Predicting the Week 6 NFL Headlines

0:00Welcome to the Ringer NFL Show. I'm Sheil Kapadia. Today we're looking at the week six slate. Very simple exercise here. What are the headlines we're going to be reading on Monday morning? So it's a fun little game to predict what we think might happen in these matchups. And there are some intriguing matchups. Chiefs Lions Sunday night. Commanders Bears on Monday night. Jaden Daniels and Caleb Williams. Seahawks go to Jacksonville during the afternoon window on Sunday. Those have been two highly entertaining games. So we'll discuss what we're watching in those matchups. My guest today is ESPN's Seth Walter.

0:37He does a great job as an analyst over there. Surprised me with some of his headlines. So it's a fun listen. We disagreed on some of these things. Really enjoyed the conversation. And then at the end, as always, the Ringer 107. Listen, your boy is struggling here. I'm in last place in this contest. I need some good juju from the listeners. Still a lot of weeks left. I actually like my picks for a change this week. Let's see if we can turn this thing around and have a winning record. So I'll give you my five picks against the spread at the end of the episode. All right, let's take a break. We come back with Seth Walder from ESPN.

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2:34Tremphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TrimphiaRadio.com.

3:21All right, back with Seth Walder from ESPN. We are talking headlines we're going to see next week after this week's game. Seth, I'll start us off here. Okay, first headline. Let's see where you're at with this one. I think we're going to, I don't know if it'll be on a talk show on ESPN, perhaps a headline somewhere. First headline, Sam Darnold enters MVP. Conversation is my first one. I can't believe we're here either. I saw Seth's face here. Yeah, I can't believe I'm saying it either, but I can't fight it anymore. He is first in just about every nerd stat you can think of. I mean, EPA per play, adjusted EPA, success, whatever you want to talk about, he is there.

4:02And I think the eye test matches it. He is playing at a very high level. It's not all schemed up stuff where you're like, anyone could operate this offense. I feel like he's making high degree of difficulty throws. He's got the lowest turnover worthy play percentage in the NFL. That's the one I'm looking at, Seth, because I'm like, is that going to last the whole season? I don't know. But so far, he's playing that well. And the Seahawks go to Jacksonville, a Jaguars team that can create turnovers for sure. I'm not sure about their secondary. I'm not sure they have the most sound pass defense. And so I think Darnold, with a good performance in Jacksonville, they improved to four and two.

4:39Somewhere on the internet, on TV, video, social, somewhere someone's going to make the case that Sam Darnold belongs in the MVP conversation. What do you think? Not only do I agree with you, and that surprises me, but what surprises me even more is that I'll be like, I'm more on board than I've ever been because I'm a certified Sam Darnold hater. Me too. We're on the same page. Yeah. And I really thought once he left Kevin O 'Connell, and he wasn't even that great last year, I really thought once he left Kevin O 'Connell that we were going to see just straight back to the Darnold of old. and it's like you said, the numbers are outrageous for him.

5:21Advanced numbers are just like yards per drop back, leads the league. Everything, his off-target rate is the lowest in the league. And the only thing I think that holds him back if you were having an MVP conversation is how much Seattle has not leaned into the pass. Like their pass rate over expectation is really low. And to me, that's the thing that, one thing they have to change going forward. They have such a wide gap between how efficient they are passing and how efficient they are running. I mean, play to your strengths and let Sam rip. Yeah, I've joked it for. It's like you could just, Mike McDonald is just doing everything.

5:59He certainly went into the season like, I am not going to let Sam Darnold lose games for me. Just with the in-game decision making, to your point, the run-pass ratio on early downs. They're running the football a lot, even though they're not great at running the football. last week was at least a little different. You know, they passed the football more. And I don't know, is that a game plan thing? Cause Tampa has such a good run defense. Is that a change? Did they have a conversation internally? Hey, this is like, he's really playing well right now. We can trust him a little bit more. I think that'll be interesting to watch here in this game.

6:31Cause I do think Jacksonville is probably better against the run than they are against the pass. You have some injuries with the Seahawks defensively. So we'll see what that unit looks like on Sunday, whether they're going to have a great defensive game or it's like, nope, you're going to have to pass the football again and score some points here. So I'm interested to see what they do there. But yeah, I think I'm with you. We're in the exact same boat. We probably had very similar takes in the offseason, in the summer. Listen, it was one season that wasn't even quite as good as all of you thought it was going to be.

