Ben SolakDec 16, 2025, 06:40 AM ETCloseBen Solak joined ESPN in 2024 as a national NFL analyst. He previously covered the NFL at The Ringer, Bleeding Green Nation and The Draft Network.
play0:40Broncos dominate Packers in 2nd halfJeff Legwold recaps the Broncos big win over the Packers on Sunday.
play0:45Should fantasy managers start Bo Nix in Week 16?Liz Loza breaks down Bo Nix’s fantasy performance in Week 15 and why fantasy managers can rely on him at quarterback in Week 16.
Rich Eisen: The Rams are the best team in football (1:46)Rich Eisen explains why the Rams are the best NFL team after their win over the Lions. (1:46)
Broncos dominate Packers in 2nd halfJeff Legwold recaps the Broncos big win over the Packers on Sunday.
Should fantasy managers start Bo Nix in Week 16?Liz Loza breaks down Bo Nix’s fantasy performance in Week 15 and why fantasy managers can rely on him at quarterback in Week 16.
Liz Loza breaks down Bo Nix’s fantasy performance in Week 15 and why fantasy managers can rely on him at quarterback in Week 16.
The Big Thing: Can anyone stop the Rams or Broncos?
Week 15 of the NFL season is in the books. Through those fifteen weeks, not a single team has successfully secured a division title — the first time every division has been up for grabs this late since 2016. The Seahawks and Rams, Buccaneers and Panthers, and Packers and Bears play in what might end up being season-defining games this upcoming week. Hats off to the NFL schedule makers.
And hats off to the ESPN schedule makers, who have once again secured the Tuesday morning spot for my column. Every Tuesday, I spin the previous week of NFL action forward, looking at what the biggest storylines mean and what comes next. We’ll seek measured reactions to everyone’s overreactions, celebrate the exciting stuff that nobody is appreciating and highlight what you might have missed.
Jump to a section: Can anyone stop Rams, Broncos? What to make of Rivers’ first start Mailbag: Answering questions from … you Next Ben Stats: Wild Week 15 stats Monday Night Move-on: Miami’s Tua’s issue
Every week, this column will kick off with one wide look at a key game, player or trend from the previous slate of NFL action. What does it mean for the rest of the season? This week, we’re looking at the first two teams to clinch a 2025 playoff spot.
The dust has settled on Week 15 and we know, for sure, ⅐ of our playoff field. The Rams and Broncos secured postseason berths with victories Sunday. Though neither has secured their division title nor their conference’s top seed just yet, they control their own destinies to do so.
Out of this diversity comes precision. The Rams have the tools to hit a defense exactly where it hurts. The first half was “attack D.J. Reed.” The Lions benched Reed in the second half, playing him in only multi-cornerback sets or when Amik Robertson got banged up.
But then the second half became “dominate with 13 personnel.” Of the Rams’ 35 second-half plays, 27 were in 13 personnel; they were running it at a 70% clip even before Adams’ fourth-quarter hamstring injury. The Lions were run blitzing the heavy-tight-end looks endlessly, trying to get penetration against the Rams’ patient running backs, and that opened up the quick play-action throws.
That the Rams have an elite offense is generally unsurprising. The McVay/Stafford/Nacua triumvirate is always going to print quality offense. It’s the additional layers this season that take them from typical Rams-y goodness to unprecedented Rams-y goodness. Those layers are in jeopardy now that Adams’ injury looks like a multiweek issue that could last into the postseason. But the Rams have been impressively healthy on offense so far and have plenty of resources to lean on in Adams’ absence.
With standout nickel Quentin Lake still on injured reserve, the cornerbacks are not the caliber of players that discourage targets. They’re smaller players who excel clicking and closing from deep zone alignments, so anticipatory quarterbacks who trust their wideouts can shred the space between the zones. Jared Goff was the author of such a game Sunday, but Mac Jones did it twice, too.
But defenses like this are beatable. The Rams’ defense will give up long, arduous drives to quality running games, and it gets stressed by big receivers. Those drives have the added cost of a running game clock that limits the number of possessions the Rams’ offense has. Should Stafford and McVay’s group make one mistake — such as the fumble inside the 5-yard line against the 49ers in Week 6, or the end zone interception against the Panthers — the game can quickly evaporate.
The Lions at full strength are certainly the Rams’ biggest opposition. Goff is a great stylistic fit against this defense, the Lions’ run defense is league leading, and Detroit has the size along its offensive line to combat the Rams’ power. As we saw Sunday, Detroit’s injuries have neutralized the threat. Liabilities at cornerback, tight end, left guard and safety made the mountain too tall for the Lions to climb.
