Bumper week in the NFL with 3 Thursday games on Thanksgiving, its one of my favourite days in the football calendar and having a midweek game kick off at 9.30pm here in the UK is just brilliant, I wish it would happen more often.
The 3 games this week start with an absolute stinker, Chicago travelling to the Lions for a 5.30pm game is a a real shit show, following that we have the Dallas Cowboys hosting the Raiders at 9.30 then Saints and Bills 1.20am Friday morning. Get the snacks in and have yourself a night everybody.
Stinker alert, this game has all the making of a crap shoot, Andy Dalton and possibly Tim Boyle face off in the first game on Thanksgiving Thursday. We’ve gone out of our way to adjust the total on this game from 41.5 to 43.5, I could see this easily being a 17-10 game either way.
The Bears this week are decimated with injuries, young star QB Justin Fields in out after being knocked out of the Ravens game, so they have Red Rifle Andy Dalton under centre, though he’s an adequate back up, the less we see of him the better. They’ve also ruled out Akiem Hicks, Damien Williams, Allen Robinson and Darnell Mooney’s status is still up in the air, does Chicago have any weapons left to move the chains when Dalton gets in passing downs? Seems like David Montgomery is going to be their entirety of the Bears offense!
PROP: David Montgomery over 79.5 rush yards.
Jared Goff was also a limited participant in the 3 days of practice leading up to this game with an oblique injury that kept him out of the Browns defeat. So the question remains, Goff being 0 and a billion without Sean McVay, or Tim Boyle who takes the snaps, either way I don’t think it matters, because Detroit are useless, who haven’t managed to surpass 20 points since week 1.
There is also a lot of uncertainty around Matt Nagy and his job security, reports out today (Wednesday) suggested the the front office were trying to put out fires surround multiple reports that Nagy was out in Chicago after this game.
PICK: Bonafide stinker, under 43.5, I can’t see where Chicago get their points if Dalton has to throw, who is he going to throw to, you have to look at Montgomery over yards for both rushing and receiving, plenty of dump offs and screens I would suggest, he and Khalil Herbert will have a heavy work load tomorrow! And as stated the lions are absolutely fucking horrendous.
Is Dak trending downwards? That’s the question you have to think you know the answer to when betting this game I believe. