Thanksgiving Week: Unveiling NFL Week 13 Predictions

It's Thanksgiving week.

We have plenty of games on the slate the next few days and Week 13 in the NFL season.

Ed Cleese joins us once again to tell us about our big, bold predictions for the week and go over last week's results.

It's all coming up with Ed in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen to the special Thanksgiving week edition of the Big Bull Predictions.

Ed Cleese joins us as he has every week this year.

Ed, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hello, Darren.

How are you this Thanksgiving week?

I am doing great, getting ready for the big feast coming up here and tomorrow and watching some football this weekend.

We got quite a few NFL games coming up spread out over four, four days, actually five days.

Saturday, there's no NFL games, but we have a Thursday, Friday, Sunday and Monday this week to have our fill and no bye weeks.

So everybody's playing this week.

So that's some good football this week.

Glorious.

Yeah, absolutely.

So what do we want to review last week?

And I know you got a few thoughts here.

You want to talk about Thanksgiving, but we'll do some of the review, I guess, during our.

What we had for our points.

Yeah, I want to just be.

I want to just jump right in to Thanksgiving and talk about how.

What it kind of means to me and what the relationship is with football and the NFL.

And for me, I'll forever associate this particular holiday.

And I don't think I'm, I certainly don't think I'm alone in associating Thanksgiving directly with football and specifically the NFL.

And, and then there's one individual that I think we owe a lot of gratitude to for all of this and the NFL is doing a great, great job of honoring that and commemorating it in recent years.

And we'll talk about that in a minute.

But, but so I grew up an only child, Darren.

So I'm, it's just me and my mom and dad in our house and we, and I grew up in Oklahoma and all of their fam.

My parents family were both on the east coast, so I was close with extended family and we saw them sometimes throughout the year.

But it was very rare that we would get together on Thanksgiving.

That was Usually a little bit more of a Christmas thing.

So most of my Thanksgivings growing up were me, my mom and my dad.

And we did the normal stuff that people do, you know, all the normal things.

But obviously it's not a huge undertaking when it's just throwing three of you.

So then there was really two other people that were always there on Thanksgiving, and that was John Madden and Pat Summerall.

And so from a very, very early age, that was one of my first Thanksgiving memories, was on Thanksgiving, football is on and Madden and Summerall always do a game and Madden is going to talk about how important Thanksgiving and football and family and food and America are all.

How they are all intertwined.

So I am, you know, seven, eight years old, hearing these things, seeing these things already, loving football, loving the fact that we get to eat great food on Thanksgiving, loving the fact that I am not in school on Thanksgiving.

So I am associating all of this with such great times and memories and, you know, from the time I was very little.

So it's very hard to then disassociate that stuff as you get older.

And so Thanksgiving for me is always that holiday.

And obviously you can probably tell from this and also from some of our top tens that we've done.

I am a very nostalgic person.

History is very important to me.

The where when the minutiae is all stuff that I really like.

But I tried very hard to not always be old man yelling at Clouds, telling everybody that things were better back in the day and now they stink.

Because I actually don't believe that.

I think there are a lot of things today with both football and the world that are even that are better or enhanced than some things that aren't.

And one thing that I do miss, though, where I will yell at Clouds a little bit is just in general is we don't quite have the shared culture that we used to have.

Movies, music, sports, everything.

Because everybody can now dial up.

You know, there was a time, Darren, as you know, you got your news from Walter Cronkite or the morning paper wherever you lived, right?

And that was really the only way you got it.

Everybody in the country was delivered the information in the same way.

So they all had a relationship with Walter Cronkite.

And now, you know, you can dial up whatever news organization you want.

You can get the news filtered however you want it through your lens, right?

And same thing with sports.

But there was a time when Madden delivered the news of football to everybody at once, right?

Everybody.

It was the game, you know, There was so much.

He was in everybody's living room, right.

And I kind of met, you know, I, I'm guilty of it now because now I dial up my games and I've got one game on the big screen.

I've got four down here.

This one's close.

So I'm zapping this one, I'm zooming this one.

And I'm not necess.

Besides the commanders, I'm not generally always completely locked in, in the moment on one thing.

And when I was a kid, everybody was locked on Madden.

And I do kind of miss that.

I missed that a little bit.

And the NFL has done a really, really fabulous job over, what is it maybe the last since his passing, I guess, whatever that was three or four years ago of honoring that with the patches, the awards, and then they put a lot of old clips and highlights.

I go down the, this time of the year, I'll go down the YouTube wormhole pretty quick and I'll, I'll dial up a bunch of Madden Thanksgiving stuff.

And I guess ultimately was that Madden, in addition to being funny and having a real wealth of knowledge about the game, he just had such a reverence for it, you know, it just mattered so much to him and he did such a great job of conveying that to the listeners.

