Biggest Winners, Takeaways, and Questions From a Wild Week 16!

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1:43Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shiel Kapadia. A wild week 16, maybe the wildest week of the season, all things considered. We're going to talk about it. Who were the biggest winners? What's the craziest thing that happened? And what is still left to be settled? Actually, a lot. We'll get to that as well. My guest is the Ringers, Billy Gill. Always fun talking to Billy. Never know where the conversation is going to go. Let's take a break. We come back with Billy. This episode of the Ringer NFL show is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm.

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2:53we are back here on the ringer nfl show shield kapadia with billy gill and what was maybe the wildest week of this season we don't even know how we're going to try to cover as much as we can here billy but let's start here who won the week because this was a week where seasons were kind of decided, defined, narratives shifted or flipped or whatever. Who won week 16, in your opinion?

3:18Sheil Kapadia:Who won the week, man? There are so many options as to who won the week. We could do the cop out of we won the week as NFL fans, right? But I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to say that we won the week. You know who won the week? Caleb Williams won the week. We were joking about this before this show. it was tossed out that the Caleb Williams win the week. And it was like, Oh, we're just kidding. But no, I, I think Caleb Williams won the week. It was an early win this week. It was a, it was a Saturday win and Sunday was full of wins as well. But I feel good for Caleb Williams. I mean, he was the number one pick a couple of years ago.

3:55Sheil Kapadia:There was some doubt as to whether or not Caleb Williams could lead the team. His head coach gets fired and it wasn't looking great. It wasn't looking great through the, through the first, you know, basically three and a half quarters of that game. But then Caleb Williams, who's kind of turned it on the past couple of weeks, he led his team to victory. He had, you know, things had to fall right. There had to be the onside kick that was recovered, but he had two incredible passes where only his receivers could catch him, then tie the game. Then he goes to overtime after they get the onside kick, which was kind of crazy that they recovered.

4:29Sheil Kapadia:I think that they said that coming into it, only 8 % of onside kicks were recovered, which even that seems a little bit high. this season because it doesn't feel like 8 out of 100 are getting recovered. Nonetheless, they get the onside kick and then you have an insane 45-yard touchdown pass. It's a walk-off that Moore's just laying in the end zone, basking in the glory. Did you see that the heaters on the sidelines weren't working for the Packers during the game? Yeah, kind of crazy. I don't know why they want to get out of Soldier Field. I kind of like Soldier Field. I love Soldier Field. I don't know if you've ever, yeah, it's right downtown.

5:08You stay in Chicago. I used to walk to the games when I would cover games there. I'm with you. That atmosphere looked incredible. I think Caleb Williams is a great choice. I mean, that was an incredible game Saturday night. The atmosphere and just what was at stake. To your point, it looked like think about if that goes a different way. The alternate universe where we're going oh my gosh, the Bears just got cooked by Malik Willis on Saturday night in the most anticipated game in Chicago in however many years. And now their playoff lives are on the line. And instead, what you just described happens.

5:42And then the Lions lose on Sunday. Now they've actually clinched a playoff berth and they're probably going to win the NFC North. So I think Caleb Williams, is it Caleb Williams? Is it Bears fans? Is it Ben Johnson? I don't know who is the right person to credit, but someone, maybe all of that Chicago universe, I think is the biggest winner of the weekend.

6:02Sheil Kapadia:It felt like it was, I don't know exactly who it was. So when in doubt, kind of like the MVP of the league, you just give it to the quarterback, right? Like, I'm not sure. Let's give it to the quarterback. You mentioned Malik Willis. Jordan Love, this is kind of like a freaky week for quarterback injuries, right? Some more serious than others. We saw JJ McCarthy go down. We saw Josh Allen go down at one point in time. We saw Lamar Jackson go down. Jordan Love goes out with a concussion. Malik comes in and he had a pretty good game. all things considered. Yeah, absolutely. I was like, oh my God, this is incredible.

