NFL – 2022 WEEK 15 SATURDAY GAME PREDICTIONS

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, football fans… The college football regular season has come and gone which means for us – the return of Saturday games to the schedule…

If I sound giddy, that’s because I am.  I love the idea of spreading football out over the course of three days.  So, I’m looking very forward to the three interesting matchups we have this Saturday, December 17, in addition to the eleven we’ll see on Sunday plus Monday Night Football.

In the very least, each game on Saturday should be competitive.  But perhaps the most fun to watch will be the last of the three when Miami heads to Buffalo.  If you haven’t heard, the temps in Buffalo are slated to be in the 20s and snow will be coming down. Gotta love winter football when Florida softees are involved…

So, let’s take a look at what we can expect this Saturday and make some predictions.

GAME 1 – COLTS (4-8-1) AT VIKINGS (10-3)

1PM on NFL NETWORK

When I first started scouting these two teams, I felt encouraged that the matchup would be somewhat balanced.  Even though Indianapolis only has four wins, their defense is good- it ranks eighth overall and is competitive enough to face a top ten Vikings offense that could be explosive.   

Unfortunately, the more digging I did on the Colts offense, the more I realized how anemic it has performed this season.  Or should I say underperformed… And it’s the reason I don’t see Indianapolis upsetting the Vikings on Saturday.  

Through Week 14, Indy has only scored an average of 16.1 points per game and 20 touchdowns total.  Compare that to the Vikings who have scored 24 points per game on average and have 36 Total TDs (The leaders are the Eagles – 29.7/50 and KC -29.5/46).  

Further, while the Colts passing offense ranks middle of the road with 3179 yards in the air, they have a poor rushing offense, ranking twenty-sixth overall with only seven rushing touchdowns.  Worse still is Indy’s Red Zone TD percentage which ranks at the bottom  at 47.22%.  But perhaps the least favorable stat is that the Colts are only scoring an average of 12.7 points on the road.  Woof.

The issues stem from a porous offensive line, too many turnovers and a listless running game which I believe is the heart and soul of any offense.  It opens so many possibilities for the quarterback, who in this case is a non-athletic banged up veteran.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Matt Ryan still has potential to lead a successful football team.  The 2016 MVP is durable, can still sling it and has so much valuable experience under his belt.  But he is not mobile and with a lack of protection and no real receiving weapons, I don’t believe the Colts will score enough points to hold off a Minnesota team who has their eyes on the playoffs.  

Now, what the Colts do have going for them in this game is they are coming off a bye week and the Vikings defense is ranked last overall.  There’s also the record of twenty-five years standing between the last time the Vikings beat the Colts which was on December 21, 1997. Since then, in their only 5 meetings, the Colts have won each of them.  That said, do I think that history will make any difference?  No, I don’t.

Yes, Minnesota’s defense is basically a mess.  They’re ranked last in total and passing defense and they’ve given up 400+ yards in five consecutive games.  But they are doing a decent job of stopping opponent red zone scoring attempts, have the second most tackles (635), are tied for fourth in interceptions (12), and have a decent sack rate so far (30).  

The Vikings also have a very good turnover differential of (+6), good for fifth best in the NFL. That means Minnesota has gotten 20 takeaways and have given the ball away 14 times.  I’d say that is pretty well balanced.  

On the other end of the spectrum is Indianapolis’ turnover differential at (-14), the league’s worst.  Their defense has taken the ball away only 12 times, while their offense has given the ball away 26.  Outside of the Saints at (-12), this is far and away a terrible stat that is very telling about the Colts.

About that Vikings offense- it is noteworthy to mention Kirk Cousins, while no superstar, has performed well this season, with a passer rating of 91.2 and 20 TDs to 9 Interceptions especially when we consider he has been the most hit QB in the league with 67, ten more than the next hit QB (Justin Herbert – 57).  

Luckily, Cousins has Justin Jefferson at his disposal.  The twenty-three-year-old wide receiver out of LSU leads the lead in receiving yards (1,500), has the second most receptions (99), the most 20 plus yard plays (25) and six TDs.  Clearly, Jefferson has been majorly important for Cousins and the Vikings offensive successes.

Minnesota’s offense also has Dalvin Cook, the homegrown running back who has 950 rushing yards this season (sixth) and eight touchdowns.  If the Vikings can get him going and the running game back on track plus shore up their defense better, this team will be poised to make a decent run in the playoffs.   

Lastly, if by chance this game is close and will rely on the kickers to determine the outcome, Indy does have a slight advantage.  Field Goals Made for the Colts have been good at 80%.  Their kicker has also been stellar with extra points made (15) and 100%.  Meanwhile, Minnesota has only made 79.2% of their field goals and run around 85% on extra points made.

For Saturday’s game, I’m picking the Vikings over the Colts with the win.  