And it spoke so much to somebody my age at the time.

And then he had this incredible wingman, right.

Summer all.

So today I just happened to.

They played the Giants.

They had a little intro song on cbs.

With the old CBS intro music was Guns N Roses, November Rain.

Some are all talking over it.

Then it comes to Madden and you're just like, oh man, that's just amazing.

The NFL has done a great job of commemorating that and making sure that everybody remembers it.

And every year around this time, I always think about that.

I think about being in my house with my parents, you know, great.

My mom's cooking.

The Lions game's on early, the Cowboys games on late.

Madden's going to tell me.

He's.

Madden's going to get the telestrade out.

He's going to be circling the turkey, he's going to be circling the stuffing and he's going to tell me which goes where and why this turkey has seven legs and where this turkey came from.

And it's just, it's funny, it's great.

And I always will associate this week with football and the privilege of getting to grow up listening to Madden talk about it all.

Yeah, it's definitely I just came to the realization I, I interviewed an author who actually worked for CBS in Behind the Scenes, but worked with Madden and Summer all when they were at CBS and got their start together and he wrote a book about it.

Rich Podolski is his name.

We just had an interview with him within the last two months and he.

The book is brilliant and you get to learn a lot more about Madden and Summer, all that at least things I didn't know.

But I, I started off, you know, Madden was the enemy to me in the 70s.

You know, you had the Raiders and you had the Steelers and the Cowboys and so I didn't like the Cowboys very much.

I didn't like the Raiders very much because those were, you know, big rivalry games when they would play always a big game.

And so mad was sort of an enemy to me and it was hard for me to, to become endeared to him, listening to him.

But you know, the light beer commercials, I don't know if you remember those.

That's part of his start.

And you know, then of course the, the telestrator and everything.

Like you talked about the Thanksgiving game day games, those were the ones that were real special and I can just remember, I'm pretty sure they were on the game where it was a cow, it was snowing in Dallas and I.

Forget who the 93 against the Dolphins.

Yeah, yeah, he picks up the, the, the punt and it was just a, almost a near disaster.

It was, it was like.

But I can remember, I think it was Madden just going off on it saying how silly it was.

If I'm not mistaken, I think they had that game.

But yeah, that's really has an impression on me too is.

And I miss it.

But the thing I didn't realize is they have not been on the air for 20 some years.

And rich pointed out to me, I'm like, I would have guessed like maybe five years.

Well, I guess because Madden, you know, he did move on to Monday night.

So it hasn't been 20 years since Madden was on the air, but it's been that long since he was with Summerall.

No, I think it's.

Yeah, Madden and Summer altogether.

Yeah, right, right.

Twenty some years.

I'm like, wow, I would never guess that.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

And, and like we were like, I was kind of mentioning, I think what the NFL does well, the networks, I guess more than the NFL do really well, is they haven't really tried to replace Matt.

They haven't tried to like get a Madden proxy or somebody doing a Madden bit.

Instead they just incorporate Matt, they just talk about him.

They show old clips and, and then the new guys kind of, they don't, they don't wade in those waters too much.

Instead, they just kind of remain themselves and they'll mention Madden or like, oh, you know, instead of trying to impersonate Madden, which I think is a smart way to handle it.

Yeah, there's been some brilliant games on Thanksgiving.

You know, I can, you have, you know, the game we just talked about, the Dallas Miami game in 93.

You had the Jerome Bettis coin flip fiasco with Detroit and Steelers.

That was a memorable game.

But, you know, always these, you know, and I'm glad we have it this year, a Packers and Lions game because though that to me is traditional Thanksgiving, having those two teams play.

I think they should schedule that game every year on Thanksgiving because it's just, it's fun and it feels old school and it's a usually such a great rivalry to watch.

Yeah, the schedule works out well.

And it's funny that you mentioned Thanksgiving memories because so far we've been talking about all the good ones and I do have a personal bad one to share.

So one, as much as I love the Thanksgiving Day games, I love them.

I actually do not like and always root against the Commanders or the Redskins playing on Thanksgiving.

It's distracting.

You know, it causes a little level of anxiety because like, oh my gosh, what time we're going to eat and where are we going to be?

And I got to, you know, I kind of got to play this game and you know, I don't want that.

I'd rather avoid it.

And we have a very poor history because most of we've only played at Detroit once on Thanksgiving and we hosted the night game once.

All the other times have been at Dallas and those generally have not gone very well for Washington.

We were fairly still new.

We were married a little over a year at this point.

We were a young couple.

We didn't have anywhere close to having kids yet.

You know, we didn't have a whole lot of money or free spending, you know, that, you know, it was.

Things were kind of tight as they are for most young couples.

