Predicting the Week 15 NFL Headlines

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1:06Diante Lee:Welcome to the Ringer NFL Show. I am your host, Shiel Kapadia. Today, we are looking at the Week 15 slate. We have zeroed in on three games. Bills at Patriots. Big matchup in the AFC East. Lions at Rams. Lions trying to keep their playoff hopes alive. And then Packers at Broncos, two fan bases who feel like their team can win the Super Bowl. So what's going to happen in those games? We are predicting the headlines and the storylines that you are going to read about next week. Our guest today is Deontay Lee, my friend from The Ringer. Let's take a break. We come back. We predict week 15 headlines for those games with Deontay.

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2:31Diante Lee:All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL Show with Deontay Lee. By the way, the new head coach of Bonita Vista High School, which is now, Deontay, the official high school football team of the Ringer NFL show. Congratulations, my friend. I'm so glad you told me that because I'm going to have some fundraisers ready for you guys and the listeners. You know, we'll have swag prepared. I'll make sure that all that stuff gets out. And first order of business is going to be getting the positivity money and dropping it right in the middle of the facility. There you go. Yeah, if you need me to, you know, do any research here in Philadelphia and get that shipped out to the San Diego area, I'd be happy to.

3:08Diante Lee:But of course, we are all very happy for our friend Deontay to get that gig. and we'll be rooting them on next fall. All right, Deontay, let's get to these games. We're doing a little predict the headlines for week 15. First matchup we got here is Bills-Patriots. Bills go to New England. New England is a one and a half point underdog here. What do you have for your predicted headline for this game? I have Josh Allen remains king in AFC East. We are on the same page here. Okay, because I have Josh Allen back in MVP conversation. after Bills win at Foxborough. Okay, make the case. Why do you think this is a nice spot for Buffalo?

3:49So the first thing I really wanted to do was go back and rewatch the game in week five, the Sunday night football game between the Patriots and Bills to kind of get a better understanding of how Buffalo lost that game. And A, I mean, it's just, it's so easy to forget with distance between now and then that the game was pretty close. And it ended up taking a really impressive Drake May drive at the end to be able to take the lead and control the game and put it away, right? But I think that was a very messy game by Buffalo standards. You had a bunch of fumbles in there. It was kind of uncharacteristic in terms of their inability to run the ball early in the game.

4:22But I think the biggest thing for them and what I think will be fixed when we get to Sunday is that Josh Allen, I think, is going to come into this game understanding that New England is going to play a bunch of tight coverage. They're going to try to load up the line of scrimmage. And if he's going to beat it, he's going to have to beat this team the same way he beat Denver in the wildcard round last year. was you've got to be an extender of plays. You've got to use your legs, scramble a bunch, which he did in that game, just not as effectively. And we've got to see that kind of Josh Allen tour de force, nothing you can do about him, physical specimen type of performance to win this game.

4:55And I think that just at his best, that's what we're going to get. And an opportunity like this, where if they beat New England, it is very much within the picture or within the realm of possibility that they still win this division. I expect to see Josh Allen at his absolute apex when we get to this weekend.

5:09Diante Lee:Yeah, so here's what's at stake. Patriots are 11-2, the athletics playoff simulator. They have a 49 % chance at the one seed and an 89 % chance to win the division. But if they lose this game, it opens the door for the Bills, like Deontay just said, where the Patriots would be down to 75 % to win the division here. So that's what the Bills are kind of going for. Can they make this late surge? And I am very interested in the matchup, but also the narrative, because this can be, like you said, a Josh Allen, Hey, you're great, Drake May, but it's not your turn yet, buddy. You know, you're in year two.

5:44Diante Lee:I'm still here. I showed last week in that wild game against the Bengals that if I need to just put the team on my back and take off for a 40-yard touchdown, I could do that. We've won the division five straight years. And the reason I mentioned the MVP thing is because Allen right now is plus 1 ,400 to win MVP. And to be clear, I think Drake May has just flat out been better than him this year. If you're just saying who's been the better quarterback. but there's still a month left to play here. And so if they go on a run, we know he's going to have the numbers. And if they somehow win this division, again, it's not the most likely scenario, but there's a chance that they do.

