Predicting the Week 7 NFL Headlines

0:00Welcome to the Ringer NFL Show. I'm Sheil Kapadia. Today we're looking at the Week 7 slate. You know the exercise. What headlines are we going to be reading next week? It's a fun little game to predict what we think might happen in these matchups. And there are some good matchups, you know, Bucks-Lions on Monday night, Mike Rabel going back to Tennessee. How about Colts Chargers? Before the season, I mean, we would have looked at Colts Chargers and been like, why would anyone want to watch Colts Chargers in Week 7? but now it has a chance to be very entertaining. So we'll discuss what we're watching in those matchups with a great guest.

0:36My friend Field Yates from ESPN was kind enough to join us today. So we got sidetracked at one point in this conversation and started talking about a potential coach-quarterback partnership for 2026. So that was a nice little unexpected detour. See what you think about that potential partnership. And then at the end, of course, as always on the Friday show, the Ringer 107. All right, let's take a break. We come back with Field Yates from ESPN. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by FanDuel. And if you're betting on the NFL, FanDuel is the place to do it. They've got everything. Same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live and your way so you can set your own lines.

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3:11All right, we are back here with Field Yeats from ESPN Talking Headlines. We're going to see next week after week seven. And Field, you're the guest. So, you know, I like to be hospitable. So you start us off here. What is one headline or storyline we're going to be talking about next week?

3:28Field Yates:Okay, so I'm happy to start first or go first, I should say. But my question is, do you want the more positive headline or the one that comes with some positivity but pivots into a conversation of a couple of teams that might be sort of houses of cards right now? Okay, give me the positive first. I can be a hater. I do like to crush people. But so we'll save that. Let the people wait for that a little bit. All right. Danny Dimes continues his red hot season and outduels Justin Herbert as the Colts improve to six and one and remind people that all this discourse about other teams that are now considered the best in the AFC might need to include the Colts who have the best record in the AFC.

4:09Field Yates:This is the second trip for the Colts out to Los Angeles this year. Not that the Rams game has much to do with this Chargers game on Sunday, but I do think the Colts are getting the Chargers at a pretty good time, given all the injury attrition that the Chargers have experienced. That's really an annual tradition in the NFL, the Chargers navigating the injured reserve list. But the Colts, I was thinking about it, just, and, you know, we all have platforms and we can use them as we see fit. But it does feel like, generally speaking, the Colts have been a relatively under-discussed 5-1 team and a team that could easily be 6-0, if not for mental errors down the stretch against the Rams, a game they should have won.

4:46Field Yates:I know that Shane Sykin would never say it's just about one play, but I think there are those of us that feel like if A.D. Mitchell just runs through the or past the goal line fully with the football in his hands, then that game is probably over. If he scores that touchdown rather than it being a touch back and the ball awarded to the Rams, we might be talking about the Colts as the NFL's only undefeated team. So like the way that this team is playing right now, hard for me to find a dramatic weakness within this roster, relatively healthy as well. they've got a very clear formula on offense. So I think they handle business in a game that, despite some recent struggles for the Chargers, they still are tied for the best record in the AFC West.

5:26Field Yates:So this would be a top division team taking down yet another top division team. You know, you're right. I do feel like I have brought them up a lot, but it's still, it's shocking. I mean, literally, there's so many of us in the content space, and maybe you did, I don't know, but I don't remember anyone being like, Colts, offensive juggernaut this year. You know, they're going to have the best offense in the NFL. And I kept waiting after two weeks. I was joking that, all right, they're this year's version of the 2024 Saints. I'm not buying it. And then it's three weeks and then it's four weeks.

5:57And now it's six weeks. And to your point, it's not, it doesn't feel fluky when you watch them. It doesn't seem fluky. It's not like they're winning these games and it's like, oh, come on. They got lucky there. It's like they're going up and down the field pretty much every single week against every single defense that's put in their way. So you sound like you're buying this. You think that once we get to week 12, week 15, barring some weird injury stuff with the Colts, we're still going to be saying, no, what we saw the first six weeks of the season, that was real.