And though my wife very kindly surprised me with tickets for the Thanksgiving game that year and you Know, it was a big deal because that was going to mean she was going to miss Thanksgiving with her family.

We lived in Tulsa at the time.

Her family's in Oklahoma City.

So she said, hey, we're just gonna, we're gonna wake up in the morning, we're gonna drive all the way to Dallas, we'll go to the game and then we'll drive back to my parents house in Oklahoma City that night and we'll just kind of do Thanksgiving the next day.

Friday, you know, we'll miss the actual Thanksgiving.

We'll just kind of do our own the next day, so.

Well, that's amazing.

Thank you.

The Redskins were 5 and 6 at the time.

So the sea.

This was the Spurriers first year, so.

So things had gone okay.

They were an average team.

Dallas was kind of an average team.

But the season was on the brink.

You know, if you're 5 and 6, you can still make a big run or you could go way down the other way, right?

It could go either way.

You kind of, you kind of got to win this one.

So it was an important game.

The Redskins got off to a.

They were winning 20 to 10 midway through the third quarter.

And then the wheels completely fell off.

Our quarterback was Danny Werfel that day in a long line of guys like that.

And he threw an interception in the end zone to Roy Williams of the Cowboys, like he was under pressure in our own end zone.

Roy Williams literally caught the ball in the end zone for a touchdown.

And then the game completely shifted from there to the point where midway through the fourth quarter it was actually over and Dallas had won or was going to win.

And I said, we can, we can walk out, we can go.

And then I made a very big mistake, Darren, that I have been living down for the past almost 25 years now.

As we were walking to the car, I handed my wife the keys.

Normally she doesn't particularly like to drive, but I just handed her the keys and I didn't say anything.

I said, I may have said, like, I need you to drive.

And then I proceeded for the next two and a half to three hours to not say one word.

I went completely silent, didn't say a word.

I could tell about an hour or so, my wife's having to, you know, manage the traffic, get out of the stadium.

I'm completely pouting.

And then maybe about an hour and a half into the drive, I realized now she's not saying any words and I think she's mad, but it's.

Now it's too Late for me to start talking.

So, Darren, we made the entire four hour trip with traffic and everything without speaking a word.

And I knew by the time we got there I was in really, really big trouble.

And that next morning, I found out for sure that I was in really, really big trouble.

To the point where she.

She proclaimed that she was never going to go to another game with me again.

And I ruined Thanksgiving both.

Now she is backed off.

She has been to games with me since, but I have been very careful ever since to not make.

I've made some mistakes as it relates to football in Washington along the way since, but never one quite that egregious.

And I learned a very big lesson that day that all of the pouting and the bashing of keys and throwing of remotes that I had become accustomed to as a single man was not going to fly quite as well as a married man.

And so to this day, if you talk about Thanksgiving and football and I'm talking about how wonderful it is, my wife might tell you, oh, I can think of one Thanksgiving where it wasn't so wonderful.

So.

But I still blame it on Danny Werfel.

It wasn't my fault.

Yeah, it can't be your fault.

There you go.

Bad quarterback play.

Exactly.

Yeah, that.

Well, that definitely makes for a memorable Thanksgiving.

You'll never forget it, will you?

And probably silent back like that again.

The silent Thanksgiving.

So.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

So whenever I catch myself after a loss, getting a little too quiet, I'll be sure to make sure I'll make small talk somehow.

I'll say something.

Look at those cumulus clouds.

It's a lovely afternoon.

You know something?

Yeah.

Is that a new blouse, honey?

There you go.

Right, right.

Your hair looks wonderful.

Right.

Well, hey, you know, we all have moments like that.

Best thing is we can learn from them, like it sounds like you have.

And try not to make that mistake again.

You know, have happy wife, happy life.

You know, long.

A long learning process.

Yes.

All right.

Well, okay.

Well, speaking of unhappy Thanksgivings, I guess maybe we're at the point where you.

We have to go over last week's picks.

We do.

I'm not sure I want to hear it.

Well, the funny thing is you did very poorly, however.

Yeah, that was pretty funny.

You extended your lead.

So.

Okay.

All right.

So that'll give you a little glimpse into how poorly I did.

Well, you know, this was a weird week where we were three of the five games.

We picked the same games.

We picked the same sides, so our results were going to be the same.

And we kind of go through those kind of quickly.

We started.

We both had the Bills winning a low scoring game with the Texans.

And we may have both been on the right track with the Texans defense, which was tremendous on Thursday, really.

I would say one of the most impressive performances of any unit in the league all year long.

They were awesome.

But that game, you know, the, the Texans won it first of all.

So we had that wrong.

And the Texans actually kind of moved the ball maybe a little bit better than either of us thought.

So we both get a zero there.

