NFL Week 15: Picks and preview

STREAMING: PRIME VIDEO            LINE: San Francisco -3.5

Eyebrows were raised after the 49ers’ odds to win the NFC didn’t take much of a hit, if any when Jimmy Garoppolo went down. In his first start, Brock Purdy certainly validated the sentiment that he can handle the position. Purdy toyed with Tampa Bay’s defense, San Francisco smothered Tom Brady and held the Buccaneers scoreless well into the second half. The Niners further asserted themselves as Philadelphia’s primary challenger in the conference. Seattle enters the game reeling; as dominant as San Francisco was against Tampa, that’s how bad the Seahawks were, particularly on defense. An early Geno Smith interception didn’t help, and he had one of his most uneven games of the year, but the story here was Carolina steamrolling Seattle’s defense for 223 yards on the ground, despite everyone in attendance knowing that Sam Darnold wasn’t going to fill the air with footballs. Seattle is a boxer on the ropes, and in this analogy, the Niners are prime Mike Tyson.

Look smart to your friends:

-How good was Purdy last week? He became the first rookie in the Super Bowl era with 2+ touchdown passes, a rushing touchdown and a passer rating of 125+ in his first-career start.

-With a touchdown catch in this game, Tyler Lockett would become the first player since Davante Adams in 2020 with a receiving touchdown in 7 straight games.

The pick: 49ers 27 Seahawks 24

TV: NFL NETWORK            LINE: Minnesota -4

The NFL gets to own Saturday for the rest of the year, now that college football is done until bowl season, and this isn’t exactly a resounding way to start things off. Indianapolis is just not good at all, and giving up 33 unanswered points while looking completely overmatched in Week 13 against the Cowboys should serve as a big pitcher of cold water on the Jeff Saturday experience. I say “should” because knowing Jim Irsay, Saturday will be receiving a multi-year deal as head coach in a few months. Minnesota was an underdog against the Lions last week and the Vikings played like it, never figuring out an answer for Detroit’s offense, and going silent on offense themselves for the middle 30 minutes of the game or so. Kirk Cousins passed for 425 yards, 223 of which went to Justin Jefferson, but Minnesota managed just 22 yards rushing in a game where they weren’t playing catchup until late. Not good enough.

Look smart to your friends:

-Jonathan Taylor needs just nine scrimmage yards to join Marshall Faulk as the only players in Colts franchise history with 1,000+ scrimmage yards in each of their first three seasons. I think he’ll get there.

-Jefferson needs just five receptions to become the third player ever – Christian McCaffrey and Michael Thomas are the others – with 300+ catches in their first three seasons.

The pick: Vikings 29 Colts 17

TV: NFL NETWORK            LINE: Cleveland -3

Character win for Baltimore last week in Pittsburgh. Tyler Huntley got knocked out of the game, and yet the Ravens, down to third-stringer Anthony Brown, still managed to run for 215 yards and get themselves a win. The Steelers are horrible on offense, and starter Kenny Pickett was knocked out of the game with a concussion, but what Baltimore’s offensive line did is still hugely impressive. That said, this team needs a healthy Lamar Jackson back to have any chance against the AFC’s best. Another week, another uninspiring performance from Deshaun Watson, who was very inefficient, unable to get a whole lot going downfield, and clearly incapable of going throw-for-throw with Joe Burrow. Any notion that the Browns were going to be able to hang around with Jacoby Brissett and then go on a late-season tear with Watson seems comical in retrospect. Still, unless Jackson is back, the Browns should have the quarterback advantage here – I think.

Look smart to your friends:

-Roquan Smith was lights-out against the Steelers, registering a sack and an interception, his third such game since 2018, which is the most in the NFL in that span.

-Myles Garrett had a huge game in defeat last week, with 3 tackles for loss, 2 sacks, and 2 passes defensed. It was his third game this year with 2+ sacks, tied for second-most in the NFL.