6:19Diante Lee:I think he's got a chance to kind of get back in this MVP race. So I'm with you on that side of the ball. You know, the first matchup, they had three turnovers. Like you said, it was still an 88th percentile game for the Bills based on success rates. So I think they're going to move the ball. Now on the other side of the ball, if you're a Patriots fan listening to this, you're saying we're going to move the ball on them too because we really haven't been stopped any week. And so that's true here. Now, I think what's interesting, Deontay, is that it's weakness versus weakness. You know, the only thing that the Patriots can't do is run the football.

6:53Diante Lee:They can hit you with explosives. Their quarterback's been playing awesome. They can sustain drives. They can scheme it up. And the Bills can't stop the run. So if you're the Patriots, do you come into this game and say, we're not even going to try? That's playing into their hands Or do you say, hey, if there's a time for us to get this run game right, it's probably going to be this week. I would lean the latter. Right. And I think that if you're New England, knowing that you have an MVP level quarterback on the other side and that there are big stakes in this game, even if we set aside divisional odds and focus only on the one seed portion of this.

7:24If you want to secure the one seed, you need the ball out of Josh Allen's hands. And the best way to do that is to try to get into heavier personnel, establish a run on early downs and make sure the clock is rolling as often as possible. and like you were laying out this is probably the most friendly environment to do so because you know what kind of looks you're going to get from buffalo up front they don't change their fronts very much they don't change their cover shells very much they're very much a line it up and let's see if you can beat us type of defense and this defense was struggling this year before ed oliver got hurt you know in the first half of the season and it certainly hasn't gotten any better their safeties are probably probably one of the worst tackling tandems when they are healthy and they've then banged up at that position as well.

8:05Same at linebacker. We're dealing with injuries and guys being in and out of the lineup. I just have a hard time seeing how Buffalo wins this game, unless it's a high-scoring affair, or how New England is able to lose this game if they are able to maintain possession.

8:19Diante Lee:This feels like one of those, you know, when we do like the deep dives on playoff games and we're analyzing every matchup, and then it's like, oh, they muffed a punt, or, you know, they fumbled a snap in the red zone. I could see it coming down to one weird thing because I do think they're pretty evenly matched teams, especially offensively. I just don't see either side, either defense stopping the other offense. I am interested in the Patriots' corners against the Bills' wide receivers. Like, the Patriots have more talented corners than the Bills' wide receivers. And the Patriots' defense hasn't really been tested this year.

8:53Diante Lee:If you look at all the stats, you're like, oh, they're pretty good. And then you look at the quarterbacks they faced, and you're like, ah, do I really trust it? So that's another thing I have my eye on because there have still been these stretches this year where the Bills are on offense and you go, do they have enough at wide? I know we've talked about that before. After some of these losses, do they have enough at wide receiver? And then you look up and guess what team's number one in EPA per drive after 14 weeks still? It's the Buffalo Bills. So they're making it work somehow with the run game with Josh Allen and with the offensive line.

9:23Diante Lee:So that's going to be a fun game. Can't wait for that one. Bills, Patriots. All right. Game number two, the Detroit Lions. go to Los Angeles to take on the Rams. Rams are five and a half point favorites. I'll just set it up for you here. Deontay Rams are tied for first place with the Seahawks at 10 and three. They've got a great chance to get that one seed. The Lions, meanwhile, are kind of fighting for their playoff lives. You know, I always forget it until I look at the standings and I go, well, if the season ended today, doesn't matter that they're eight and five. They would be the eight seed and out of the playoff.

10:00Diante Lee:So it means more to them in the big picture. What do you think happens in this game? My headline is Matthew Stafford, your 2025 NFL MVP. I think that this is the game where he really cements the case that it's his award to lose. And I think that a lot of this is just kind of set up by the circumstances of what he's going to be facing in Detroit's defense, right? I hate leading with injury news. Anytime we talk about football, right? I want to talk about the players that are actually going to be on the field. but I think if you're Detroit, you look at your safety room, no Kirby Joseph, you've got Brian Branch that's had this Achilles injury.

10:34You're going to be down.

10:35Diante Lee:That went under the radar, I feel like. Very much so. Maybe because it was a Thursday night game, but like I was, you know, doing the, I'm like, oh yeah, they lost Brian Branch, like one of their best players to an Achilles injury. So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. So you're down now to safeties three and four, which I think might be like Avante Maddox now playing one of the safety spots. And you're dealing with a Rams team that loves to move its receivers around. That's going to give you a bunch of formational diversity and try to force you to have to play downhill to fit the run so they can set up play action passes.