But that was a really impressive game from Houston.

Yeah, it, it most definitely was.

And I, I actually, I, I dozed off in the second half because it was an evening game, right?

It was.

Yeah, it was a Thursday night.

Yeah, it's Thursday night game.

So I dozed off and I, I woke up like one o' clock in the morning to let the dog out.

And I said, I got to see who won that game, you know, see if.

How much Buffalo won by.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, they lost.

So yeah, it was, you know, eight sacks by the, by the Texans D. And there could have been about eight more because Allen was absolutely under pressure.

All it was, man, he was under pressure.

And they really just broke down that, that Bill's, that Bill's offense and it was a very impressive games.

But we're, but not impressive for us enough for us because we're both going to get a zero.

We're also both going to get zeros because we both now we were close on this one.

We both had the Cardinals upsetting the Jags and goodness gracious, they should have.

You win the turnover battle four to nothing and you lose the game and you kind of make these goofy decisions down the stretch.

And.

Jacksonville, I guess the.

Jacksonville and Chicago are sort of the, you know, find a way team so far this year.

The, the chicken salad out of chicken.

You know what teams so far this year because Jacksonville, every time I watch them, I'm like, oh, I don't think that's a very good team.

And they win and they're, you're.

They're.

As of right now, they're a wild card team.

So they just kind of keep finding ways.

But we, we're gonna get a zero on that.

Yeah, I, but very disappointing.

I mean, I thought the, the Cardinals, but that's sort of been the Cardinals season.

You know, they're in games.

It looks like the games they're going to win.

And I can think of at least four times this year that they just, you know, fell apart or the other team got some advantage near the end and just broke their heart.

So I feel for Cardinals fans a little bit.

Both of them.

Yeah.

Both.

Yes.

Yes.

All right, so the other game that we both were on, and this is the one we're both going to get two points, is we both had Dallas upsetting Philly.

We were both right.

I think we were both really on the right track in that game as well.

All along, it was funny you can say, like, oh, man, they should have lost because it was 21 to nothing, you know, midway through the second quarter.

But even early in the game, it seemed like Dallas was ready for that game, and they just were doing ridiculous things to kind of shoot themselves in the foot and things were kind of not going their way.

Yeah, I don't.

I don't think this is the case.

So if there's any Philly fans out there, they can relax.

But it.

It looked.

It felt like Dallas was the better team on Sunday.

Yeah, it most certainly did.

I think it's a game where.

Where George Pickens just might have got a humongous contract for next year, especially last two games.

Yeah, he's.

He's been freakish.

I mean, he was.

He was good with Pittsburgh, but he's really.

Him and Dak really have a connection going there.

And I think having CD Lamb on the other side gives him that one on ones and he really can show off his freakish talent.

Exactly.

And that Eagles offense is just.

It's just not right.

I mean, there's just.

It's just not.

It's too late in the year now to.

To.

To say anything other than that.

Yeah, CD Lamb and what a.

A bad game he had.

I mean, what do you have, two or three drops in there that were really, you know, that.

That was not like him, and I was kind of surprised by that.

So it might have been able to be worse.

You know, Dallas.

Right.

Dallas might have been in it early and.

But Dallas's defense really stepping up in the second half, not allowing a point after being done.

Right.

21, nothing.

That was.

That was pretty incredible.

Yeah.

And like, we talked about those.

Those additions that they're.

They're.

They made at the deadline, and it's made a big difference.

I think it's going to make a big difference.

They look.

They look like a team that can make a playoffs for sure.

So we're gonna get the two points on that.

So we both we both went out on that and then we'll finish out with you.

You also had the Chiefs beating the Colts by seven or more.

I, I split the difference on this one.

I didn't give you the full two because they didn't win it easily or not or they didn't win by seven.

But they did pull it out in sort of typical Chiefs fashion.

They found a way and you know, normally I would say that is not a terrible loss for the Colts.

You know, road game they had, they were in a good spot anyway, but man, you had a chance right there to bury the Chiefs and you had a chance to really vault yourself into the one seed and, and they came up short.

They could not get anything going on offense in the second half especially, and the Chiefs just kind of keep, keep hanging around.

So I'm giving you one point on that one.

And I think even happier than the Chiefs fans were the Denver and the Patriots fans.

You know, Denver not playing at all and, and gaining some ground, you know, hold and you know, Patriots just, you know, really lighting it up and holding on to that top slot now Patriots.

Just keep showing up, you know, you know, and things like, I guess we're going to be the one seed.

And then your last pick of the day.

You were way off on this one.

You had the Bucks and Baker going into the Rams and taking care of business and they had business taken care of against them.

That was nasty that Baker was in.

The hospital business, I think that day.