6:34You know, now he's played for them before, but yeah, he was running, he was completing passes. And again, it's 16-6 late in that game where you're going, are the Bears really going to blow this game? This is wild that they're actually going to lose this game to the Packers when Jordan Love went out. But really, that was a walk-off in the NFL is incredible. You know, it doesn't happen often where it's just, it's the last play of the game. He's chucking it deep. To your point, I'm like, is DJ Moore injured? I'm thinking back to when DJ Moore, like one of the first plays of the game just gets leveled in the back.

7:09And I'm like, how does, you know, that play I was like, NFL athletes are different than you and me, Billy. I'll speak for myself. Maybe you, you get leveled in the back like he did from Keyshawn Nixon. Maybe you're just back up, you're potting, you're helping out, you know, you're Zach Lowe, you know, what do you, what do you need? We're recording next week. Ringer tailgate, what do you need? I would be like, I need a couple of days. Okay, somebody fill in on the Ringer NFL show for me.

7:33Sheil Kapadia:So I'm not an NFL player. So I actually got on Friday, this is gonna make me sound tougher than I am, but I'm not. On Friday, I went and I got injections into my spine and neck because I got in a car accident. Yeah, I got in a car accident a couple months ago. So I've been doing physical therapy and I've been having like this ongoing pain. So they stuck these like needles into like my spine and my neck and it's supposed to like relieve the pain. And all of yesterday, Saturday, I was just walking around and couldn't like move. I was all sore. Like, I don't know how these people are basically getting hit by trucks every single day.

8:10Sheil Kapadia:They just get right back up and they keep going. They're different. They're different. It feels like football players are different species, honestly. I don't understand it, how they just keep going. Well, now I'm worried about you, Billy. Well, no, I'm fine. I'm here today. You know what I mean? I think it took a little bit to sink in, The point is I'm not a tough man. I'm not tough at all. No, me neither. Okay. Caleb Williams, Bears. Great choice. They have a 92 % chance to win the division. According to the athletics playoff simulator, they're still in the mix to get the one seed and the buy.

8:40So what a season if you're a Bears fan right now. So that's a great choice. I'm going to go with Trevor Lawrence, Liam Cohen, and the Jacksonville Jaguars. I mean, you and I, what was it a month ago? We call Trevor Lawrence, the blooper reel QB. I know I called him that. And I, you know, you were in agreement with me since then. He's just been on a heater and this really fits the narrative of the Jaguars, Billy, because they are being like, nobody respects us. Nobody gives us any credit. All we do is win. And I thought, all right, that's going to come to an end here in Denver against a very good defense.

9:17It didn't come to an end there. Trevor Lawrence. I mean, this every week we're saying, was this Trevor Lawrence's best game of his career? This might've been the best game of his career. I mean, he's throwing lasers across the middle. He's using his legs. He's not making mistakes. And they go into Denver and they cook that defense. They went up and down the field on the Broncos defense. And the Jacksonville Jaguars now are the nobody believes in us team, that we don't get a lot of respect team. And they are right about that. Like, I hate when teams like the Chiefs, you know, when Mahomes is like, oh, we don't.

9:48No, you get respect. Everyone picks you. The Jaguars kind of have a case. Like nobody does really respect them or think they're good. But now we all have to rethink that because they keep winning these games and they look incredible.

9:59Sheil Kapadia:So they've won six straight games. The Texans in their division, the SEC now has been like sneaky competitive because the Texans won seven straight. It was looking like it was all said and done early in the season with the Colts. And then Daniel Jones kind of things started going a little haywire for the Colts before even the Daniel Jones injury. But the Jaguars, to your point, six straight wins. Trevor Lawrence, you were saying, is this his best game? Which is a crazy question coming off of a six touchdown performance last week. But this might have been his best game, especially considering the fact that they did to the Broncos, who are the one seed right now in the AFC.

10:36Sheil Kapadia:We talked, I think, a month ago about Trevor Lawrence, and we were comparing him to other quarterbacks that we had just kind of written off and thought like, you know what, this isn't going to work out. I don't know if this is the guy. and we were saying every year it seems like we say this is the make or break year for Trevor Lawrence and then he doesn't really make it and there's no real consequences and the next year we just kind of fall back into the same trap and we believe in him again. But this year he might actually be doing it. I mean, he's got to kind of finish and then make it to the playoffs and hopefully go on a little run.