GAME 2 – RAVENS (9-4) AT BROWNS (5-8)

4:30PM on NFL NETWORK

On paper, Baltimore has an advantage over Cleveland in this game but when we factor in both team’s current quarterback situations, it becomes a little trickier to determine which will come out on top.

For the Ravens, they will be without their former MVP QB Lamar Jackson, due to injury.  No disrespect to his backup Tyler Huntley, but he is not an equal replacement for Jackson.  Huntley may be athletic and can run, but this season he’s completed 79.5% of his passes for 275 yards, has no touchdowns and one interception.  

And for Cleveland, their starter Deshaun Watson is just getting his sea legs back under him after missing the entire 2021 season and eleven games this year due to multiple sexual harassment/assault lawsuits.   

However, sooner or later Watson will return to better form than he has displayed so far and contribute towards his team getting a W.  Saturday would be a good place to start- in front of his home fans for the first time as a Cleveland Brown. 

Indeed, it appears Watson understands the need to impress Browns fans and get their support.  He said this past week, “My main objective for this weekend is going out there and just showing this crowd and showing the Cleveland fans and this city that we’re going out there to compete and this season is not over for us…I can’t control what the reaction’s going to be. I’m not sure what it’s going to be, but I’m excited to go out there and play football and get back in the old-school uniforms and the white face masks and things like that and have a little bit of fun and just try to make Saturday something special for Cleveland.”

If not, it would be a lost opportunity as the Ravens’ passing defense has been poor, ranking twenty-sixth overall and having allowed 3,240 yards in the air.  The Browns’ rushing attack has been good, but Baltimore is only allowing a stingy 81.2 rushing yards per game. 

So, for Watson, the time is now.  The Browns simply won’t be able to rely on fifth year running back Nick Chubb to carry the offense over the finish line against Baltimore on Saturday.  Chubb has been the ultimate bell cow for Cleveland this season having rushed for 1,153 yards (third best in league), 231 attempts (fourth best) and 12 touchdowns (second best) but it won’t be enough.  Watson must be better, much better.

I’ll take a leap and pick the Browns to beat the Ravens.  I think Watson will be extra motivated to put on a good show for the fans at home and finally put forth a good performance.

GAME 3 – DOLPHINS (8-5) AT BILLS (10-3)

8:15PM on NFL NETWORK

My first thoughts when comparing these two teams statistically is: Wow, how evenly matched they are.  I don’t see any wide disparities on offense or defense except for a couple of areas.  In fact, where they may differ (the Bills rushing attack & takeaway ability on defense), mistakes and/or injuries seem to even things out in this game.  

For instance, Buffalo has rushed for 1,738 yards this season, good for 9th most.  But they have only scored 12 TDs.  Compare that to Miami, only rushing for 1,168 yards (28th), 9 TDs.  The difference is that the Bills have fumbled the football while rushing 9 times; the Dolphins only 3.  

Further, while QBs Josh Allen and Tua Tagovailoa have almost the same exact QBR, these two differ obviously in Allen’s ability to rush the football for Buffalo.  In 13 games, Allen has rushed 99 times for 628 yards and 6 TDs.  Unfortunately, he’s also fumbled the football 6 times.  For Tua, in 11 games, he’s only attempted to rush 22 times for 63 yards and no TDs, 1 fumble.  

So, Allen’s capability of running with the football is a definite advantage for the Bills.  But obviously, he must clean up the mistakes in what could be a very tight game on Saturday.  Miami beat the Dolphins at home Week 3, so we know the Dolphins have the chops to match up well with the Bills.

For the Bill’s defense, it has performed better during the course of the season since the teams last met, but with the injury to Von Miller causing him to be out, that is a big blow to Buffalo. Just his presence and leadership on the field will be missing, let alone his elite play. It’s going to affect the Bills going forward, no question.

Beyond those stats, I did notice a couple that stuck out which are also noteworthy and which I think gives the advantage to Buffalo:

• In the last three games, Miami is only scoring 33.33% of TDs in the Red Zone versus Buffalo at 87.50%.

• The Bills defense is holding opponents points per game down to 17.0 (15.7 in the last 3 games); Dolphins compare at 24.0 (23.7 in the last 3 games).

But, what might be the biggest factor of all in Saturday’s evening game? The weather… It is supposed to be what I heard described as a possible “snow globe” game, and this definitely favors the home team.  Temperatures are expected to fall into the 20s, 2-4” of snow will be falling and the winds are forecast to blow 14 MPH to the southwest…

Miami QB Tagovailoa grew up in Hawaii, played college football in the deep south and lives in Miami.  He also has experienced three of his worst games statistically in cold weather.   Even though Tua says he will have a handle on it mentally, I think the cold weather will be more than the equalizer-it will be too much of a factor for the Florida softees. I also think the Bills kicker has been performing better than the Dolphins this season and Josh Alllen will limit his mistakes enabling the Bills to get many more first downs on the ground like they have been doing…  Gimme the Bills at home with the win. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://theladylovessports.com/contact.