The pick: Browns 24 Ravens 14

TV: NFL NETWORK            LINE: Buffalo -7

Woof. Tua Tagovailoa didn’t get exposed, per se, but he looked absolutely atrocious in a 23-17 prime-time loss to the Chargers last week. Worse yet, the game wasn’t even that close in terms of how it was contested because a depleted Los Angeles defense had its way with Miami, and Tagovailoa and Mike McDaniel had no answers. Methinks we’re going to find out – and soon – just what kind of mettle McDaniel, Tagovailoa and the Dolphins have. Buffalo showed some mettle by grinding out an ugly-yet-effective win over the Jets and in the process rediscovered Dawson Knox as an offensive weapon; Knox drew C.J. Mosley offside after he lined up under center on a fourth-and-short play, and more tangibly, caught a touchdown pass a few plays later. The Bills haven’t been all that impressive in a while, but if they find secondary weapons beyond Stefon Diggs, and manage to develop a non-Josh Allen running game, they’ll look very scary in the playoffs.

Look smart to your friends:

-Jaylen Waddle’s 102 receiving yards last week made him the first player in franchise history with 1,000+ receiving yards in each of his first two seasons.

-Greg Rousseau has terrorized the Dolphins in his brief career; he has 2+ tackles for loss and 1.5+ sacks in two of three career games against Miami.

The pick: Bills 30 Dolphins 21

TV: CBS            LINE: Carolina -3

The Steelers’ quarterback situation is not great. Kenny Pickett left early against Baltimore with his second concussion in 10 games. Mitch Trubisky provided a spark with a few successful deep throws but also threw three interceptions, all of which were picked off inside the red zone. Pittsburgh can’t defend the run, either, as Baltimore went for over 200 yards despite having almost no semblance of a passing game. Mike Tomlin’s first losing season is one defeat away, something that seems inevitable at this point. Carolina delivered one of Week 14’s most impressive wins, picking off Geno Smith twice and rushing for 223 yards on the way to a 30-24 win over Seattle. Because Carolina participates in the NFC South, I am contractually obligated to point out that they are not out of the race just yet, and are, in fact, a mere game out of first place. Take traditional franchise reputation out of the equation, and it sure looks like the Panthers are the better team.

Look smart to your friends:

-Pat Freiermuth is quietly putting together a nice individual season for a pretty bad offensive football team. His 630 receiving yards are fourth in the league among tight ends this year.

-Pittsburgh’s offensive line has struggled in pass protection, and Brian Burns is bidding for his sixth-straight game with at least a half sack.

The pick: Steelers 33 Panthers 21

TV: FOX            LINE: Philadelphia -9

The Eagles are making it look easy, and as a result, the NFC looks like a two-team conference. We’ve seen Philadelphia scuffle at times, but when they get things clicking, particularly early, they take the form of the best team in the NFL, even better and more impressive than the AFC’s powerhouses. Jalen Hurts had easy work against New York, and he, Miles Sanders and even Boston Scott ran roughshod over a Giants team with nowhere near the offensive horsepower to keep up. Chicago would be best served to lose out, as it would lock them into the third pick in the draft, and maybe get them to second, and fortunately for the Bears, the Eagles ought to be happy to oblige them. The more interesting thing about the Bears’ final four games is what kind of progression Justin Fields makes. His legs are electrifying, but passing game development has come more in fits and spurts, particularly in the three games since his consecutive outbursts against Dallas and Miami.

Look smart to your friends:

-Hurts is just the fourth quarterback ever (Kyler Murray, Cam Newton, Kordell Stewart) with 3,000+ passing yards, 20+ passing touchdowns and 10+ rushing touchdowns in a single season.

-Fields is just 95 rushing yards away from history; he has 905 on the season and seems a near-lock to join Lamar Jackson and Michael Vick as the only quarterbacks to rush for 1,000+ yards in a single season.