11:06Sheil Kapadia:But I mean, six straight kind of now leading the AFC South there in the driver's seat. It's been a nice turnaround for them. Are you following the whole, did you follow the Liam Cohen, Sean Payton back and forth here, or do I need to fill you in on this? The small market situation? The small market. I mean, it felt like a throwaway line from Payton, but Payton does like to manipulate things through the media. So Sean Payton said during the week, he's complimenting the Jaguars on everything. And then he says, you know, it's a smaller market, but you see a real good team. So then Liam Cohen, after this win, he's at the podium and he says, grateful.

11:42I'm grateful that a small market team like us can come into a place like Mile High and get it done. And then the Jaguar social media, did you see what they were doing before the game?

11:52Sheil Kapadia:No, what did they do? They're posting all this stuff, including our very own Bill Simmons. They got all these clips of media people saying they're not very good and they're posting that. And then after the game, they got players running off the field saying small market, small like this is this is a crazy thing that's going on with Jacksonville where they are using every single thing to the point where I'm trying to figure out what's like what's the most innocuous thing I could say that they would use as bulletin board material you know if I was like Jacksonville's public bathrooms are freaking disgusting you know it does that go on like the sizzle reel next week on the Saturday night meeting and like he said our bathrooms are disgusting we're not going to take and then they come out and they get all fired up and they win seven in a row.

12:37Sheil Kapadia:I don't understand the small market thing is an insult or even really like a comment. Cause like the actual like market size would be like a media market, right. And like a television market or whatever. Right. If you're like actually thinking, I think they take it more as like, you know, if you call a town, like a one stoplight town or whatever, right. Like, Oh, this is like this little town with nothing to do, but like media market size, like who cares about that? Like, Like, why would you be, isn't like Minneapolis, like one of the bigger ones, like in the country. And like, do you think of Minneapolis is like, this is a big city.

13:10Sheil Kapadia:Like, whoa, these are city slickers here in Minneapolis, St. Paul. Like, no, who thinks that way? Like, I don't understand why you get mad about that. But I do like when someone wants to give themselves a chip on their shoulder and they want to look for something to be upset about. I think the whole small market thing, though, might be one of the lamer things to kind of be upset about. But listen, if we remember how Liam Cohn was kind of introduced to, you know, the city of Jacksonville, it didn't get off to a hot start when he couldn't do Duval. Right. So they were kind of looking at him like, Ooh, I don't know if this is the guy that we want or not.

13:45I feel like that's tough. Say Duval. Your first day to have to do that, you know, in front of everybody, I would feel very awkward. I'm not going to do it right now. I'm telling you right now, you can do it if you want. I'm not doing it. Duval. Okay.

13:58Sheil Kapadia:Yeah, I think so. Do you think you practice that? Like, what do you practice in the mirror? Cause like I'm thinking of in the sports world, like what are things that people do, uh, to kind of like ingratiate themselves to the fans and what are like kind of sayings that the fans do. So every time that Russell Wilson switches teams, he tries to come up with his own catch phrase, but no one uses those catchphrases. So that's not the same thing. I'm thinking back to, uh, I'm thinking back to like, I don't remember who it was, went to like Arkansas in college and tried to do the like, woo pig suey thing that they did.

14:34Sheil Kapadia:I do remember that. This is really strange. And I think that Duval is, I guess, the Jaguars thing, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. He botched that so badly. There's such a, like, it's very simple to try to memorize that. That's going on the sizzle reel. They said I couldn't say Duval, right? We're coming out here and we're going to win the NFC South. I mean, you got to watch what you say. about this team. I'd love to be on someone's sizzle reel. Me too. I'd love to be motivation. Can we make that our goal? Yeah, say something outrageous. What team do you want to motivate? No, no. I think it has to be the Jaguars because right now the Jaguars are like an enemy of the ringer.

15:10They go after one of our people and they're also the team looking for stuff. So let's work on it. I don't think we have to do it right now. Let's think about this. We come back to it and let's think of a way to motivate the Jaguars because I don't, you know, my bathroom thing earlier, I think that probably didn't do it. But like I said, they deserve, listen, they're playing great. Liam Cohen, fun new character. He had the whole thing with Robert Sala. He had the Duvall thing. Now he's got this thing with Peyton. He'll yell at Trevor Lawrence and he seems to be a great coach. I mean, their offense, Trevor Lawrence has never looked better.