Yes, And I will say that I think that was a flex game from the Rams because they came off the really big, emotional, tough, hard fought win against the Seahawks and it might be sort of a natural letdown spot.

And they just rolled the Bucks.

I mean, that was, that game was over five minutes in, you could tell that that thing was toast.

And that is a really impressive team in LA right now.

Man, I, gosh, I love McVay so much.

He's such a good coach.

Yeah, I think they made me a believer.

You know, you've been talking about him for the last few weeks and I started easing into it last week saying, okay, maybe there are top five in the NFL team.

I think they're the front runners right now in the NFL.

They are the playing the best football of anybody and would be the odds on favorite to win a Super bowl if you had to choose somebody right now, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Very balanced.

That's, that's a, that's a Hall of Fame quarterback, Hall of Fame coach.

The defense has gotten really good.

So that was, that was really impressive.

So you get zero there.

That gives you three for the week and totals you out at 56 for the season.

Right now the two that are on my list that were not on your list is I had the Seahawks going into Tennessee and blowing the titans out by 20 or more.

And they didn't, they didn't.

I mean it was for.

They had a double digit lead for most of the game but they never had it completely blown out.

And then the Titans did score with under a minute left to get it From I think 13 down to 6.

So the Seahawks won the game by 6.

I said they'd win by 20.

So I didn't give myself any points for that one because I, you know, I was pretty bullish and they didn't quite get there, but I was close.

And then I also had your Steelers grinding out a win in Chicago.

Your defense kind of tried, you know, there was they, that they got close.

The Bears kind of pulled the rabbit out again and boy, I just do not, I, I don't like Rudolph.

Well, he, he actually, I mean at the end he played a pretty good game.

He had that big run for the first down and illegal formation pulls it back.

That would have set them up real nice and maybe could have ate the clock up and maybe even scored a touchdown and won that game.

But not in the cards for him that week.

And the Bears definitely outplayed him I think the second half especially.

Yeah.

So I think the Steelers definitely, if anybody any doubts, if they really need Rogers, I think that was answered on Sunday.

So that gives me two points the week and that gives me 54 for the year.

So you now lead 56 to 54.

You've extended your lead by a point.

All right, well, let's see if I can extend it some more because I got some picks I'm feeling pretty giddy about here.

Well, we're going to have an extra opportunity because like we talked about before the pod, we're going to do a little for everybody out there, we're going to do a little Thanksgiving bone giving thanks to everybody that listens.

We're going to give you three extra picks this week.

We are going.

In addition to our five picks, we're each going to pick who wins the, whatever they call it, the Galloping Gobbler, the Madden Award, the Madden mvp, whatever it is, the Turkey leg.

The MVP from each of the three Thanksgiving Day games.

So I will let you go ahead and start there, Darren.

Start, start with the MVP picks.

Yeah, start with the MVP from I guess we'll start with that.

We'll go in in game order.

So who's going to be the MVP in that Lions packers game?

I'm going to take a guy I've been high on all year and that's Jameer Gibbs.

I think he is going to be the MVP of that.

That packers alliance game.

Okay, got it.

I am going to take Jordan Love for the packers in that game and we'll maybe be a little more revealing when we get to our five picks here.

You probably have an idea of which way I'm going to go, but I think Jordan Love is going to have.

He's been shaky all year.

I'm not a not have been a huge fan, but I think he has a breakout game.

I think he gets the job done and he leads a late comeback for them to actually win the game.

And so I'm going to say Jordan Love in that game.

All right, second game.

Second game we got Dallas and the Chiefs and I'm going to go with a defender in this one and I'm going to say Nick Bolton, the Chiefs middle linebacker.

I think he is going to be set up for a big game in this and going to help his team tremendously with his efforts.

Okay, well, at the end of this game, you're going to be.

They're going to be handing out the turkey legs and the trophies and you're going to have two guys we already mentioned standing there.

It's going to be George Pickens and CD Lamb are going to share the award.

They might bring Dak down, too, but it's going to be the Cowboys receivers that are the MVPs of the Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas this year.

Okay.

And for the late game, we have a AFC north battle in Baltimore as the Bengals with their quarterback starting quarterback back at it, Joe Burrow.

And I'm going to say Burrow is going to come out with very little rust.

He's going to win the MVP of that game.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Well, I'm on the other side.

That's funny.

We're on the other side of all three games because I'm going to say I kind of went chalk here.

I went with the easy pick against that very porous Bengals D. And I just said Derek Henry Thanksgiving night, probably a little chilly in Baltimore.

He's just going to run them over and he's going to be eating a turkey leg late night on the field in Baltimore on Thursday.

All right, interesting, interesting.

We'll talk a little bit about that more in a moment here okay, well.

Let'S just move right along to.

Why don't you make your five picks?