11:05This is like Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay's dream scenario is a team that's going to be very concerned about what's happening underneath and opening up those intermediate throws over a linebacker's head and in front of the middle of field safety. And the Lions love playing those single high coverages. So I went and I looked at the data, Matthew Stafford this year, 97th percentile in EPA for drop back against both cover three and cover one, 97th percentile success rate against cover three, 81st percentile against cover one. So, again, if we're just laying it out right, what we've known this season of how great Matthew Stafford has been at his best, what we've seen in terms of the volatility of Detroit's defense, not schematically, but just because guys have been banged up and they really haven't had a reliable 11 man unit on a week by week basis.

11:49this is just a bad matchup right now for, I think a pretty dinged up lines defense. Yeah.

11:56Diante Lee:The Rams offense is a bad matchup for most defenses, but I'm with you. If we had the lions at full strength here, you know, they were, they've played well at times this season. Like I said, I don't think they're underachieving their talent or anything like that. I know we've talked about Kelvin Shepard before. I mean, they're 12th in EPA per drive, sixth in success rate. I think that's pretty good for the talent they have and the injuries. they've had a first time coordinator. Absolutely. Yeah. You have the change there, but it's the Rams offense does everything. Well, I mean, rushing, passing, explosive plays, long drives, problem solving, you know, let's say the lions come out and they just, Hey, we creative game plan this week.

12:34Diante Lee:We're doing something totally different. Like McVay instead, it might take them one possession and then they're going, all right, we're going to adjust to that, um, in the next possession here. So I just think it's a really, really tough matchup for the lions defense against that Rams offense. So I look to the other side of the ball. I think if you're a Lions fan and you say, hey, what's our avenue for winning this? I don't want to say perfect offensive game, but you need to be near perfect, I feel like, offensively. And I think you have a chance. I mean, they looked great in that game against the Cowboys last week.

13:05Diante Lee:The Rams, you know, corners, I'm still not 100 % sold on. Jameer Gibbs is a 50-yard touchdown anytime he touches the ball a threat to do that. So that's really what I think the Lions Avenue is here. Like it almost, I don't want to say shootout because maybe you're sustaining long drives and the final score, but I think it's one of those where we're coming on and saying, all right, the EPA per drive or say it's really high. They were just efficient over and over and over again and didn't have that backbreaking turnover and maybe stole the game in the fourth quarter. I think it's a possibility. I do think to the point of headlines, we could be walking away from this from Detroit's perspective saying, wow, we really, really miss Ben Johnson now.

13:43this will be the game where I think you need your, you know, Wunderkin offensive coordinator to be in the building, to be dialing up enough of a run game, I think, to keep Los Angeles's front four at bay. Because when you just look at the lineup of Jared Verse, Byron Young, and Kobe Turner, and you've got these interior linemen, that's a rookie, right, and Tate Radledge. You've got a backup in Coyote Awashica, right? These are guys that have not proven very much. Graham Glassnell has just not been nearly as good as he's been at the peaks of his career. I think this season for Detroit, it's going to be a struggle to me to see how they're able to reliably run the ball between the tackles.

14:21And what we've seen this season is that the only times we really get to see them pop those big runs is the crazy athletic feats of Jameer Gibbs, which I don't want to I don't want to rule out. Right. It's entirely possible that they give him the ball on a toss or some outside zone. And this guy goes for 75 yards. That is within the realm of possibility. but just from a down to down basis, you're probably not going to have access to the kind of success in the run game that you typically would. And then that to me sets up the nightmare scenario of now we are asking our quarterback, Jared Goff to have a perfect game without guys like Sam Laporta, you know, in the middle of the field to get the ball out quickly to order stress these safeties.

14:58And now Chris Shula is a Rams defensive coordinator can say, Hey, as long as I've got help over Jamison Williams and he's not just burning up and down the field, we feel like we can corral this offense. Right. And I think that we saw that when the Packers played them on a Thursday night last week. So I'm fascinated to see what they come up with, what Dan Campbell is able to dial up as terms of being the play caller. But if I'm just, again, lining this up scheme versus scheme, personnel versus personnel, this to me is where I think you're really going to start to see some of the cracks in Detroit's foundation, at least for 2025.

15:29Diante Lee:It's a great point on the Lions run game because you watch it and you see Gibbs and you're like, oh, the run game's incredible. and at times it is, but then you look at, look at it and they're 22nd in rushing success rate. So in between those amazing, like you said, those amazing Jameer Gibbs runs, there's a lot of like, cool, I don't know. Now it looked good last week against the Dallas. Did they figure something out? Is that going up against, you know, a different defense? I don't know, but you're right with Ben Johnson because it's hard not to look at it where you say the Lions rushing efficiency has taken a significant step back and look at what he's doing with DeAndre Swift and Manungay.

