The Ringer NFL Show - Predicting the Week 6 NFL Headlines

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Sheil and Seth Walder from ESPN check the pulse of the NFL to discern what all the pundits will be buzzing about after the final whistle is blown on the Week 6 action. (00:00) Predicting the Week 6 NFL headlines(2:20) Sam Darnold enters the MVP conversation(6:35) The Ben Johnson offense has arrived(13:46) The Chiefs are still the team to beat(19:33) Nick Herbig is the best Steelers pass rusher(24:07) The Hurry Up: The Ringer 107 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: Seth WalderProducer: 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 Shield Capadia. 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.

Commander's Bears on Monday night, Jaden Daniels and Caleb Williams. Seahawks go to Jacksonville during the afternoon window on Sunday. Those have been too highly entertaining games. So we'll discuss what we're watching in those matchups. My guest today is ESPN's Seth Walter. He does a great job as an analyst over there. Surprise 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 ju-ju 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. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by Fanduel. And if you're betting on the NFL, fan duels the place to do it. They've got everything.

Same game parlay's, quick bets for when you want to jump in live. and your way so you can set your own lines. The app's fast. It's easy to use, and best of all, when you win, you get paid out instantly. Download the Fandul app or go to fandul.com slash ringer NFL to get started. The ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and present in select states and 18 plus in D.C., Kentucky and Wyoming.

gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Helphel.com. Call 1-88-78-88-78-9-77- or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All 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. And I think the eye test matches it. Like 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 past defense.

And so I think Darnold, with a good performance in Jacksonville, they improved to four and two somewhere on the internet on TV, video, 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 Donald 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 when 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. Advanced numbers are just like yards per dropback, 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 the Seattle has not leaned into the past.

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, like, let Sam rip. Yeah. I've joked it for it.

It's like, you could just, Mike McDonald is just doing everything. He 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? Because 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,

because I do think Jacksonville is probably better against the run than they are against the past. 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 off season, 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. settle 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 Donald. So we'll see if he can continue it in Jacksonville on Sunday. All right, your turn, Seth. What are 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. Whoa, 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 revamped the offensive line. That is working. They rank fourth in past block win rate.

a big part of that has been Darnel Wright has been playing a lot better. He may is banged up. I don't know at this point if he's going to play. But still, the guards that they brought in have been playing well in terms of pass protection. I'm the first one to say that Sackray has a lot to do with quarterbacks.

But Caleb Williams is 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. And 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. Okay. 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 is accuracy, right? Rocking a negative 10% completion percentage of expectations. He'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 there. I mean, I need to believe it. You know, I need to see it to believe it with the bears off. Now, you made a very compelling case there. I like all the points you made there.

What's interesting about your argument is it feels like you're arguing the offense is working. The Ben Johnson experiment is working. The 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, just 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?

Yes, like I'm saying that what Ben Johnson is doing is working, almost everything around, I do have some of this running game, but almost everything around Williams is working, but Williams has been holding them back. Yeah. That's interesting. Okay, because, yeah, 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. I know there are people who would argue that like, no, he's play like, Seth's off base here. Like, he's playing well 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 coverage today, but it looks like they might make a change at left tackle according to sort of the Bears beat reporters

where they had the buy 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 Benedet, who played right tackle. I think last week out of University of British Columbia, a UDFA. So it's, 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.

So 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 the Swift always going where the play. It 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. Overall, 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. boys 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 is 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. But there are, I mean, Marchion Lattimore is not the same guy that he used to be. Bobby Wagner's letting up 1.5 yards per covered 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. This could be a really fun game then because I think the commanders have a good chance to go up and down the field against that Bears defense. You know, 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 McLauran, no Daniels for a couple of games. And you look at just about every metric. And they have like a top 10 offense, even with all those injuries.

And that bear's 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.

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restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max-wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fandul.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Call 1-888-889-77-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. it. 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. Casey, still the team to beat in the AFC. So let me make the Casey. I know there was Chief's fatigue coming into the season,

then early on, it's like same old story. There are two and three fun Sunday night matchup against the Detroit lines, two legit Super Bowl contenders. Chiefs coming off that loss last week. against Jacksonville. 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 nerd 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. He'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 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 Rishi Rice comes back. And their offense, I think, could hit another level there. So Xavier Worthy's dealing with an injury. We'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 him 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, I disagree with I would tell you. But, you know, we've got our model that it predicts going forward how good each team is. He is FPI. You know who's number one in FPI right now? I'm going to say the cheese based on you bringing them up right now. It's the cheat.

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? You're saying, okay, what if they look good? And now we're all of the sudden and 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, I just think they are one of the best teams. And it's a boring thing to say because of the cheap. But it's true.

Yeah, it would be more fun if my headline was like, you know, she's falling apart. Well, you know, 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, you know, that makes sense to me, what you mentioned there was projecting forward and FPI because all their losses have been one score games, which of course last year they feasted on those 10 and 0 or whatever it was this year.

They're 0 and 3. So they have been a very hard team to kind of put away to blow out. They've had a couple 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 going to do. Andy Reed is going to be a little bit different, you know, a little more conservative in that game. So 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 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

lions get out to a big lead, which I think is feasible, you could have one of the widest, I think, pass attempt splits between two teams in this game. You could just have the Lions, just shut it off and they just

keep running from the second quarter on and have Jared Gophend to like 14 pass attempts while Mahomes throws 50, you know, 50 as they try to play 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 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 Mahomis. He'd be like, yeah, 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. Chiefs that 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. All 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 to Nick Herbick, but give me the case. Okay, so Nick Herbig, I think this is going a little under the radar.

