The Ringer NFL Show - Biggest Winners, Takeaways, and Questions From a Wild Week 16!

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Sheil and The Ringer’s own Billy Gil take a hard look at the biggest games from a chaotic Week 16 NFL slate to decide which individuals made the biggest impact on their organizations and what important questions are still left unanswered as we march toward the playoffs. (00:00) The biggest winners, takeaways, and questions from Week 16(1:15) Packers-Bears(7:06) Jaguars-Broncos(16:05) Steelers-Lions(28:44) Bucs-Panthers This episode is brought to you by American Eagle. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil KapadiaGuest: Billy GilProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera Givens and Brian WatersProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shield Capadia, 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 Ringer's 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. It's like expecting the leadership of a team captain on the football field,

but getting a sea captain? Sure, they're both captains, but who is going to run your offense? You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so don't settle for just any insurance. When it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. We are back here on the Ringer NFL show,

Shield Capadia with Billy Gillen. What was maybe the wildest week of this season? We don't even know. 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? 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 Caleb William win the week. And it was like, oh, we're just kidding. But no, I think Caleb Williams won the week. It was an early win this week. It was a Saturday win, and Sunday was full of wins as well.

But I feel good for Caleb Williams. Williams. I mean, he was the number one pick a couple years ago. 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 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 receiver. 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. 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 getting recovered. Nonetheless, they get the onside kick. And then you have an insane 45-yard touchdown pass

that it's a walk-off, that, you know, Moore's just laying in the end zone, basking in the glory. And 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. Yeah. You 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, like think about if that goes a different way, the alternate universe where we're going, oh my gosh, the bears just like 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, and 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. 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? 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 Jay J.J. McCarthy go down. We saw Josh Allen go down at one point 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 guy, this is incredible. You 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 Willie, that was an walkoff 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 more injured? I'm thinking back to when DJ more, like one of the first plays of the game just gets

leveled in the back. And I'm like, how does, you know, that play always 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 Kishon Nixon. Maybe you're just back up, you're potting, you're helping out, you know,

you're like, Zach Lowe, you know, what do you need? We're recording next week, Ringer Tailgate, what do you need? I would be like, I need a couple days, okay? Somebody fill in on the Ringer NFL show for me. So I, I'm not an NFL player.

So I actually got on Friday, this is going to 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 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. They just get right back up and they keep going. 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 takes a little bit to sink in, but 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. So 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 called Trevor Lawrence the blooper real 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. it 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 have 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, in Mahomes.

It's like, oh, we don't. No, 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. So they've won six straight games. The Texans in their division.

The S&E style has been like sneaky competitive because the Texans won seven straight. It was looking like it was all set and done early in the season with the Colt. And then Daniel Jones kind of things started going a little haywire for the Colts before or 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. We talked, I think, a month ago about Trevor Lawrence, and we were comparing him to other quarterbacks that we had just kind of ridden 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 it 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. But I mean, six straight kind of now leading the EFC 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 Billy or do I need to fill you in on this? This is the small market situation? The small market, I mean, it felt like a throwaway line from Peyton but Peyton 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, I'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? 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 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? 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. I don't understand the small market thing as an insult or even really like a comic because 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 why would you be? Isn't like Minneapolis like one of the big. ones like in the country and like do you think of Minneapolis is like this is a big city like

whoa these is a city slickers here at 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 Cohen 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 him like, oh, I don't know if this is the guy that we want or not. That is kind of hard, though, I 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. Yeah, I think so. Do you think you practiced that? Like, what do you practice in the mirror? because I'm thinking of in the sports world, what are things that people do 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 catchphrase, but no one uses those catchphrases. So that's not the same thing. 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,