Okay, well, Bob, I'll start off my first pick.

I'm gonna still have the Thanksgiving theme here and I'm gonna have the.

The KC over Dallas there.

It's going to be.

It sounds like you want to go the other way, but I'm going to say it's.

The KC defense is what's going to be the hero in this game.

The offense will support them.

They're going to hold the Cowboys to 27 or less points in this game, and Patrick Mahomes will score a little bit more than that and put the Chiefs over the top of Dallas.

Okay.

I actually don't have that game on my list, but if I did, I would actually be picking the other way.

I think Dallas is going to win that game.

I'm not so bullish on it as to pick it, obviously, but I think Dallas wins that game.

I.

It's such a struggle for Kansas City right now that I don't think it's just a flipping of a switch that I think there's something deeper going on.

It's just too hard.

It's just too hard.

And Dallas has a lot of weapons and their defense is better and I just think Dallas wins the game.

Yeah, I'm going to go back in history to say this game, too.

First of all, I think Kansas City's got a little bit better team this year than Dallas is.

They're both, both good teams.

I think KC's got a chip on his shoulder now, but this is a battle of Dallas teams because the Kansas City Chiefs were originally the Dallas Texans of the afc.

And that's right when the Dallas Cowboys were rising up at the same time you had the great book out 10 gallon wars, we had the author on a few years ago on that.

But I think there's a little bit animosity for KC fans that they want to prove out over Dallas too.

So that's the other reason I think history's on KC side.

They're going to.

Well, Darren, those, those fans that are still holding a grudge against Dallas, they got to be pretty old at this point.

Yeah, it's before I was born.

So.

Yeah.

If you're still holding.

If you're out there and you're listening to this podcast and you are still holding a grudge over the, the, the, the, the move from Kansas City for the Texans, then I salute you.

That's.

That's really amazing.

It really, really is.

I think the Hunt family will get them all fired up here.

There you go.

Even though they don't none of them remember they're still there.

But.

So I am going to pick a game on Thanksgiving as well, and I'm going to pick that one that I hinted at earlier.

I think the packers are going to go in and beat Detroit on Thursday.

I've been pretty high on the Lions all year.

I've generally picked them in any of the really important spots, which would include that game.

And I picked them to win at Philly.

But the more I watch Detroit, at some point you say, you know what, I'm just not going to let my eyes.

I'm going to follow what my eyes are telling me and Detroit's just not that great anymore.

This is a bit of a down year.

Not down, but they're just.

They're not nearly what they were last year.

They've had plenty of chances to prove it and they really haven't.

You know, they got embarrassed in that game in Philly when the Eagles couldn't move the ball at all.

But the Lions offense was abysmal.

And then, you know, they really struggled to beat the Giants last week.

I just don't think they're that great.

I just don't think they're that great.

And I think I'm not overly impressed with Green Bay, but I think the packers are a little bit due.

I think Love has a big game, like I mentioned, and it's going to be close and the packers are going to win it and the Lions are going to be on the edge of the playoffs.

Yeah, I was going to pick this game.

I had it all wrote down and all wrote up and everything.

And I ended up taking it off the last minute and choosing a different game because I didn't want to have all three games on Thanksgiving, three of my five games.

But I was going the other way.

I was saying Detroit because Detroit and Thanksgiving Day, you usually don't want to bet against them.

I mean, how many times they were, you know, horrible Detroit teams except for the 0 and 16 season, but they would somehow they might be playing the.

The world beaters that year, but they would come back and win this and upsets.

I've seen it happen too many times in that some.

There's something about the Motor City, the fans and Turkey Day and the Lions really get up for it and usually play very well.

They played one of their better games of the year and I think that'll happen again this year and I think they're going to come out the winners on that, but I did not pick that game.

All right.

But I did pick the other Thanksgiving game.

And I like what, what you're saying about King Henry.

I, I like what, you know, he's, he's all about.

I think he's going to have a big game.

And there's.

But something that concerns me a little bit about the Ravens.

I think Lamar's hurting.

He's been on the injury report, like, the last three weeks in a row.

Well, actually longer than that.

He was out for a long period of time, and it's a knee and it's a toe and it's an ankle, and he's not practicing, you know, Wednesdays.

And, you know, just there's something wrong with Lamar.

Last week he only had seven rushes.

He's so I think he's going to be forced to be a pocket passer, which he's very good at.

But the other thing that bothers me is his main target, Zade Flowers, has not had a touchdown since week one, which is unbelievable to me.

When I read that today, I'm like, I was astonished.

I had to go look it up.

And I thought maybe the article I was reading was wrong, but no, they were absolutely right.

So.

But I think that's going to change tomorrow.

They're going to win something, you know, 38 to 35 or some crazy score like that with Burroughs throwing, throwing.