What he's done, he's only played three games. He missed week one, and they've had their buy. 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 rush win rate. their blocker within two and a half seconds. Just to put that in context, that's best in the NFL. And if you think about last year's

Aidan Hutchinson insane stretch when he played five games before he got hurt, he was at 35%. So what Nick Herbigig is doing is on another planet. And it's also not totally unprecedented. Every time he's gone 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, 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, Sheel? I want to know, I'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 that was higher than I thought.

Like I was asking the question because I was like, am I way out on the 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. I do want to give a quick shout-up to J.P. Acosta from CBS because he tweeted or blue-skied the other day, like, is Nick Herbert the best pass-rarcher on the Steelers? And I had been thinking it, but afraid to say it out loud. JP knows ball. We've had JP on. So, yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, he had the courage, so he deserves the credit. So he's been playing more with Alex Hysmith, 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. So there's a potential monster day for Herbing. Now, Gabriel is not like a huge sack guy or he wasn't in college and get rid of the ball pretty quick.

So it's not going to be, it's not like the easiest sack matchup potentially. But I think that his disruption possibility is all over the place here. That's interesting. So her big potential, the torch is passed from T.J. Watt, who's a little bit older, to

Nick Herbick, who's been a good player. Now it's always, like you said, more snaps, bigger role, more attention, you know, you have to prove it. And it's interesting. I wonder, you know, teams facing the Browns, I would imagine they would still say, what's our plan for

blocking T.J. Watt, but 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. You know, 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 so, you know, 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. So they are still impacting the game.

It's kind of the whole gravity thing with some of those pass rushers. So, okay, Steelers Brown. Steelers are a five and a half point favorite in that game. So Dylan Gabriel, second start against that pass rush will be fun to watch. All right, Seth, you brought it. I mean, I love it. Some juice. So taking some opinions and I'm like, bears are going to put up 40?

What are we talking? That's crazy. So I love that. You can check out all of Seth's work at ESPN. ESPN.com. He's a great follow on social media as well. Seth, thanks for joining us. And I'll be right back with the hurry up.

All right, we're back with the hurry up. Today's Ringer 107 is brought to you by Fanduel. Again, the Ringer 107 is our contest among various Ringer podcasts. I am in last place. No one's running away with it. I still got plenty of time to catch up. I think we're going to have a good week here. First pick, Seahawks plus one and a half at Jacksonville.

We talked about this earlier. I think Darnold is playing really well. I'm nervous about Seattle's defense because they're banged up. But I trust Mike McDonald to force at least one, maybe two, maybe three. Trevor Lawrence mistakes. I think the Seahawks are going to move the ball in this game. If they can just avoid the backbreaking turnover or special team scath, I like the Seahawks here.

So Seahawks plus one and a half. That's my first pick. All right. Next pick, Chiefs minus two and a half versus the Lions. We talked about this game as well. Now, I mentioned Dan Campbell's got the edge over Andy Reed in the game management. That makes me nervous. But Chiefs offense coming on strong.

They're at home. They're two and three. They need this game. Are they really going to be two and four? I think the Chiefs get it done at home. Chiefs minus two and a half. Next one, Browns plus five and a half. half at Pittsburgh.

Another game we talked about. Now, Seth mentioned the Pittsburgh pass rush angle with this. I like the Browns to keep this game competitive. You know, I think they've been running the football better. I think Mike Tomlin's going to be conservative with his game management. I think that Steelers offense, they really try to dink and dunk you down the field. And I think the Browns can be aggressive and take away some of those easy completion. So I think Browns, surprisingly, keep it close.

Browns plus five and a half as my third pick. Fourth pick, we go to Indianapolis. Colts minus seven and a half against the Cardinals. Kyler Murray, his status is up in the air at the time of this recording. He hasn't practiced yet this week. Cardinals have not been able to run the ball. And honestly, I'm tired of doubting the Colts offense. If they burden me here, that's fine.

But, you know, I think they've been moving the football every single game. They've been statistically the best offense in the NFL. I like this line better when it was six and a half, even with Kyler Murray playing. But you know what? If he's not playing, if it's Jacoby Brissette, seven and a half. I think the Colts are a better coach team. I like Indy big in that game. All right.

Last one, Bill's minus four and a half at Atlanta. I originally had the 49ers in this spot. They're playing at Tampa. They're plus three. I like that. But Mac Jones is dealing with injuries. Brock Purdy's probably out. So just the, I'm not the uncertainty.

I had quarterback scared me off there on the 49ers. I didn't want to risk it. I thought, give me the bills. Coming off a loss of the Patriots, they can move the ball, they can score on anyone. Don't love the bills defense, but are the Falcons really positioned to exploit them here? I don't think so. Maybe it'll be wrong. It'll be closer than we think.

But it's not a huge number. Mine is four and a half. And you know what's fun having the Josh Allen side on a lot. any bet, specifically when the bills are coming off a loss. So bills minus four and a half. That's my last pick. All right, today's Ringer 107 was brought to you by Fandul. Odds subject to change. Thanks to everyone for listening. Another fun week here. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing Kiera Givens on social, additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and our Juno Romgo-Pal. I'll be back Monday morning, breaking down the biggest

week six storylines. Have a great weekend, everyone. Talk to you next time on the the ringer NFL show. 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 dash help.com. Call 1-888-787-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp. org in Maryland. Hope is here.

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