The pick: Eagles 35 Bears 24

TV: FOX            LINE: New Orleans -4

Desmond Ridder is going to get the nod for the Falcons, as Atlanta decided the bye week and Marcus Mariota’s underwhelming body of work were enough to make the switch. Ridder gets thrown into one of the most hostile road environments in the league in New Orleans, though while the crowd has held up its end of the bargain this year, the team on the field hasn’t. The Saints are just 3-4 in the Superdome this season, and have the dubious distinction of being the worst team in the worst division in football. To make matters worse, defensive lineman Cameron Jordan, multiple coaches, and the organization itself have been fined more than $500,000 collectively after the league determined that he had faked an injury late in the Saints’ loss to Tampa Bay. Do I really need to write anything else to preview this matchup? No, I do not.

Look smart to your friends:

-Drake London needs just three catches to become only the third Falcons rookie wide receiver with 50+ catches since 2000.

-Here’s some fun Taysom Hill trivia: He is the only player in NFL history with 9+ passing touchdowns, 9+ rushing touchdowns, and 9+ receiving touchdowns.

The pick: Falcons 17 Saints 13

TV: CBS            LINE: New York -1

Are the Lions for real? Yes, yes they are. That might not be enough to get them to the postseason – though if they win out, they’re almost certainly going to make it – but regardless, it should make them a hellish opponent for everyone left on their schedule, including the Jets, who still harbor playoff dreams of their own. Jared Goff is cooking, Jameson Williams’ first catch in the NFL was a 41-yard touchdown, and the Lions believe. They’re fun. If your team sucks and you have Red Zone, pop it on and watch for Lions cut-ins instead. You’ll have a lot more fun. Mike White impressed everyone, including some of the Bills’ players, with his toughness in last week’s 20-12 loss. If White can’t go in this game, it stands to reason that Joe Flacco would. This is, of course, deeply funny if you’re not a Jets fan, because Zach Wilson seems miles away from ever mattering for this team. What’s not funny for New York is the fact that Quinnen Williams left the Buffalo game and didn’t return. New York will need all hands on deck to stop Detroit, and Williams is the linchpin of what they do upfront.

Look smart to your friends:

-Goff is having himself quite the renaissance season, and in the process, he’s continuing to make some history. His 330-yard game last week was his 30^th-career 300-yard passing game, tied for the fourth-most ever by a player in his first seven seasons.

-Garrett Wilson leads all rookies with 63 catches, and is second with 868 receiving yards. The latter total is already the most by a rookie in Jets history.

The pick: Lions 23 Jets 21

TV: FOX            LINE: Dallas -4

You could forgive Dallas for playing with its food a little bit against Houston. The Texans stink, the Cowboys are really good, and those games are naturally hard to get up for if you’re the better team. The “Battle of Texas” stuff is nonsense, too, and everyone knows it. That said, it is telling that when Dallas absolutely had to have a score, Dak Prescott took them 98 yards and got the game-winning touchdown. Jacksonville has historically struggled against the Titans; struggled badly, in fact. So what happened last week had to feel like an exorcism of sorts, as the Jaguars took an early, big punch from the AFC South’s resident bully, then thoroughly outclassed them the rest of the way. If Jacksonville hadn’t lost so many winnable games already this year, they’d likely be looking down at the Titans in the division. As it is, they need to win out and get some help to get it done, but we know this much; they’ve got the talent on offense to do it. Consistency from week to week is another matter.

Look smart to your friends:

-Tony Pollard is having a monster season; he already has career highs in scrimmage yards, rushing yards, and scrimmage touchdowns, and is coming off his first-ever game with both a rushing and receiving touchdown.

-Evan Engram’s monster game in Week 14 – 11 catches, 162 yards, 2 touchdowns – made him just the sixth tight end in league history with 10+ catches, 150+ yards and 2+ touchdowns in a single game.

The pick: Jaguars 30 Cowboys 27

TV: CBS            LINE: Kansas City -14

I am assuming that after burying the Broncos early, and realizing that their opponent was, in fact, the Broncos, the Chiefs just sort of stopped trying. I can’t blame them – we’ve all watched Russell Wilson this season – but a funny thing happened. Wilson came alive, the Chiefs just stalled out, and Patrick Mahomes went from flipping no-look touchdown passes to throwing interceptions. I don’t want to overreact to a mediocre 35 minutes, because the Chiefs are still the scariest team in the league when they’re on, but they can’t afford this sort of uneven performance against quality opponents. Is there anything left that I can say about the Texans? I think I’m just about out of things to say. They did the right thing and went for the kill shot against Dallas, and then they didn’t get it, and then they surrendered 98 yards of turf with minimal resistance. Would it have been nice to win? Sure. Will it be much nicer to have dibs on their quarterback of the future as the holders of the top overall pick in next year’s draft? I think so.