15:46They're winning all these games. Their offense looks great. So Liam Cohen is my nomination for most fun new character of the 2025 season. All right, let's take a break. We come back. Our next question is going to be, what's the craziest thing that happened this weekend? Because a lot of crazy things happened. The Ringer NFL Show is brought to you by FanDuel. Tis the season to be boosting on FanDuel. Because this year you're getting seven straight days of holiday rewards, each one waiting in the app for you to unwrap. Every day brings a new way to play. So keep checking in to see what drops next.

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17:48craziest thing that happened in week 16. What do you got?

17:52Sheil Kapadia:Oh, the craziest thing that happened. Now, as you mentioned before, we went to break. A lot of things happened. And I have a game as the craziest thing that happened. And I don't know if you were going to allow this to be how I take this. No rules. I want to nominate. We had, you know, three or four really crazy games, but I'm going to nominate the Lions and the Steelers as the craziest thing to happen this week in the NFL. And I was trying to pick and pin down just one moment of the game. And I was going to say, this is the craziest thing that happened this week. But that game had so many crazy things happen that it was hard to pick just one.

18:30Sheil Kapadia:Some of them happened in the field of play. Some of them happened off of the field of play where DK Metcalf decided to just grab a fan, buy the shirt, then pull the fan down and then throw the fan back or swing at the fan. and it looked like possibly throw a punch, but I think he was holding the shirt and then the shirt allegedly was ripped and we don't have all the specifics as to what happened. I was reading somewhere that the fan may have just called DK Metcalf by his full name and DK Metcalf did not like that, which seems kind of like a crazy reason to do that. Either way, the fact that a camera caught that was also kind of wild, I guess maybe someone was wondering, why is DK Metcalf so far behind the bench?

19:12Sheil Kapadia:What is DK Metcalf doing? Is there an injury? what's going on because he was nowhere near the bench. He was like well beyond the bench, well behind the space behind the bench, right up against like the fans and somehow reached up because he's a giant human being, reached up to like 12 feet or whatever it is that you have to go up to actually get to a fan that somehow pulled a fan down, had the exchange, throws the fan back. It looks like a punch. For sure, there's going to be discipline. The craziest thing about that too was like he played the entire game, but obviously he played the entire game because who's watching DK Metcalf in any official capacity during the game that would discipline him?

19:50Sheil Kapadia:His coaches are watching the game. They're calling the plays. The officials are watching the game. A camera somehow catches it on CBS. I think it was CBS caught it. And then everyone's saying, oh, he should have been ejected. By who? Who's watching him? The fact that that camera even caught him is a miracle. Normally, that's cell phone camera footage, right? But they found an HD camera that was just following him for whatever reason and got it. And now you have to assume he's going to get a hefty fine and potentially suspended for his actions because you can't be punching fans because that's insane.

20:20Sheil Kapadia:But that wasn't even the craziest part of that game, I don't think. No. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't know. We'll find out. Did the fans say something? What was it about? We have no idea. As we're recording, we have no details. But you're right. You know, we could have nominated the camera person as the winner of the week. They're just they're keeping an eye on stuff. Yeah. OK, well, DK's walking over there. Let me because you are so right. Normally, that's a cell phone camera, grainy footage. But no, this was actually a broadcast camera person. We're security. Security had no idea what was going on or you would think they would be over there.

20:52Sheil Kapadia:If you're security, you're going to arrest DK Metcalf. Like you probably eject the fan. You probably eject the fan. Stop. Tolentate the player. The fan for sure. Again, we put an asterisk here, as I say, for sure. but an asterisk. The fan for sure was the agitator there, right? Because DK didn't just decide to walk into the stands and go and attack a fan. The fan was saying something that elicited that response, which was not appropriate, but still the fan was saying something very clearly. I think that's the most likely scenario. I would be with you. Like you said, asterisk. We'll find out hopefully more details, but I'm with you.