With the battle for division titles and wild card berths up for grabs, Week 15 offers a surfeit of interesting matchups of player and team. Here are some of the more intriguing ones on Sunday leading up to Sunday night’s clash for NFC East supremacy.
1. Broncos WR Emmanuel Sanders vs. Chargers CB Shareece Wright
San Diego’s defense did a nice job of limiting New England and making the game competitive into the fourth quarter even with the offense struggling. Denver’s matchups on the outside, however, present an entirely different set of challenges. While the Broncos have morphed into a heavy run team, they are still dangerous on the outside with Demaryius Thomas, Wes Welker, and Sanders. Thomas and Welker are banged up and have missed practice this week, as has Julius Thomas. Sanders had nine catches for 120 yards and three scores in the first meeting between these two teams, and unless Wright (or whoever ends up in coverage on him) does a much better job, he could put up a similar line again. And if the Chargers cover him too aggressively, Thomas and Thomas both have big (literally) size advantages against a smaller San Diego secondary.
2. 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick vs. Seahawks FS Earl Thomas and CenturyLink Field
The air of invincibility is off CenturyLink Field a little bit, with the Cowboys handling Seattle and Oakland having a chance to win in the final minutes. But the Seahawks are playing much better of late, especially on defense. They showed that against San Francisco on Thanksgiving night, harassing Kaepernick into only 121 passing yards on 29 attempts plus two interceptions. That was actually better than his performance in Seattle in the regular season last year, a 29-3 Seattle win that was never competitive. The struggling quarterback will need to do a lot more than he’s done in Seattle in the past-the only time he’s broken 200 yards passing there came in 2012, and required a touchdown drive down 42-6 late in the fourth quarter-if the 49ers are to avoid a .500 record. With Richard Sherman, who had two interceptions in Santa Clara, blanketing wide receivers and Thomas taking away the middle of the field, don’t expect it to happen.
3. Browns WR Josh Gordon vs. Bengals CB Leon Hall
Johnny Manziel will draw most of the ink for this game, because that’s what he does. One thing we saw from Manziel at Texas A&M was a tendency to rely on his big, physical talented receiver when he got into trouble. It was enough to get Mike Evans drafted in the top ten. Gordon, coming off a disappointing performance with only two catches for 15 yards on seven targets against the Colts, is the best and perhaps only good candidate for the same role. Like Demaryius Thomas in the Tim Tebow era, there may not be many targets and there may be even fewer catches, but they could be very high impact.
4. Dolphins WR Mike Wallace vs. Patriots CB Darrelle Revis
New England has been playing a lot of man coverage lately and matching up their cornerbacks to opposing wideouts. Miami’s offense is more efficient than it was last season, but is desperately lacking in big plays. Wallace is the best man to provide those. On Revis Island, though? Wallace is a random player who could go off at any time, but it’s too easy to see him being shut down even more completely than Keenan Allen was last week.
5. Colts TE Coby Fleener vs. Texans S D.J. Swearinger
With Reggie Wayne banged up and after he had 233 yards on Thursday night in the first game, most of Houston’s coverage attention will likely be on T.Y. Hilton, clearly Indianapolis’ best pass catcher. Mostly disappointing second-rounder Fleener has been doing a lot better of late catching passes from his college teammate Andrew Luck, though, and finished second on the team in targets and receptions in the win against the Browns. He had a size advantage on Swearinger, but the second-year safety is the sort of physical player who has given Fleener problems in the past.