Look smart to your friends:

-Mahomes made plenty of history last week; he had his 24^th-career game with 300+ passing yards and 3+ touchdown passes, surpassing Dan Marino for the most ever in a quarterback’s first six seasons, and he joined Peyton Manning as the only quarterbacks ever with 4,000+ passing yards in five of their first six seasons.

-Receiver Chris Moore led the Texans with a career-high 10 catches and a career-high 124 receiving yards last week. Go Chris! Keep doing the rest of us Chrises proud!

The pick: Chiefs 41 Texans 20

TV: FOX            LINE: Denver -3

Kyler Murray is done for the year with a torn ACL, and there are fears that he might not be ready for the start of next season, either. That’s the cherry on top of a horrible year for the Cards, one that has raised plenty of questions about Kliff Kingsbury’s future, as well as some about Murray himself. What else can this uninspiring, underachieving bunch do the rest of the way? Not a lot. Denver actually showed signs of life against the Chiefs, and Russell Wilson was having his best game of the season before he got knocked out with a concussion. Like the Cardinals, however, this is a ship on a slow, torturous ride to nowhere. Wilson’s skills still look dramatically eroded, Nathaniel Hackett will be gone after this year, and there’s no guarantee the defense will be as good. Bad times are on the horizon, and there aren’t any readily evident fixes.

Look smart to your friends:

-Colt McCoy will take over for Murray, and in three road starts with Arizona since 2021, he has 815 passing yards, 4 touchdowns, no interceptions and 110.9 passer rating.

-He may have bumped into an official while extremely angry about a call, but Jerry Jeudy had 8 catches, 73 yards and a career-best 3 touchdowns against the Chiefs.

The pick: Broncos 10 Cardinals 6

TV: FOX            LINE: New England -1

Well, the Patriots got themselves a win after two consecutive losses against competitive teams. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it came against the Cardinals, and the heat is still on Bill Belichick to make changes, particularly to his offensive coaching staff. That coaching staff gets to go up against one of the worst defenses in the league in the form of the Raiders, so there’s a chance you might see competence yet again from New England. Do you think Josh McDaniels feels like he’s going to win this battle of pupil versus teacher? By rights, he probably should. He has the advantage at quarterback, running back and wide receiver, and his defense at the very least, has the disruptive Maxx Crosby around. That said, he’s Josh McDaniels, and Belichick is Belichick, so I’m expecting some sort of horrifying “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”-style performance from Vegas.

Look smart to your friends:

-Josh Uche had a massive game against Arizona last week, notching three sacks. It was his second game this year with three sacks; he’s the only player in the league with that distinction this season.

-Crosby has had a big year, despite the Raiders’ struggles on defense. He leads the NFL with 19 tackles for loss this year, and his 11.5 sacks are a career-high, and the most by a Raider since 2015.

The pick: Raiders 27 Patriots 21

TV: CBS            LINE: Los Angeles -3

I’m far from convinced that the Titans are a good football team. Their offense struggles to sustain drives, their defense can be had, as Trevor Lawrence proved last week, and they’ve mostly feasted on bad competition. Mike Vrabel is a good coach, but his team seems flawed enough that a collapse isn’t out of the question. The Titans didn’t have a second-half drive that netted positive yardage against Jacksonville until the middle of the fourth quarter. Los Angeles delivered one of the best performances of Week 14, even though they only beat the Dolphins 23-17. One of Miami’s touchdowns was the definition of a fluke, with Tyreek Hill picking up a fumble and running it in for a score, and Tua Tagovailoa generally looked terrible. On paper, the Chargers absolutely look like the better team. The question is whether they’ll actually prove that on the field against Tennessee, who will likely try to grind them down physically, and win a war of attrition.

