Turkey Day Snoozefest

/ Brian Phair

Every year, most Americans sit down at Thansgiving to a lovely meal of turkey (and all the fixin\’s) and then move in front of the TV for some NFL football. Every year we get to see the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys play home games (with the addition of a 3rd game at night over the past few years). Most years, the match-ups aren\’t fantastic and the Cowboys are favored in their game and the Lions are underdogs in theirs, creating for some less than thrilling games. Tomorrow, we will fall asleep on the couch with football in the background, but it will not be because of the turkey, but because of the crappy NFL match-ups. All odds courtesy of bodog.com.

Green Bay Packers (-10.5) at Detroit Lions, 12:30pm EST on Fox

This is a matchup of the 6-4 Packers and the 2-8 Lions. The record tells the story for both of these clubs. The Packers have had a nice season, but have been fairly consistent through the air, but RB Ryan Grant has struggled at times this year to break-off any big runs or even break 75 yards in a game, despite averaging almost 19 carries per game. Oh the Lions. Let\’s start with the positive. The Lions have won 2 more games this year than they did last year. The positive mostly ends there. They are showing signs of turning the franchise around, but are still several key players away from being a contender.

Prediction: Green Bay by 16

Oakland Raiders at Dallas Cowboys (-14), 4:15pm EST on CBS

This is a battle of the 1st place 7-4 Cowboys and the last place 3-7 Oakland Raiders. Despite their record, however, the Cowboys have really struggled this season having any type of consistent offense. They lost to the Packers 17-7, and the only TD they had came with under 1 minute left in the 4th quarter and they beat the Washington Redskins this past week 7-6 on a late TD. With Tony Romo\’s injured back, this could be a closer game than it should be. The Oakland Raiders, on the other hand, are coming off a huge win against the Cincinnati Bengals. The Bengals went into Oakland 7-2 and really clicking on offense, but were stopped by the mighty Raiders defense. I doubt they can repeat that performance, but they gained a ton of confidence.

Prediction: Cowboys by 6

New York Giants (-5) at Denver Broncos, 8:20pm EST on the NFL Network

For those lucky souls who get the NFL Network will have a special treat on Thanksgiving night, a battle of 6-4 teams. the Giants will soar into the mile-high city to face the Broncos. This is a tough matchup to predict, because at times this season, both teams have looked dominant and both teams have looked terrible. The Giants started the season 5-0 in impressive fashion with wins over divisional foes the Redskins and Cowboys in the first 2 weeks of the season. After the hot start, the Giantslost 4 straight, and just barely squeaked out a win this past weekend against the Falcons in OT. The Broncos have a similar story. They started off 6-0 and now have lost the last 4 games in a row. The Broncos problem has been scoring points, having given up 183 points to opponents this season, while only scoring 170 points on offense. If nothing else, this should be a fairly close game.

Prediction: Giants by 7

If you want more, B-Dogg can also be found writing daily about college sports at www.joshqpublic.com.

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