6:26Field Yates:The Colts have been where I think the Browns have often been, which is if you only ranked the positions that aren't quarterback, you'd have them very high up your roster rankings. Turns out the most important position in sports remains quarterback. And so if you don't have one, I don't care if you have a great pass rush and an excellent cornerback room, it's not going to matter unless your quarterback, the signal caller, is playing high-level football. So I do believe it with the Colts here, and I'll just hand up one of my big complaints about the Colts' decision to start Daniel Jones rather than Anthony Richardson, is while my hopes are pretty limited for Richardson as a player in the NFL, I want it to be fully proven sort of correct that he is not the guy going forward, feeling like the ceiling was relatively low with Daniel Jones.

7:10Field Yates:Turns out that could not have been more incorrect. In fact, the Colts made a brilliant bet this offseason, and Daniel Jones not only gives them a high floor, they're already 5-1, but potentially a very high ceiling as well. That division just feels far more for the taking, or at least available for the taking compared to when we came into the year, and I sort of felt like inertia would prevail, the Texans would find a way to once again win the AFC South. Yeah, I wonder if there was anyone even in that building, even like the biggest Daniel Jones fan, what their expectations were. Because I'm with you.

7:41I don't think it was this. I think it was like, maybe we have a, you know, the 12th ranked offense and we go nine and eight or 10 and seven. And we sneak by that. That's not what it's been. Jonathan Taylor has been awesome. Like you mentioned the supporting cast. I do wonder in this game. So the chargers are favored in this game. So to your point about, are the Colts like getting no respect as a five in one team with the best point differential chargers are favored by one and a half year. It's in LA. The only thing I wonder here is that Colts pass rush. are they the team that can expose the issues the Chargers have on the offensive line or is Justin Herbert getting a little comfy here and he's coming out and saying hey don't forget about us we've had a topsy-turvy for six weeks here but we're still a very good team so that's kind of a key matchup I think in this game.

8:29Field Yates:No doubt about it yep and Joe Alt their best unhealthy offensive lineman now has been at least at last check which was Wednesday when I saw him talk he said are you going to play and he was like if I play, I play. If I don't, I don't. We'll sort of see later on this week. The battered and bruised offensive line might or might not be healthy by the time we get to Sunday. The amount of our lives feels hearing reporters ask players, are you going to play? Listen, we like that information. We need that information, but yeah, that has probably taken up more of a chunk of my life than I anticipated when I was dreaming about this profession.

9:04Field Yates:We should not do the math right now. It will be discouraging to actually crunch the numbers there. There you go. So, all right, my first one here, Field, we're going to Monday night. Goff out duels Baker in Monday night shootout. And at first I was confident. And then I started thinking, wait, do I actually want to say this? Because I don't want to be the person betting against the Bucs and Baker Mayfield. But it's a really fun game. And both of these teams have injuries. Bucs have injuries at wide receiver. Lions have injuries in the secondary. Brian Branch is suspended for this game. So that's one aspect that's kind of interesting.

9:38It's like where they're banged up. Those are the positions that are matching up against one another. And then the other thing here is these are two of the best run defenses in the NFL. So I don't think you're going to see Tampa or Detroit come out and say, let's, you know, pound the rock on early downs. I think they're going to put the ball in Jared Goff's hands and in Baker Mayfield's hands and lions are five and a half point favorites here. I think, you know, they got a chance here. If they deliver a convincing victory field, I think next week we're having the conversation of like, wait a minute, are the Lions just again the best team in the NFC?

10:12Packers stole the offseason headlines and Eagles were the defending champs, but here we are seven weeks in and who do you feel better about than the Detroit Lions? So where are you with this game, with that potential storyline?

10:24Field Yates:The Lions probably rank near the top. Maybe the Chiefs are the number one team in this category, but the Lions need to be near the top of the list of teams that you would much rather play coming off of a win for them than a loss for them. Dan Campbell has just been visibly upset, it feels like, in his various media appearances this week, still pissed off about what happened on Sunday night when they got taken pretty much to the woodshed by the Chiefs, 13-point loss. And after that first drive, it was a pretty convincing effort from Kansas City to augur that run defense that you have already mentioned being really good for Detroit.