7:03Settle down, different environment. He doesn't have O 'Connell. He doesn't have Justin Jefferson. And here I am after five weeks. And yeah, I don't want to just stick to my priors. I want to believe what my eyes are seeing. I want to look at the numbers and I believe what I'm seeing so far here with Sam Darnold. So we'll see if he can continue it in Jacksonville on Sunday. All right, your turn, Seth. What do you got? What's your first headline that we're going to be looking at next week? All right, this is a Tuesday morning headline because it's a Monday game. Okay. In a Chicago paper, Bears dropped 40 on commanders signaling the true arrival of the Ben Johnson offense.

7:38Whoa, I wasn't expecting this. All right, make the case. What are we looking at here? The more I look at the numbers for Chicago, the more I believe that this is really working more than it appears at first glance. So one thing they did this offseason was revamp the offensive line. That is working. They rank fourth in pass block win rate. A big part of that has been Darnell Wright has been playing a lot better. He is banged up. I don't know at this point if he's going to play. but still the the guards that they brought in have been playing well in terms of pass protection i'm the first one to say that sack rate is has a lot to do with quarterbacks uh but caleb williams the sack rate has been cut in half from 10 to 5 so that's one piece of it then the receivers the bears have we have a metric called open score which measures how open receivers are relative to expectations based on the route that they run whether there's play action, who they're playing.

8:37And the Bears are number one in open score. Now, I think that that is, it's not just a player stat. I think that's a scheme stat as well. But I think that shows that Ben Johnson's office is working. Another metric that I like to use in that way is, just bear with me here, you take NGS's expected completion probability and you multiply it by air yards per attempt. And what that gives you is your expected completed air yards per attempt. and the Bears are number one in that category. So that says this is all working. Now, what hasn't been working? Caleb Williams' accuracy, right? Rocking a negative 10%, completion percentage of her expectation.

9:18He's got the highest off-target rate in the league. But I feel like if he could just be the guy he was last year, kind of like middling, like below average accuracy, we're going to see a huge boost for this offense. Are you with me on this one? or what do you think? I am not. I can't get theirs. I am in, I need to believe it. You know, I need to see it to believe it with the Bears off. And now you made a very compelling case there. I like all the points you made there. So what's interesting about your argument is it feels like you're arguing the offense is working. The Ben Johnson experiment is working.

9:55The quarterback, again, needs to just, it's a small sample so far. If the quarterback can do some of the things we've seen in the past, There are little things that can be expected that he'll get better at that could make this jump. Is that kind of an accurate assessment of all those things you're saying? I'm saying that what Ben Johns is doing is working. Almost everything around, I do have something on this running game, but almost everything around Williams is working, but Williams has been holding him back. That's interesting. Okay, because he certainly shows flashes. We all watch it. We watch the games and there are times where you're like, he's playing really well.

10:29I know there are people who would argue that like, no, he's played like Seth's off base here. Like he's playing well and in a tougher environment. I'm kind of with it. It just looks a little inconsistent at times to me where it's like, I understand you turn on a possession, even you turn on a half and you're like, I get what everyone's talking about. But I haven't. I'm kind of with you that there are still some inconsistencies in his game. And the offensive line point you made is an interesting one because there, I don't know if you read the Bears covers today, but it looks like they might make a change at left tackle.

11:01According to sort of the Bears beat reporters where they had the bye and they kind of looked at it and Braxton Jones, their left tackle got pulled in week four. and they're going with this from the athletic, that they could go to this guy, Theo Benedett, who played right tackle, I think, last week out of University of British Columbia, a UDFA. So I hear the interior stuff's been working out, but it looks like that left tackle spot, they're saying, no, we can still get better there. So I think that's something else to keep an eye on in this matchup. That's interesting. And the running game, by the way, has been really bad.

11:35So that is a problem. Now, I do think that the running backs themselves have been a big part of that problem. DeAndre Swift has been a negative for years at running back. That's something that they're not going to be able to address by Monday, but I do wonder if that's a trade deadline move for them eventually. Yeah, usually you can find somebody. I'm with you. I think that's been pretty consistent. You kind of watch them and Swift always going where the play calls for him to go. He likes to kind of hunt the explosive plays a little bit too. So I think that's certainly been an issue. Yeah, their running game has not been good.

12:10Overall, their offense is 26th in EPA per drive and 28th in success rate. So they haven't quite made the leap. But listen, they've showed flashes of it for sure. That game against the Cowboys, the offense looked really good. And this is interesting. Seth thinks that maybe this is the week. So how much of this is you don't totally buy the commander's defense? Do you like this matchup? Just kind of bears offense versus commander's defense. No, that is part of it. Because I think the commander's defense, They've actually been better than I thought. They've got more pass rush than I thought because I thought that was going to be a really serious weakness.