However, the Rams can and should dominate the 49ers on the ground. San Francisco’s defense is terribly battered, and it’s not a particularly big group against the Rams’ multiple-tight-end sets. The 49ers’ defense is the liability in the matchup.
That brings us to the Seahawks, who have been an enormous thorn in McVay’s side since Mike Macdonald became head coach. In the Rams’ 21-19 victory over Seattle in Week 11, Stafford averaged 4.9 yards per pass attempt — his worst in any start under McVay. Were it not for a few explosive runs and four Sam Darnold interceptions, the relative ineptitude of the Rams’ offense against Seattle’s defense would have gotten more headlines.
Unsurprisingly, it’s the divisional foes who know the Rams best that present the greatest challenge. But the Rams are still a clear cut above the NFC field, and they will be until proven otherwise (perhaps by the Seahawks in a few evenings). In the AFC, things are far more murky.
With their emphatic win over the Packers and the Patriots’ loss to the Bills, the Broncos are the NFL’s lone two-loss team. They have the best record and an inside track to the AFC’s 1-seed. In Year 3 of Sean Payton’s tenure in Denver, he has brought exactly what he promised: championship-caliber football.
If you want to attempt a big play against Denver, you’re going to have to drop back. And if you drop back, the Broncos will eventually sack you.
Jeff Legwold recaps the Broncos big win over the Packers on Sunday.
When quarterbacks hold the football, Denver’s pass rush comes in waves. It starts with Nik Bonitto, the league’s premier quick-pressure artist. With a first step slower than only Myles Garrett — that’s not a subjective claim; that’s NFL Next Gen Stats tracking data — Bonitto is the league’s leader in total quick pressures (37), time to pressure (2.61 seconds) and quick pressure rate (10.9%). The next closest player for quick pressure rate is at 9.2%.
That’s how it went down on what should have been the final play of the game for the Packers. They lined a tight end up to Bonitto’s side and had the running back in a position to chip. But Allen walked the center back into Jordan Love’s lap, and Cooper beat the right tackle along his outside shoulder. The vises closed on Love.
While the defense is the story of the season, the story of the Broncos’ win over the Packers was Bo Nix and the offense. Nix played the best game of his NFL career against Green Bay, ripping throws with timing, accuracy and aggression in a way he hasn’t for much of this season.
The Week 11 bye week offered Nix an opportunity to recalibrate, and he emerged a new man. Two of Nix’s touchdown passes on Sunday were perfectly placed and timed throws through some tight windows. This is the guy we saw against the Browns and Bengals at the end of last season.
It’s harder to believe in the Broncos as the AFC’s clear best team than it is to believe in the Rams in the NFC because this was a peak Nix game. Stafford has been doing this for a long time. We cannot be nearly as certain of this new reality sticking for Nix over the rest of the regular season, with some challenging defenses on deck (Jaguars, Chargers) before the postseason begins.
Denver is seventh in team DVOA, which puts it third in the conference behind the Colts and Texans. DVOA always lags a bit relative to recent production, so we can say confidently that the Broncos are better than the Colts, who beat Denver in Week 2 but have fallen off completely over the past month.
But seasonlong numbers put the Broncos more squarely in the first tier of AFC contenders than above them. When comparing general metrics for the nominal top six teams of the AFC (I’m not giving the AFC North champion any credence until proven otherwise), we see the Broncos have the best defense but aren’t alone in having a top group. Offensively, they’ve been less productive than the field.
Still, styles make fights. I love Denver’s matchup against New England, for example. The Broncos can swallow up the Patriots’ deep but starless core of receivers in man-to-man. They can pressure Drake Maye fast, especially with New England’s offensive line in disarray. And Nix can take his shots against a man-coverage-heavy defense.
Let’s see what a 44-year-old quarterback returning from nearly five years off looked like in his first start back.
Rivers went 18-for-27 for 120 yards Sunday, throwing a touchdown pass and an interception. But the story of Rivers’ 2025 debut isn’t so much how Rivers looked but rather what the Colts’ offense looked like around him.
From Weeks 1 to 14, the Colts were under center on 29.7% of their plays. The fewest under-center snaps they’d taken in a single game was 14. Against the Seahawks, the Colts took exactly one snap under center — good for 1.7% of their plays. The Colts’ 6.5 yards per play from under center this season still leads the league, despite their lone under-center play against Seattle losing 3 yards.