whew, pig suey thing that they did. I do remember that. This is really strange. And I think the 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. You got to win, we're coming out here and we're going to win the NFC South. I mean, you got to watch what you say. I'd love to be on someone's sizzle real. 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. You know? They go after one of our people and they're also the team looking for stuff. So let's work on. 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 Duval 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 looks. Trevor Lawrence has never looked better. They're winning all these games. Their offense looks great. So Liam Cohen is my nomination for a 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 happens? This weekend, because a lot of crazy things happen. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fandul. Tis the season to be boosting on Fandul. 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. And it all leads to the Christmas Day special where you can get something extra special. Seven days of gifts, one big finale. head to fandul.com slash ringer NFL to get in on the holiday spirit. Fandle, play your game. Must be 21 plus and present in select states

or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt-in required, bonus issued as non-mustrable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wage or amount. See terms at sportsbook.fantle.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-HALP.com. Call 1-8888. 789777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut.

This episode is brought to you by American Eagle. Gift, gift, hooray. Give great jeans this holiday season with American Eagle. They have all the wish list worthy new arrivals for everyone on your list, including you. You'll find comfy, cozy sweaters, soft fleece, sweatshirts, hoodies, flannels, and a whole bunch more. Plus, you'll love their trending jeans. Like the high-waisted stovepipe. straight, boot cut, and so many more fits. They've got every style and everyone covered. You can check it all out at A.E.com or just go to the store. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. All right, Bill, you could take this any direction you want. Craziest thing that happened in week 16. What do you got? 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 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. Some of them happened in the field of play.

Some of them happened off of the field of play where D.K. Mekkaft decided to just grab a fan by 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 D.K. McCaff by his full name, and D.K. Metcalf did not like that, which seems kind of like a crazy reason to do that. Either way, the fact that a camera cut that was also kind of wild, I guess maybe someone was wondering, why is D.K. Metcalf so far behind the bench. What is D.K. 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.

have to go up to actually get to a fan, then 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 D.K. Metcalf

in any official capacity during the game that would discipline him. Not like 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 like, 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 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. But that wasn't even the craziest part of that game, I don't think.

No, yeah. I mean, I don't know. We'll find out. Did the fans say something? what was it about. We have no idea. At this, 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. You know, okay, well, D.K'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. If your security, you're going to arrest D.K. Metcalf? Like, you probably eject the fan. You probably eject the fan. The fan, stop, Tolenton, you're the player. Yeah, something like that. The fan, for sure, again, we will put an asterisk here, as I say for sure, but an asteris. The fan for sure was the agitator there, right?

Because D.K. 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, asteris will find out. hopefully more details, but I'm with you. I think that's probably the most likely outcome,

and we'll see what the discipline is here. I mean, what is that fantastic? Why would you even get within reach of D.K. Beckett? Do you see D.K. Metcats? What is happening with that guy? Unbelievable. But you're right.

Can I tell you what I think was the craziest thing from that game? I'm on the same game. The craziest thing on the game, if you know, you had the final play where you throw it on Monra St. Brown, he gets stopped at the one. And he flips it to Jared Gough on a lateral. They don't call forward progress.

Jared Gough goes flipping into the end zone on the play. And then there's all this chaos. Tony Ramos is like, I'm not even going to, I can't eat. Jim, do you take this? I don't even know what just happened. There's too many things going on. The craziest thing that happened was the refs announcement after all the chaos. The refs said, this is a crowd of Detroit Lions fans,

some of whom are crazy enough to get within reach of D.K. Metcalfe when they're taunting him. This is a crowd of Detroit Lions fans. Their playoff lives are on the line. They don't know if they've just had maybe the greatest play they've ever seen to win a football game or if their playoff hopes have just been dashed. And the official is the only one with the information. And he gets on the mic and he says, the first thing he says, the ruling on the field is a touchdown. I can't even get through it.

It's so funny. What was he thinking? By saying that. And he goes, however. No, you don't lead with the ruling on the field. It's a touchdown. Are you crazy? I was thinking about this, Billy.

Is he on, like, the refs group chats tonight? And they're all, like, doing crying, laughing emojis. And they're like, Carl Sheffers, that was sick, dude. You had them all thinking, that was a touchdown. Why would he do it that way? It was a strange way to do it. So there's the initial play, right? So the play happens.