10:57Field Yates:According to Dan Campbell, Aleem McNeil is freaking playing on Monday night. Freaking playing. Yeah, freaking playing. Now, unless he has a setback during practice this week, he's their best run stuffer when healthy. So that would only make the challenge of running the football without Bucky Irving that much more difficult against this impressive Detroit defensive front. We'd love to see these two teams play again come January because they have on top of being very good, the entertainment factor is extremely high for both of them. And Detroit you know this is not not to overstate the importance of any single game but I'm with you and that there's a fairly wide range of outcomes here in terms of what conclusions could be drawn with a win or a loss a win means hey they're the best team in the NFC again even if the Packers still have one loss coming out of this weekend a loss might mean hey if they're four and three and if the Bears take care of business against the Saints and they're four and two it's you know has the coordinator and the coaching attrition the brain drain caught up to Detroit a little bit in big games.

11:58Field Yates:I think we have evidence that two things can be true at once. Ben Johnson can be a really great offensive mind and Aaron Glenn can be a really great defensive mind and the Lions can still be good. It's not that those guys weren't impactful losses. It's just that this team has a lot of great talent and some smart coaches still. But this is a wide range of outcomes game for Detroit come Monday night. Yeah, they've already had it. It feels like they've had four different seasons already. You know, after week one, they had that loss and we were having the conversation you just mentioned where it's like, well, what did we expect?

12:27You know, they lose both their coordinators and they lose a couple of veteran offensive linemen. Of course, they're going to take a step back. And then after that, it's like, nope, this actually looks like one of the best teams in the NFL. And so now you look at it here. You're right. If they lose back to back games, maybe we're going back in that direction. You know, I think the injuries, they just can't seem to shake on defense. Going back to last year when they had all those injuries, their most injured defense in the NFL. And now they got the injuries again here in the secondary. It just feels like that's their biggest issue.

12:59I don't know that their other issues or any of them are really that serious here. But if you had to do sort of, you know, field the eights temperature check on NFC contenders, and I say, all right, pick one right now as we go into week seven that's going to represent the conference in the Super Bowl. Who do you got?

13:18Field Yates:My preseason pick was Philadelphia. I feel less confident in that one now. I would go with Detroit. I still think that the Lions' best is better than every other team's best. Or I shouldn't say I still think that. I now think that with the help of six weeks of football to judge it based off of. So give me Detroit. That conference feels way more stacked than we thought it was coming into the season. And then on top of that, I believe that this, like, the couple of teams that I felt most confident in coming into the year, Like Philadelphia, this is a perfect time to be a little bit off the Philadelphia Eagles scent, right?

13:55Field Yates:I was actually at the game at MetLife last Thursday night when they played the Giants and the energy was off. It just felt like an uninspired effort all the way around. So they're probably ripe for the picking, but I haven't lost all of my Eagles hope by any stretch. There's still so much talent on that roster and they've had these moments previously, right? I mean, famously in December of last year before they won the Super Bowl in February, AJ Brown is calling out the passing offense. So the Eagles are the kind of team that no matter how stuck in the mud they might be at the given moment, they still have a chance.

14:25Yeah, I think I'm with you. When you said that, I'm like, I think I would pick the Lions too. You could go any, you could go Seahawks, Rams, Fox, Packers, Eagles. So you could go in a number of different directions. But I think if I had to pick one right now, I do think they're the team I feel the best about. But you know what? The beauty of this is we get to change our minds every week. The Falcons make me change their mind every week.

14:48Field Yates:I change my mind every week with the Falcons. So right now, they feel like a team we should be mentioning, except for the fact that I remember they got smacked by the Panthers 30 to nothing. Shut up. I'm still working on them, figuring them out. Let me take a break here. We'll take a break. We come back, and then Field delivers his next pick here. The Ringer NFL Show is brought to you by FanDuel, and FanDuel is turning up the heat every Sunday with Power Hour. Every Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m. Eastern, FanDuel is giving you a profit boost to use on live bets during the most intense stretch of the NFL slate.

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16:13Tremphaya 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. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur.

16:47Before 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 Tremphaya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit TremphayaRadio.com. all right we're back on the ringer nfl show all right field what do you got what's next

17:11Field Yates:all right so this is a less exciting game and at last check the forecast for this game is going to be just ridiculous like we're talking rain high high winds in cleveland the lake effect is in full effect here but i'm gonna go with quinshawn judkins runs for 162 yards and a touchdown as the browns notch their second win of the season over the miami dolphins i don't think that that part of the equation is that important here shield i do wonder though even if this prediction is wrong if we're talking about a coach and a hot seat very very much on monday morning uh if the browns take care of business and win like i am predicting they do win the dolphins will be one in six mike mcdaniel's seat will be extremely extremely warm uh they are i would say the co-worst defense in the nfl the cowboys are putting a uh putting a run for their money giving them a run for their money.