And that's without T. Higgins.

But I think Jamar Chase has got something.

He's going to have a chip on his shoulder.

You know, he got caught in a lie.

He got caught in an embarrassing, you know, spitting on somebody, got suspended.

But I think he's going to be renewed and revamped.

I think Burrow is going to be fired up in.

I think Chase Daniels is going to have a good game and that Bengals offense is going to be rolling and overcome what their defense can't do.

And they've had so many close games with the Ravens the last few years and fell short on them.

This is the week where they, they overtake the Ravens and I think they win.

Yeah, I don't have this game because I just don't like it because I, again, I, I, I don't, I don't like what my eyes are seeing on the Ravens, just as you alluded to as well.

I don't.

Something's not right with Lamar.

You're totally right about that.

Something's weird with their offense.

They're not dangerous.

He's not running.

It's odd, but that Bengals defense is just so bad that they might not have to do much, you know, just to score.

And so I just, it's kind of a stay away from me.

So I don't have a real strong feeling on that one, but I do have a pretty strong feeling that on Friday, the Black Friday game is.

And I.

Boy, if you're a Bears fan out there, you probably love to hear me continue to do this because I've been wrong again and again and again and again.

And I'm going to say again that this is the week that the Bears luck runs out a little bit.

And this is not so much a pick like, oh, Phillies mad.

And they're going to come back and, you know, show them what they're made of.

Because I don't think Philly is.

I think Philly's past that point now.

I don't.

I actually don't think their offense is good.

I don't particularly think their office is going to be good on Friday, but their defense is going to really bottle up.

Caleb and the Bears, they're going to hold the Bears to 17 or fewer points and the Eagles defense is going to lead them to a win against Chicago on Friday.

Well, I couldn't agree with you more because I'm also picking on that game.

I'm going the same way.

I'm saying the Eagles are going to shake off that loss that you had last week.

The Bears winning streak I think is going to end and not so much because of.

I think the Bears are a bad team and Eagles are a better team.

I think they're probably about equal.

They both have their strengths, but I think weather is going to be a big factor in this.

You know, Ben Johnson has had success as an offensive coordinator in Detroit in a dome stadium in warm weather games, passing attack.

Caleb Williams is a, you know, he plays in Chicago.

I understand it plays by a great lake.

I understand that.

But they're a precision passing team and they have to have a good rhythm to them to be successful.

We've talked about earlier this season where they have their first couple drives are good and then they would fall apart because they get out of rhythm.

And I think that weather is going to be very disruptive to the Bears more so than the Eagles who like to pound the rock.

And I think that is going to really come true this week where Hertz and Saquon Barkley and that offensive line are going to just grind it out and mash and overcome the Bears this week.

Well, Eagles can't move the ball anyway, so it really doesn't matter if it's snowing or the wind's blowing or whatever.

We'll just punt anyway.

So, you know, it doesn't really matter.

But yeah, so we're, we're aligned on that one.

I'm going to stay in the great state of Pennsylvania for my next, my next pick and I'm going to say that your Steelers keep it very close with the Bills, but Josh Allen leads a final drive game winning drive to win in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is going to cover the spread, which I believe is three and a half, but the Bills are going to pull it out late.

He will bounce back a little bit from the very poor performance in Houston and he will find a way to do a little Josh Allen magic.

The Steelers won't have an answer for that at the end of the game.

All right.

This game I'm also taking on that game, which I usually stay away from picking my own team.

But I just have a strong feeling this week.

I think, you know, there's injuries galore on both sides.

So the Steelers left tackle Broderick Jones out for this game.

Derek Harmon, their number one pick defensive line.

He's out.

Doesn't bode well when you have Cook as a running back and an Allen running the ball like they do because he's been sort of that Harmon's when he since he came in and sort of somewhat stabilized the running defense.

It's not by far a good defense but he was very helpful in that.

But the both tackles for the Bills might be out.

We have one in concussion protocol.

The other one went out with a shoulder injury against the Texans and it sounds like he's very questionable if he's going to play.

I think it's kind of doubtful that he's going to play.

Josh Allen has been aching and he had a full practice on Wednesday.

But it's people are monitoring him and there's a lot of chatter on that and I think that's going to take some effect to when you have both tackles out and you have a team that's defense is their strength, is their pass rush from the the edges.

I think Allen might be in trouble again and might be under siege.

Hopefully, you know, if the Steelers can hold up that running game in the middle and keep Cook from, from destroying them like he has so many teams this year that really, you know, that runs that run pass option and you know, makes the safety stay back to defend the power come up and to defend the run and can pass over top of them and all backers are fooled.

Everything that's going to be the bad thing.