And before that play, there was a lot of crazy things, too, that we can get to, or maybe we won't get to, right? But there's the play. It's the pass. It's almost like reminiscent of the Super Bowl where they're just shy of the goal line, right? But this time they kind of pick up Amman Raus St. Brown and they take them back like eight yards or something, right? And then all of a sudden you're wondering like, oh, God, what are the flags now? Because earlier in the drive, the game should have been over on a fourth and two. And then like six seconds after the play was done where you think there's a change of possession, three flags come flying from all directions.

and oh no, never mind, pass interference. And guess what? The lions are going to get a first down here and we're going to keep this game going, right? So when all of those flags went flying on that play, we had already seen three or four other plays that had been extended with penalties. And then there was a touchdown just two plays

before they had been nullified on an offensive pass interference call where you thought that I'm on around St. Brown had caught a touchdown and given them the lead to win the game, right? So as soon as you see the flags, you're like, what's happening? So I'm focusing on the flags. And then all of a sudden, Jared Goff has the ball somehow

and he's diving into the end zone, flipping it. It's like, how did he even end up with them? Like, what's going on? Was there a whistle? Was there not? I assumed when they picked them up and they took them back all those yards

that you wouldn't be able to lateral, they would have just set forward progress has been stopped and that would be the end of the game, right? So then the NFL did this thing, I don't know if you saw it on social media, where they put out the entire, like, unedited, like version of it from like the snap to when they called what it was. and it's like well over three minutes.

So you're still watching again on Instagram or Twitter or wherever, the full confusion as to what is going on right now? Because we saw it and we see both teams seemingly celebrate thinking that they just won the game. And then they're kind of backing up and they're doing the thing where they're holding themselves back off of the sidelines because they don't know what the call is and you're waiting. And then to your point,

one of the strangest announcements ever, whereas the ruling on the field is a touchdown. However, offensive pass interference, but there is no replay, so the game's over. And when he said, so the game's over, then the crowd erupts again in cheers because they think, okay, it was a touchdown, and now automatically game over, we won.

And then the Steelers are celebrating, and they're like, wait, what's going on now? Like, we just lost this game. How did this happen? It was a wild finish. And we didn't even talk about in this game how the first half ended. when Kenneth Gainwell fell,

catches the ball on the ground, gets up, and runs in for a 45-yard Hail Mary where everyone just assumed he didn't catch the ball, that's a dead ball, or he was touched well on the ground, they review it,

he was never touched somehow, he had the presence of mind to get up and run into score a touchdown on another one of Aaron Rogers' career, miraculous Hill Marys that he does at the end of half. It's just like the sixth time I feel like he's done it.

what an insane game this was. Can I tell you on the Gainwell catch? Again, Jim Nance could be a winner, our winner of the week because he comes in with the most irrational confidence ever. Like, that was a catch. I'm like, Nance, settle down, man. You don't know those kinds of eyes?

You don't know that it was a game. And then they showed the replay. I'm like, Nance. Oh, I was not familiar with your eyesight. No. Jim Nance. That was incredible. He had it right away.

Kenny Gainwell has turned into a different person with the Steelers team. That was an incredible catch, an incredible touchdown. So yeah, think of all the things. You had the two calls at the end, two offensive pass interferences that both negated touchdown. You had the Amman Rae St. Brown lateral to golf. I'm with you. I'm like, how does golf have the ball? And then golf who gets made fun, oh, he can't throw under pressure. He's like flipping into the end zone there. Like that would have been an unbelievable play to get into the end zone. You had the DK Metcalf thing. And how about this? Maybe the most shocking thing of the game, Billy. Chris Boswell missed a 37-yard field goal.

I've never seen it miss a kick in my life. Doinked it. You had a safety in that game. And Jay and Warren have two different 45-yard touchdown runs. That game had it all. Can I tell you something on a selfish thing just between me and you and our fans that are listening? Yeah. I hated this game.