18:03Field Yates:But we have seen what's happened to the Miami defense this season completely dilapidated, especially against the run. They cannot stop the run whatsoever. Just ask Rico Dowdle and his 230 plus yards from scrimmage a couple of weeks ago. So I think that this Browns game, Browns offense is just going to try to run the crap out of the ball. But conversely, Miami does win. I think both Mike McDaniel and Kevin Spancy are great offensive minds. but I just think it's natural to expect that if Miami wins on Sunday at home, Dylan Gabriel will be 0-3 as a starter. We're going to hear conversations about these teams and whether changes are coming.

18:39That's interesting because I look at those two guys and I always try to think about if a coach is let go, what's the market? And for McDaniel, I feel like he's probably going to be a highly sought-after offensive coordinator where he said, this guy can coach offense. We've seen it. That's been consistent. I want him on my staff. I feel like Stefanski's going to get a head coaching job pretty quickly. Right away.

19:02Field Yates:He's a two-time coach of the year. Yeah, and he's been doing this for longer, obviously, than McDaniel. But yes, he, to me, would be a very coveted candidate for anybody with a young quarterback. We're three steps ahead of the curve here because he's still the Browns head coach. And if they turn things around, who knows? And maybe they just continue to be patient here. They had the second worst record in the league last year and they did nothing. I happen to think though that Kevin Stepanski is a really, really good head coach that it's hard to win in this league when your quarterback situation is as bad as the Browns quarterback situation is right now.

19:38Yeah. We had a holiday in the Kapadia household this week field where first time I checked out Tankathon. Oh, you know, it took me until after week six and I just checked it out where, and it was because of this game. I said, this game could have, you know, you're a big draft guy. I said, this game could have big, a big impact on the draft order. Right now, the Browns would pick second, I believe, and the Dolphins would pick fourth. So I don't know how that changes based on the outcome, but maybe this is what we're talking about. You know, when you're doing draft coverage on ESPN in April, you're saying, hey, don't forget that week seven game.

20:14If only Team X would have lost, they would have a chance at this player versus this player. So now we're getting really ahead of ourselves, but I couldn't help myself. if I had to look.

20:22Field Yates:No, but my only thought on, my only, my closing thought on that is it really matters to me, especially when the two teams involved both need a quarterback. Because as you know, just because quarterback A is ranked first and quarterback B is ranked third, it doesn't mean that a team who's picking third as opposed to first feels strongly about that quarterback, right? There are some teams that just have conviction on a player and not another player. We saw it this year, right? I mean, Jackson Dart might've been quarterback two in a lot of teams eyes, but he didn't go until 24th when the Giants traded up, 26th, excuse me.

20:57Field Yates:The Saints clearly didn't feel strong enough about Jackson Dart to take him number nine overall. Maybe they have a belief in Spencer Rattler, but they took a quarterback in Tyler Shuck, 40th overall. So quarterback was certainly on their mind. So the bottom line is that wins, it's hard to tell a team to not win during the season, but yes, I am part of that contingent that has its eyes peeled for these inconsequential games, which proved to be very consequential come April. No doubt. Yeah, I think to your point, I think if the Dolphins lose this game and are kind of embarrassed with all the noise around Tua this week and it's just the vibes there are terrible where maybe they're just like, all right, we know we're making a move.

21:36Let's just make the move now. Cleveland would surprise me if they did something in season or anytime because it feels like they're kind of on the same page about what this season was going to be about.

21:46Field Yates:Yeah, I'm a Kevin Stefanski believer as a head coach. I think Mike McDaniel does some really great offensive stuff. I just don't have the same track record as Kevin. What we do with Kevin to sort of prove that we've seen Kevin do some improbable things in Cleveland. Mike has taken the Dolphins to the playoffs on multiple occasions as well. But there's a team that feels like its ceiling has been established as too low with the current approach they have on this roster. No doubt. All right, my next one here. Last one we'll get to. Headline. Vrabel pours it on as Patriots embarrass Titans. So Mike Vrabel's going to Tennessee.