I’ve been watching the Lions and Cowboys host Thanksgiving games, all my life. At some point they added a 3rd game because you know…more football. I’ll be watching the first two and will likely check in on the 3rd but Thanksgiving night, we always kick off the Christmas festivities by watching Home Alone. Also, I don’t really like the Bengals or the Ravens so I won’t be too heart broken about missing this one. But I’ll still write about it. So before we dive into a Thanksgiving feast, let’s dive into these games.

What’s Love got to do with it: Packers @ Lions

Our first game of the day features two rivals with good coaches. The Lions have none other than ankle biting Dan Campbell who recently decided to take over play calling duties. Every other week he looks amazing putting up a ton of points on bad teams. The opposite week he looks not so good as they struggle against good teams. It bodes the question, are the Lions good? I think the answer is kind of. The Packers on the other hand, do quite the opposite. Led by Matt LaFleur, they tend to play down to their level of the competition and then play better against good teams. That may have shifted after a dominant performance against the Vikings. Early on in the year, they were airing it out a lot but due to injuries and some inconsistent play from Jordan Love, they have found a new identity which is really their old identity from last year, run the ball and play really good defense. It seems to be working but the Lions run d is pretty good. Their pass defense…not so much. On the flip side, the Packers D is good all around but so is the Lions offense. In particular, Jahmyr Gibbs is freaking amazing. The Packers D will try to contain him. This should be a great back and forth game. What’s love got to do with it? I think a lot. The Packers air it out in this one, Jordan Love has a big game and the Packers leave Detroit as quickly as possible because, ya know…it’s Detroit. But they leave with a victory.

Packers 31 Lions 27

Mahomes Magic vs Dynamite Dak: Chiefs @ Cowboys

Both of these teams are coming off comeback victories at home. The Chiefs overcame an 11 point deficit. Mahomes is no stranger to overcoming deficits. He is the only quarterback in NFL history with a winning record when trailing by 10 or more points. Dak just led the Cowboys to an historic come from behind victory after trailing 21-0. The Cowboys are self proclaimed America’s team. But the Chiefs have sort of taken over that roll as they are on TV non stop to the chagrin of fans of many other teams. This has the makings of perhaps being the most watched regular season NFL game of all time due to the historic and popular franchises playing. If nothing else, people will tune in with the hope of the team they hate losing, which in this case might be both teams. This has the making of a shootout due to the Cowboys having the best passing offense in the league and the Chiefs getting to go against that Cowboys secondary. Dak is playing at very high level and he has plenty of people to throw to with George Pickens, Ceedee Lamb and Jake Ferguson. Although Lamb has been dropping a lot of passes lately. But there is one thing most people aren’t factoring in. The Chiefs defense is pretty good. They are 4th in the league in least points given up. They don’t have a great pass rush, but their secondary is better than people give them credit for and you know Spags will have some blitzes dialed up. You combine that with Mahomes throwing against what is typically a zone coverage scheme and I think the Chiefs do enough to get out of Dallas with a victory. Their receivers motto is “everybody gotta eat” and that’s just what they’ll do with the celebratory turkey after the game.

Chiefs 31 Cowboys 20

The Return of Macauley Culkin: Bengals @ Ravens

As we tune in to Home Alone on Thanksgiving night, their will be another Kevin McCallister sighting in Baltimore as Joe Burrow returns to play. He had turf toe and had to have surgery. Can we rename turf toe? It sounds so silly and seems like anyone should be able to play with it. I remember hearing about it as a kid and thinking why can’t people play with an injured toe? But what is really happening is is an injury to a ligament sometimes a tear. I mean if we called ACL tears grass knee it wouldn’t sound very bad either. Anyway, Burrow is back although I am not sure why. Your team is 3-8, they can’t stop anyone and they can’t block. I’ll be shocked if Burrow survives the night without getting injured again. Burrow in some ways the opposite of Kevin McCallister. Kevin hurts everybody. Burrow always gets hurt. On the flipside, the Ravens were once 1-5. If you follow my blog closely you know that I predicted their revival as I thought they would go on a run due to their super easy schedule. They have won 5 in a row and are now leading their division. They truly control their own destiny with 4 of their last 6 games against the Bengals and Steelers. While they have been winning, their offense has been a little shaky. Lamar is obviously not 100% and it shows on the field and on one of my fantasy teams. 7 points, Lamar! You only got me 7 points! Nothing fixes an offense like the Bengals defense. I think this will be yet another exciting high scoring battle between Lamar and Burrow that Burrow and the Bengals ultimately lose.

Ravens 28 Bengals 27