12:44But there are, I mean, Marshawn Lattimore is not the same guy that he used to be. Bobby Wagner's letting up 1.5 yards per coverage snap as a linebacker. He's obviously not what he used to be. Even Sanders still has bad numbers now this year. So I think that this is a potential opportunity against that pretty old defense in Washington. And this could be a really fun game then, because I think the commanders are, have a good chance to go up and down the field against that bears defense. You know, they they've been pretty efficient despite the Jaden Daniels injury. He's back. I thought he played well last week and they've been able to like get through stuff, you know, no Terry McLaurin, no Daniels for a couple of games.

13:23And you look at just about every metric and they have like a top 10 offense, even with all those injuries. And that bears defense certainly has not been great. So I'm excited. If the Bears are going to put up 40 and I think the Commanders are going to put up points, we have a very fun Monday night matchup. Jaden Daniels and Caleb Williams. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We'll get to a couple more headlines. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by FanDuel. NFL Sunday is on the way and FanDuel is coming in with something extra. That's right. Right now, all customers can get a 50 % PBT on any bet.

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14:38Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremphaya, proper training is required. Tremphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis.

15:21Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit trimphiaradio.com. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Seth, my next one here. Headline you're going to read Monday morning. Here come the Chiefs. KC, still the team to beat in the AFC. So let me make the KC. I know there was Chiefs fatigue coming into the season.

16:05Then early on, it's like same old story. They're two and three. Fun Sunday night matchup against the Detroit Lions. Two legit Super Bowl contenders. Chiefs coming off that loss last week against Jacksonville. Well, fluky is probably mean because if I'm an athlete or a coach, I'm like, you either win or you lose. I don't care what you nerds say about fluky and who should have won the game. So I understand that. But I think what kind of got lost in that loss for the Chiefs is that their offense looked awesome. I mean, it was the highest success rate of any offense in a single game this season. I thought Mahomes, except for that pick six, which that's a big except, played really well.

16:43He's finding plays downfield out of structure. They ran the ball better than they usually do. And I sort of feel like they're finding themselves a little bit here. The last couple of weeks, the rookie left tackles playing well. So on one hand, you're looking at it going, the Chiefs are in this weird spot. They're two and three. They're in third place in the AFC West. But on the other hand, their offense is all the way up to sixth in EPA per drive. And they've just got to get through one more game here. And then Rasheed Rice comes back and their offense, I think, could hit another level there. So Xavier Worthy's dealing with an injury.

17:16We'll see if he plays in this game. Other than that, though, they're actually, I think, one of the healthier teams in the entire NFL. So I think they're in a good spot. Lions are down a couple corners. I've been impressed with their defense, but I think the Chiefs could give them a hard time in this game. And I think the Chiefs might generate some of that buzz after this performance. Seth, what do you think? I'm not just agreeing with you because I'm here on your show. If you said something that I disagreed with, I would tell you. But, you know, we've got our model that predicts going forward how good each team is.

17:49He has FPI. You know who's number one in FPI right now? I'm going to say the Chiefs based on you bringing them up right now. It's the Chiefs. And like that, okay, that surprises me just in general. But you look at what they've done and this is pretty different than where we were with this offense a year ago. And so I do think, I mean, they're having more success on the ground. They're able to do all this. Again, like you said, even weathering where they've misworthy a bit. He's back lately. We'll see what happens. But Rice is going to come back. And that could be part of the headline too, right?

18:30You're saying, okay, what if they look good? And now we're all of a sudden going to say, hey, look at these Chiefs. And they're about to get their best wide receiver back into the mix. I do think that it really is there for them. And it just, I just think they are one of the best teams. And it's a boring thing to say because of the Chiefs. But it's true. Yeah, it would be more fun if my headline was like, you know, Chiefs falling apart. We'll make the playoffs. Chiefs are a disaster fall to two and four. But that's not what I think is going to happen. And yeah, I think that makes sense to me. what you mentioned there with projecting forward and FPI because all their losses have been one score games, which of course last year they feasted on those 10 and O or whatever it was this year, they're O and three.

19:20So they have been a very hard team to kind of put away to blow out. They've had a couple of wins here. The offense is playing well. The defense has maybe been a little bit more up and down, but I wouldn't say they're like worse than I expected them to be coming into the season. They're probably a little bit better than I expected them to be coming into the season. So yeah, I think they're in a good spot here. Now it is a tough Lions team. I mean, the one thing that makes me a little nervous is just the game management stuff. When I'm like, I know what Dan Campbell's gonna do. Andy Reid is gonna be a little bit different, you know, a little more conservative in that game.

