I want to start off this post by wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, as I hope you all have a wonderful day with whomever you’re spending the holiday with. Due to the holiday, the weekly recap will be taking a break this week, but in lieu of that, I will be previewing each of the games today in celebration of the holiday, so enjoy the food, the family, and (most importantly) the football!

Philadelphia at Detroit

As per Thanksgiving football tradition, the Lions are playing against the Eagles in a showdown of teams under .500. The Eagles come to town only a game out of first place, after getting demolished at home by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 45-17, and are looking to stay alive in the playoff race, whilst the Lions are far out of the race for the NFC North, and are 3 games out of the wild-card race, and will probably be looking to play spoiler the rest of the way (also a tradition for the Lions at this time of the year). Sam Bradford is questionable to play, meaning that Mark Sanchez could be getting the start (remember Sanchez on Thanksgiving? Sorry Jet fans). The Eagles are a mess right now, but the good news is that they play the Lions, who are coming off a win over the seemingly unpredictable Raiders, but are still not a good team this season. Chip Kelly’s experiment could crash and burn in front of a national audience, or we could see the first steps of recovery for a team who’s currently 1 game better than the Dallas Cowboys, you know, the some Cowboys that lost 7 in a row this season. We should appreciate seeing Calvin Johnson in this game, because who knows what the Lions will look like by next season, as Johnson would represent $21.4 Million of money against the Lions cap, plus Matthew Stafford will could $22 Million against the cap, that’s over a quarter of the team’s allotted cap space wrapped up in 2 players, it already cost them Ndomukong Suh and Nick Fairley, who will be next?

PREDICTION: I will take the Eagles on the road to win this game by a score of 23-17

Carolina Panthers at Dallas Cowboys

Fun fact about this game: The 3-7 Dallas Cowboys opened as favorites to win this game over the 10-0 Panthers. Say what now? Yes, the oddsmakers originally had the Dallas Cowboys as the favorites, as they are at home, and do have Tony Romo back in his second week of action since week 2. Upon learning this news, Panthers coach Ron Rivera called it “A little disrespectful”, he continued “It’s nothing that we haven’t seen before. You know we’ve had a better record in some of our other games where we were underdogs. So we are going to take it in stride. As I said, we are going to play them one at a time and as far as we are concerned everybody is 0-0 and we’ll see how it comes out.” I couldn’t agree more, it’s amazing how disrespected the Panthers have been this season, they’ve found ways to win every game they’ve played, favored, underdogs, at home, and on the road, 10 up and 10 down. As for Dallas, this has been a season of key players missing time, as Tony Romo, Dez Bryant, Greg Hardy and Rolondo McClain have all missed at least 4 games this season (Last week was the first game they all played together this season). The Cowboys need to win every game to realistically have a chance at the postseason, while the Panthers need to win in order to keep the Cardinals at bay, on their way to securing a #1 seed and a 3^rd straight NFC South Title.

PREDICTION: Once again, I will take the road team here, Panthers win 31-17

Bears at Packers

In February of 1992, the Green Bay Packers made a trade with the Atlanta Falcons to send a second year quarterback by the name of Brett Favre to Green Bay for a first round pick, and what happened from there was 16 years of mostly great moments, from the Monday night game he played for his father, to the Antonio Freeman catch, to the incredible 2007 season, to Superbowl XXXI, Favre proved to be an all-time great. For the final game of the Thanksgiving schedule, the Green Bay Packers are retiring Brett Favre’s number, and this game couldn’t have a more fitting opponent than the Chicago Bears, as the teams are a part of the NFL’s oldest rivalry. This game features a pair of gunslingers in Aaron Rodgers and Jay Cutler, and this one should be a high scoring game, so long as Jay can cut down on the turnovers, and Rodgers can continue the momentum built in a win over the Minnesota Vikings.

PREDICTION: Taking the home team here, the Packers can’t lose a game where Favre’s number gets retired, Packers win: 38-23