But I think the Steelers are going to pull this game out and win it as on the roller coaster ride that I've told you about.

Well, it's time for going uphill this week and it's at home.

I think they take out the Bills this week.

Okay, gotcha.

Was head to head on that one.

My next pick requires no analysis.

We don't need to talk about it, Darren, so I'm just going to say it.

Jets over Falcons.

Okay, that's an interesting one.

I can see that though the jets have been, they've been fighting and feisty the last few weeks.

So you know, I think maybe you have a point there.

They might be able to do it in Falcons.

I just can't figure them out.

Even though they looked really good.

They looked really good last week.

But yeah, it's a bad team.

I don't know what, you know, they figured a couple things out, I guess maybe in New Orleans.

But I, I think what they showed the previous few weeks are a little bit closer to who they really are.

The jets aren't good at all either, but they are, they are clearly playing hard.

They are better with Tyrod Taylor than they were Fields.

It's a more competent professional offense and that'll be an ugly game that nobody watches and the jets will win it.

All right, well, for my final game, I'm going to go.

This is the big boy pants game.

I have the Texans and the Colts.

I, I find that game extremely intriguing.

There's.

Here's two teams that are, you know, they're both playing fairly well, but they're on going opposite ends of the spectrums.

The Texans seem to be on the rise like we talked about earlier.

The Colts, you know, they've, they've taken a couple chinks in their armor over the last month or so.

Even though they played Kansas City very good, well enough, they probably should have won that game.

But I'm going to have the Texans in that, that defense and that offense is starting to find itself.

They're going to take out the Colts by a score in this game.

Okay, bye.

Bye.

By seven?

Yes.

By seven or less.

Yes.

Yes.

So I really waffled on that game.

It's a really good game.

It's a really fun game to watch and I think it's the OH game for the Colts that they lose.

They're in fine position right now.

They're in very good position right now.

And if they win, the odds of them winning the division completely skyrocket.

It almost becomes borderline impossible for the Texans to win it, and it gets pretty hard for the Jags to win it.

But if they lose, it really becomes an oh.

Is this sort of what looked to be a magical season unraveling where while the team that's won this division the last few years and has a killer defense, are they getting hot?

You know, So I think that is a big OH game for the Colts.

I stayed away from it.

I really don't have a great feel for it, so.

But I will be definitely interested in watching it on.

So that's one of the top games for sure to round out our Thanksgiving pod and our predictions.

I just couldn't help myself.

I'm going to pick the biggest upset definitely of the week and it'll be one of the bigger upsets of the season and that's going to happen on Sunday night in our nation's capital.

I'm picking the Commanders to beat the Broncos.

Both teams coming off of a buy quietly.

It may wind up not mattering and I may come back and have to put my tail between my legs.

But quietly, the commanders, other than Jane Daniels, who's not going to play, have gotten almost close to 100 healthy on offense.

The receivers will be back.

Finally, McLaurin will be back.

It sounds like Noah Brown's probably going to be back.

They've gotten some other players back.

Mariota has done a really nice, admirable job.

I think they're going to move the ball well enough against that very good Broncos defense and they're going to kind of scratch and claw.

I think they're going to come back slightly renewed off of the buy, whereas the Broncos might come off of their by overlooking Washington a little bit and you would be hard to blame them.

And a little bit of law averages here, too.

The Broncos have kind of gotten away with a few throughout the year and maybe this is one that sneaks up on them.

And I'm picking the Commanders to beat the Broncos to end out our our weekend.

Well, I guess there's still a Monday night game, but that'll end Sunday.

I like it.

I mean that's an interesting pick.

It's a great analysis and could could come true.

So I like your logic on that.

There you go.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, that is our picks for the week.

We have the three bonus picks we have, the game we're picking and we have a very close race for the season going here with a two point differential between us.

So this week might be the one where we shake up or we stay the same.

You don't know what's going to happen here with this wild west of the NFL this year.

And when you have the Thanksgiving holiday games, you know, Lord knows what's going to happen.

Short weeks and injuries and, you know, fandoms coming out and people eating turkey.

Yeah, could be some craziness and great football fun.

I hope you have a great Thanksgiving, Darren.

And just word of the wise, don't go silent.

Don't go silent and don't eat too much turkey.

So you get the tryptophane or whatever it is that right.

Zonk out during the.

Or if you do go silent, maybe you can blame it on the tryptophan.

Yeah, there you go.

There you go.

All right, my friend, we'll have a safe holiday weekend.

Enjoy the football and great college football this weekend, too.

We have a game, Ohio State, Michigan, the big noon game Saturday.

So we were saying there's no football on Saturday for the NFL.

There's some great college football.

So looking forward, time to lock in, right?

All right, well take it easy and we'll see you next week.

Thanks, Darren.

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