19:54So that makes me a little bit nervous. But again, I think they can get after that Lions defense a little bit. I'm looking forward to that game. I think we'll learn things about them. You know, Detroit had that game against Baltimore earlier this season where it's like, we're going to learn something about this team, these teams and the lions. I'm like, wow, that was a very, very impressive performance in that game. So looking forward to this one. If this game goes badly for the chiefs, like if the, if, if the lions get out to a big lead, which I think is, is feasible. You could, you could have one of the widest, I think, pass attempt splits in between two teams.

20:29Like you could just have the lions just, just shut off, shut it off. And they just keep running for the rear from the second, corner on and have Jared Goff end with like 14 pass attempts while Mahomes throws 50, you know, 50 as they try to catch up. I mean, these are two of the most extreme teams in terms of run pass. And if you were the Lions and you look at the Chiefs, you might say, yeah, we're going to we're going to run the ball a lot. No doubt. I think they would love that kind of game script if they could get a lead early and then they could run the football and let their pass rush get after Patrick Mahomes.

21:00They'd be like, yeah, we'll we'll sign up for that. We would love to play a game like that. By the way, you mentioned Bears trading for a running back. The Chiefs sort of feel like they could do that. You know, it's like there's a lot of Kareem Hunt in these games in the year 2025 where I'm looking at it going. I know you don't need to invest like a bunch in that position, but it just feels like maybe there's an upgrade for them at a low cost. Somebody on a rookie contract for a day three pick or something like that. So they're another team I'm kind of looking at there with a potential upgrade at running back.

21:31All right, Seth, what do you got? What's the next headline for me? Okay. I'm going to Brown Steelers. And the headline is, Nick Herbig's huge day signals changing of the guard for Steelers pass rush. Ooh, juicy. Okay. I always liked a Nick Herbig, but give me the case. Okay. So Nick Herbig, I think this is going a little under the radar, but what he's done, he's only played three games. He missed week one, and they've had their bye. Nick Herbig has a 40 % pass rush win rate at edge right now. Pass rush win rate is the measure at which a defensive lineman gets past their blocker within two and a half seconds.

22:10Just to put that in context, that's best in the NFL. And if you think about last year's Aiden Hutchinson insane stretch when he played five games before he got hurt, he was at 35%. So what Nick Herbig is doing is on another planet. And it's also not totally unprecedented. Every time he's gotten on the field in prior seasons, it's been great. And I do think, okay, earlier this week, I texted a smart person in a front office. And I said, what do you think the chances are right now that Nick Herbig is currently the best pass rusher on the Steelers? What do you think they, what would be your number, Sheila?

22:53I'm putting you on the spot here. I am. the chances that he is the best pass rusher on the Steelers. I would still say no, but I think you could probably make a 18, 20 % chance. I would say, am I low? What did they say? I was asking the question. So I think you can get a vibe of how I feel. I mean, this person said 45%. Wow. And I, that was higher than I thought. Like I was asking the question because I was like, am I way, way out on a limb here? Am I, is this crazy? and sometimes I think when I look at these metrics I think here I am just looking at these numbers but then you talk to people from teams and they're seeing some of that same thing.

23:34I do want to give a quick shout out to JP Acosta from CBS because he tweeted or blue skied the other day like, is Nick Karpik the best pass rusher on the Steelers? And I had been thinking it but afraid to say it out loud. JP knows ball. We've had JP on. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, he had the courage, so he deserves the credit. So he's been playing more with Alex Heismith Hurt. Heismith might be back this week, but I just don't see how you can pull Herbig off the field. And the Browns have a backup left tackle, KT Leveston, who's been playing and struggling. 58th in pass block win rate out of 64 tackles.

24:14So there's a potential monster day for Herbig. Now, Gabriel is not like a huge sack guy, or he wasn't in college. I think he gets rid of the ball pretty quick. So it's not going to be the easiest sack matchup potentially, but I think that his disruption possibility is all over the place here. That's interesting. So Herbig, potentially the torch is passed from TJ Watt, who's a little bit older, to Nick Herbig, who's been a good player. Now it's always, like you said, more snaps, bigger roll, more attention. and you have to prove it. And it's interesting. I wonder, teams facing the Browns, I would imagine they would still say, what's our plan for blocking TJ Watt?

24:57But it's like, how close is that? It's like, can we commit this many resources to him? No, because Herbig's really good. Or it's like, yes, we can. We'll live with Herbig and then Herbig's doing damage. So that's always interesting, just the game planning of it all. And I know you guys do a great job with the double team stuff, which I always love to look at with those elite defensive players, or sometimes I'll look at them and be like, wait a minute, You know, they've only had one sack or something. And then I love to look at the stuff you guys chart. It's like, oh, okay. They're being double teamed at the highest rate of any edge defender in the NFL.