre months ago. A real, tangible Reddit rumor with supporting YouTube evidence and other links suggests that Shanahan’s practice intensity is the real culprit for San Fran’s constant injuries, which becomes harder to argue against the more you fall into that filthy little rabbit hole. I prefer crowdsourced internet investigative work over myths and tired jokes. Shanahan’s 49ers haven’t won a Super Bowl for a whole laundry list of excuses. If you’re listing them in your head, make sure to include all the injuries now if you have the time, and again in late January if the 49ers’ season ends anything like it’s ended all five times Shanahan has led San Francisco to the playoffs. Shanahan is absolutely maximizing the team through all of the different injuries, but the 49ers are more trick than treat on my list of Super Bowl contenders going into Halloween because I once heard demons, ghouls, and ghosts haunt the 49ers year-round.
Trick-or-Treat Mini-Meter: Top 14 Super Bowl Contenders by Pre–Week 8 Betting Odds
1 is a devilish trick, and 11 is a true treat
- Seahawks (10.0)
- Chiefs (9.1)
- Bills (8.8)
- Bears (6.9)
- Jaguars (5.9)
- 49ers (5.6)
- Rams (5.5)
- Lions (5.5)
- Broncos (5.4)
- Patriots (5.4)
- Vikings (5.3)
- Ravens (5.1)
- Bengals (5.0)
- Cowboys (4.6)
The Chiefs’ pass catchers are worse than the Dolphins’.
Calm down, Chiefs Kingdom. If you’re seeing red because you can’t handle the heat, breathe out and lock in. We’re going to take this slow.
The Kansas City Chiefs have five players with more than 70 routes run through seven weeks, not counting wide receiver Tyquan Thornton because he’s out (ankle) for the rest of the year. The Miami Dolphins also have five: former sixth-round pick Malik Washington, rookie third-rounders Chris Bell and Caleb Douglas, rookie fifth-round pick Kevin Coleman Jr., and third-round tight end Greg Dulcich, who’s on his third team in five years. That group, very fairly, is widely considered the worst pass catching corps in football. For Kansas City, future Hall of Fame tight end Travis Kelce leads all Chiefs and Dolphins players this season with 343 receiving yards, and Noah Gray is one of the better no. 2 tight ends in the league (plus, he has five years of experience with QB Patrick Mahomes). Wide receiver Xavier Worthy is a former first-round pick and has the fastest recorded 40 time in NFL history, and Rashee Rice has played as well as any receiver in the league in bursts over his four-year career. Jalen Royals, a 2025 fourth-rounder with seven career catches, is the fifth man for Kansas City in this exercise, and he’s probably the worst of the 10 considering his experience and role in the offense. Kelce, Gray, Worthy, and Rice are obviously better than Washington, Dulcich, and three rookies, but of course they are. They should be. All four of them have a lot of experience in Andy Reid’s offense with Mahomes. All four of them have made big plays in big games.
My concern is that the talent disparity between the Chiefs’ known stars and the Dolphins’ scrubs is smaller than all of the recognizable names on paper might suggest. The Seahawks held the Chiefs to their lowest point total of the Mahomes era in Week 7 by focusing on stopping running back Kenneth Walker III, not Mahomes and his crew of known pass catchers. Not every team has the talent on defense like Seattle or a coach like Mike Macdonald, so there isn’t a blueprint for anyone to copy to stop Kansas City. But the fact that Macdonald dominated Mahomes without building his entire game plan around stopping Mahomes is evidence that the Chiefs’ pass catchers aren’t as scary as they look. It’s also evidence that the most innovative defensive coaches are leading the next evolution of the league; Macdonald, along with defensive coordinators Brian Flores and Jeff Ulbrich, is on the cutting edge of the sport today. Reid and Mahomes are catching up for the first time in their 10 years together. But let’s save “defense wins championships” for a future TOM; I don’t want to scare the nerds too much before Halloween.