And I'm going to tell you why I hated this game. Because, and this is very selfish. I loved it, but I hated it because of fantasy. Because we're well in the fantasy playoffs now. We're in the semi-finals. You got to get knocked out early like me, Bill. You don't have to worry about it. Here's the thing is that I was not looking good, but I have Jalen Warren,

and he crushed it for me in this game. However, because he crushed it for me in the game, I was playing against Jared Goff. So every time he ran for 45 yards and scored a touchdown, I celebrated, but then also knew, but now you're up by like nine or something, and Jared's going to have to throw the ball. And he gained so many yards in the first.

fourth quarter. He had over 300 passing yards in the game, 365 passing yards on the game. He had three touchdowns. And it felt like they were all in the fourth quarter. He turned it on because he had to. But it was horrendous to watch. And I know you're wondering, how did it go? How did your fantasy weekends? This is a great question. It came down to Sunday night football. And I had Derek Henry. And I ended up winning. Oh, I had Derek Henry and my opponent had running back from the Patriots who ended up getting injured, Trivion Anderson, and thoughts and prayers to him. Hopefully he's doing well.

But in front of a fantasy purposes, that injury worked out quite nicely for me. Yeah, because there was a series. I don't know if you saw in like the fourth quarter where Chris Collinsworth is like, can I ask you why Derek Henry is not on the field? So I actually thought your story was going to go in a different direction because Derek Henry, for some reason, was just not playing on a possession in the fourth quarter where they were going to keep Mitchell. But it worked out for you.

So I'm glad for you. You're still alive. We'll get an update from you next week. All right. Last topic here, Billy. Stuff that is left to be settled here. There is surprisingly a lot of stuff that is still to be settled here. The NFC South is, of course, one of those things.

But what if I told you that the divisions aren't settled here? And now they're mostly settled, but like the bills still have around a 20%. chance in the AFC East. The Ravens still have like a 10% chance, which is not nothing in the AFC North. The Texans have a 20% chance against the Jaguars in the AFC South. The Chargers have a 24% chance in the

AFC West. And of course, like I mentioned, the NFC South and the NFC West, those are up for grabs as well. Then you got the one seed stuff. There's still a bunch of teams available to win the one seed. Six teams could still win the one in the AFC. Forget the division.

The one seed can still be won by six of the seven teams. Yeah. That's absurd. So which of the things to be settled do you find most interesting right now? We talked about this a couple weeks ago. I have that soft spot for Bryce Young. We talked about it and we were saying it kind of when it was just like a, this is a cute story. Bryce Young.

Look, he's having a decent season. But here we are with two weeks left in the season. and Bryce Young is a playoff team right now. The Panthers are a playoff team, and it's not going to be an easy road for them because they are going to be playing Seattle and then they're going to be traveling down to Tampa in what is probably, depending on how things shake out

in the other divisions, I'm assuming going to be like the premier game of week 18 just because the division is going to be coming down to that game, right? Unless, you know, the Buccaneers lose next week, and it's going to come down to week 18, right? And who would have thought that Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers, you know, if you were to tell them,

tell us a year ago at the beginning of the season when they bench Bryce Young, he's going to be going and he's going to be beating Baker Mayfield at home. He's going to be beating Baker Mayfield. And then they're going to be playing for the division the last week of the season. It's been an incredible story, I think, for them. You have to feel good for the Panthers and for Bryce

because it's been, I mean, listen, part of it is that their organization is somewhat inept, right? And their owner's a bit of a crazy person, right? Yeah. But beyond, and don't print that and don't put that down there. We do not want to be bulletin board material for the Panthers. We are rooting for the Panthers here.

At least I'm rooting for the Panthers. We are trying to agitate the Jaguars as a company, it would seem. Company mandate has come out and said, we must agitate the Jacksonville Jaguars. And we are falling in line and we will do so when we think of the proper way to do so. And Shield's going to go and he's going to criticize your bathrooms, Jaguars, and he's going to do all of that stuff. but we're not doing that. We're not doing that with the Panthers.

