A great line-up of football awaits us on this Thanksgiving weekend!
It starts at 11:30 a.m. Thursday in Detroit. The Lions are almost as much a traditional part of Thanksgiving as turkey -- and they fare about as well. Their losing ways are likely to continue as the Patriots come to town.
The second game on Thanksgiving Day is the most important one of the day for us. The 7-3 New Orleans Saints are listed just ahead of us in the Conference standings, and so we’ll be rooting for the resurgent Cowboys. The game will be in Dallas, and it will be an interesting test for Jason Garrett’s team. The Cowboys are playing for pride; the Saints are playing for playoffs. New Orleans doesn’t seem quite as dominant as the 2009 squad, and so I think Dallas stands a chance here. ‘Should be good Thanksgiving Day viewing!
(Meanwhile, there’s also lots of good college football to watch on Friday, but that’s not our chief concern here.)
On Sunday, the Vikings visit the Redskins. Minnesota is no longer a realistic threat to our ambitions within the Division, so we don’t really have much reason to care how they fare from this point on. Still, it’s an interesting story line to watch… Will their new coach achieve the sort of immediate turnaround in attitude and performance that Jason Garrett achieved in Dallas? And how will the embattled and aged Favre handle these final few weeks of his storied career?
I’ll be rooting for the Ravens (which I have seldom done in my life) when they host the 7-3 Buccaneers this Sunday afternoon.
Another late Sunday game of interest to us is the Eagles’ visit to Chicago. The truth is, of course, that if Philly were playing anyone else, we’d be rooting against them. In this case, however, we’d like them to come in and trip up the Bears for us. Still, given the Eagles’ place in the NFC playoff picture, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing for them to lose this game.
Of course, the game of greatest consequence this weekend -- and what Don Banks calls “the glamour matchup of the week” -- is the Packers’ trip to Atlanta. He observes that these two clubs share the longest current winning streak in the NFL at 4 games each.
For the Falcons, those four games have included a 39-32 victory over the Bengals, a 27-21 win over Tampa Bay, a 26-21 win against the Ravens, and a 34-17 defeat of the Rams. Only the last of those games was on the road.
The Packers, meanwhile, have beaten the Vikings twice in that same stretch, plus a drubbing of the Cowboys and a gritty win in New York against the Jets.
Through 10 games, the Packers and Falcons have nearly identical offensive productivity, with Atlanta averaging 25.6 and Green Bay 25.2 points per game. On defense, meanwhile, the Packers have been considerably more stingy, allowing a measly 14.6 points per game, compared with the Falcons’ also commendable average of 19.2.
The Falcons boast an NFL-best 8-2 record. And unless we win this game, we can almost guarantee that we’ll have to go back to Atlanta at some point during the playoffs. Now I’m comfortable with our team’s dome performance, but I’d much rather see a team from Georgia have to play at Lambeau in January.
Whoever wins this game will be the flavor du jour in sports talk and national media attention. And, more significantly, whoever wins this game will have grabbed the inside track on home field advantage in the NFC.
This will be a great test for the Packers. They have played three masterpieces in a row. On the other hand, two of those three have been against teams that, arguably, have not really played -- so much so that both coaches were fired shortly after those games. A win against the Falcons on the road, therefore, would be a definitive statement.
Finally, the folks at ESPN got hosed this week. The Monday Night Football match-up is hardly a crowning touch on the great football weekend. The 3-7 49ers visit the 3-7 Cardinals. Yuck! The only thing that keeps this game from being a complete irrelevancy is the fact that the pathetic NFC West is actually still within reach for both of these losers.
Okay, so predictions for this eventful football weekend…
Packers, Eagles, Vikings, and Cowboys all win, and the Badgers secure their trip to Pasadena.
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