Look smart to your friends:

-Bud Dupree is coming off a strong game, with three tackles for loss against the Jaguars. He also has a sack in two of his last three games on the road.

-Austin Ekeler needs just two touchdowns to become the second Charger ever, along with LaDainian Tomlinson, to record 15+ touchdowns in consecutive seasons.

The pick: Chargers 24 Titans 23

TV: CBS            LINE: Cincinnati -3.5

Cincinnati churned out another workmanlike win, conquering the Browns and Deshaun Watson, and doing it almost entirely without Tyler Boyd and Tee Higgins. Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow were dynamic, and Cincy’s defense harassed Watson into a poor performance, and more impressively, shut down Cleveland’s running game. The Bengals aren’t fully healthy, but they certainly have the look of a team rounding into form at the right time. “Rounding into form at the right time” is not, in fact, what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are doing. Tampa got shellacked by San Francisco, and it’s hard to say which side of the ball’s performance was more concerning. The defense had no answers for Brock Purdy and Kyle Shanahan’s assault, and the offense did nothing whatsoever. The Buccaneers still look like the best bet to win the Dreaded NFC South, but this is not a good football team, and I say that as someone who thought he was being slick to put a Super Bowl futures bet on them two months ago.

Look smart to your friends:

-Burrow has cooked the NFC South this year, going 3-0 against the division, with 10 touchdowns (7 pass, 3 rush), no interceptions, and a 126.9 passer rating.

-Chris Godwin has 5+ catches in 10 straight games, currently the longest active streak with five or more catches in the league.

The pick: Bengals 31 Buccaneers 23

TV: NBC            LINE: Washington -4.5

I think we can all safely say that the best and greatest outcome for the Giants and Commanders here is that they tie again. The Giants don’t look like a very good football team, though no one really does against Philadelphia. Of course, Washington can say differently as the only team to beat the Eagles this year. As far as New York goes, though, it’s just not happening for Daniel Jones. The numbers are surface-level fine, but he’s playing a caretaker role, nothing more. Washington seems friskier, and not just because they aren’t coming off a four-touchdown drubbing. The Commanders’ defense looks like a group capable of taking over games, particularly up front, and they’re 6-1-1 after a 1-4 start. Taylor Heinicke’s numbers are just so-so, worse than Jones’ in many ways, and yet I would trust him to make a big play or put together a clutch late drive far more than his counterpart. These guys are oddly dangerous.

Look smart to your friends:

-Barkley is one of three running backs, along with Derrick Henry and Josh Jacobs, with 1,000+ rushing yards and 250+ receiving yards this season.

-With his 105-yard performance last week, Terry McLaurin became just the sixth player ever with 50+ catches and 900+ receiving yards in each of his first four seasons.

The pick: Commanders 20 Giants 16

TV: ESPN            LINE: Green Bay -7

Baker Mayfield’s sudden, shocking star turn last Thursday night suddenly makes the Rams a much more interesting team than they were prior to his arrival. Now, it’s fair to wonder what a talented-but-flawed player might be able to do with a fresh start, in a place where the head coach is an offensive guru. The Rams’ horrible offensive line could be an impediment to that, sure, but Mayfield’s presence makes this game compelling viewing. Green Bay just…can’t get it together. Even with Christian Watson getting healthy and emerging as the obvious top dog among the team’s pass catchers, the Packers still don’t have any juice. They look likely to finish third in the NFC North, with a losing record, and with the suddenly red-hot and ascendant Detroit Lions poised to pass them on the food chain. Much of that is due to some legitimate decline from Aaron Rodgers, but the league’s 21^st-ranked scoring defense isn’t helping matters.

Look smart to your friends:

-Mayfield’s 98-yard drive against the Raiders was the NFL’s longest go-ahead touchdown drive that began in the final two minutes in the last 45 years.

-Watson is the third rookie in the Super Bowl era, along with Odell Beckham Jr. and Randy Moss, to post 7+ receiving touchdowns in a four-game span.

The pick: Packers 24 Rams 20