16:08Diante Lee:And that, you know, they're a top five rushing unit. So he has a special skill. There's no doubt about it. We can say that in terms of designing a run game and giving his guys edges with leverage and angles and all those things that matter when it comes to running the football. So I'm with you. I've got, you know, mine was not Stafford related, but I had crown them. Rams looked like the NFL's best team with decisive victory against Detroit. So I think we both like the Rams. I will say, I don't like going to, I do still kind of trust the Lions infrastructure and I still like Campbell and they got their backs against the ball.

16:43Diante Lee:So I don't like say it with full confidence. What I think is going to happen. Just matchup wise, injury wise with the Lions defense. I was like, I just, I don't want to bet against that Rams offense with the way they've been playing this season. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We got one more game to get to Super Bowl preview. maybe some might say Packers at Broncos we'll talk about that when we come back this episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime the holidays move quickly like a blitz to save the game that's where Prime comes in with fast free delivery you know my kids put together these presentations for what they want for Christmas and they put the Amazon Prime link right in there I just have to click click they know I'm not paying for shipping I'm going to that Prime link, can order it.

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18:24Diante Lee:We're back on the ringer NFL show. Deontay, I would love to know how often this has happened where the one seed in a conference in week 15 is a home underdog. It cannot have happened often in recent NFL history. At least I don't think so. Maybe it has, and I don't know. But the Broncos are two and a half point underdogs at home against Green Bay. We talked about both these teams a little bit yesterday with Dan Hanses on the show. but now they're playing each other and we got the matchup. What do you think for this game? My headline here is Green Bay wins late, shells championship medal. And I think that that comes back to what you were talking about in terms of this potentially being a Super Bowl matchup that we'd see come next February.

19:09I think that if you're Green Bay, you're going throughout this week in practice. And if you're Matt LaFleur, you're talking about Brian Gutekunst and saying, this is the kind of game that we paid Jordan Love the money we paid him and why we gave up two first round picks to go get Michael Parsons. this is a superstars when you these types of games types of moments for them and i think that this is going to be a third down football game obviously we have seen over the last couple weeks even when denver is playing kind of ugly on offense in terms of the passing game they're able to maintain possessions they can hold on to the ball i think their running game is really kind of starting to find its stride in a way that we didn't see last season in a way that's been kind of hot and cold at certain points against top defenses this year but i think that ultimately you're going to see Green Bay sell out to get them to third down.

19:52And then it's going to be Micah Parsons trying to get quick pressures on Bo Nix. Right. And if there's one thing I will give Bo Nix credit for in this offensive system credit for is that when they get to third down, they understand what kind of quarterback they're dealing with. They're not asking him to push the ball deep downfield. They're not asking him to hold the ball for a very long time. And it's going to be on Parsons to make that not matter. Right. Whether you're moving him onto the interior, they've had these great cheetah packages where they put them over a center or put them over a guard and work these stunts and twists.

20:21This could be a great week for that. Or if you just line them up on the edge and ask them to go win mano y mano football, I think that that's where the game is going to be won if you're Green Bay. And then on the flip side, and I'm sure you'll get to this as well, this is going to be a Nick Benito versus Jordan Love game. Another quarterback that's hard to sack. I think he's a little bit of an inverse from Knicks in the terms of he's going to hold the ball on third down. He's going to try to push it downfield on third down. And Nick Benito is one of the quickest get off times in the league and is right up there with Michael Parsons in terms of the sack and quarterback knockdown rate.

20:51That I think will be the story of the football game and whichever team ends up winning that is going to be the one that I think feels like they've got the necessary pieces in terms of superstar impact to go out and win a championship this year.

21:03Diante Lee:All right, I'm going to surprise you, Deontay. We've talked about this before. I've got the analytical part of the brain and then just zoom out, you know, remember before you even knew what EPA was or what cover three was and just my headline is going to be Broncos in pole position for one seed after home upset against green Bay on paper. I think the Packers are the better team. I think the Packers have a better chance to win the Superbowl. I said that on yesterday's show. This feels like a Sean Payton voodoo spot to me, you know, or it's just like the Broncos defense, you know, one thing they've got a schematic advantage or a nice matchup.