Not to the Panthers. Not to the Panthers. Yeah. I mean, I have made fun of the Panthers a lot in the past because of the owner, like you said, asking the restaurant people to change their signage outside, flipping the guy's lid. I don't advocate any of that. I don't like any of that.

And I will rip them if I need to. But I can't help. But I'm with you. You know, as you were describing Bryce Young's journey, Billy, he was the original Sad Joe Burrow, you know? Remember when he got benched and Andy Dalton's getting in there, who was more sad than Bryce Young? He was as sad as could be,

thought his career was over, all of a sudden, who could, a car accident, I mean, second car accident reference on this podcast. I didn't see that coming, but Andy Dalton gets in the car accident. Bryce Young comes back. And now in this game,

he's so happy. He's got the celebration with Ted McMillan. He's got that play at the end. He's scrambling. Maybe they get away with the hold. Who cares? He finds the touchdown in the back of the end zone. And you're right.

Maybe it won't happen for it. they're not out of the woods yet. They don't have anything clinched. They might have to beat the bucks again in week 18. But I feel like this was a great win for the Carolina Panthers. And like whatever juice there is to squeeze out of this Panthers team, they're squeezing it all out there, I feel. They don't even, do I think they're going to win the Super Bowl?

Absolutely not. Yeah. Will I want to see them make the playoffs? Yes. Is their game probably going to be like that Saturday noon game the first week of the playoffs? Yeah, more than likely because who actually wants to see them play in the playoffs? besides me, like, I want to. Did you see the stat?

I don't know if you saw it, Sheel. So Bryce Young coming into that game, coming into that final drive, 11 of his 13 wins for his career were game-winning drives. So he now has 12 of his 14 career wins as game-winning drives. This guy has ice water running through his veins.

Ice water. Joe cool over here, just leaning his team down the field when he needs to and it matters the most. Forget the fact that he's the only throwing for like 140 yards a game. That doesn't matter. Those 140 yards, they're coming in the game-winning drive. He's going to win it when he needs to.

They're coming at the right time. He was very nice to whoever was doing the post-game interview. You know, as you said, the Panthers aren't going to the Super Bowl. I had a thought. Okay, so you're in South Florida. I'm in Philadelphia. Charlotte has to be kind of, well, no, it's probably a longer drive for you than it would be for me. if the Panthers make the Super Bowl, we meet at that restaurant, and I let you flip my lid, and we make it a social media video.

You're in for that? Okay, sure. Okay. Yeah, you don't seem enthused. I thought you were going to be more enthusiastic. It's a longer drive, for me, honestly. I mean, can I get there another way? Can I fly there?

You can fly. Okay, cool. I'll go there. I'll take you from the airport. If they win, we can go and be part of the parade. I'm sure they would love that. Because, again, Panthers and Panthers fans, this is not bulletin board material.

for you. Only do that for the Jaguars. We want you to succeed. You know what? It's like the opposite of the Jaguars. If they make the Super Bowl, they can play this clip and be like, here are the only people who actually believed in us.

Thank you. You get it. What happened to that Jerry Richardson statue? They took it down, right? The one where he was like walking Panthers or whatever it was. Yes. I do believe they took that down. Yes, I do.

But, you know, if we want to investigate when we're in Charlotte anyway. It was for good reason. He was kind of not the best. Yeah, we could do some investigative journalism on that when we're down there. Yeah. If we want to. Okay.

There you go. His name is Billy Gill. My name is Sheila Kapadi. No hurry up today. We had too much to get to. Thanks to everybody for listening. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Kiera Givens on social and additional production supervision by Connor and Evan's and Arjuna Ramgapal. We'll be back tomorrow on the ringer NFL.

Must be 21 plus and present in select states. for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Hallp.com. Call 1-888-7-8-9-77-7-7 or visit ccpggat-org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline-ma.m.m.m.org or call 800-327-50-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope N-Y in New York.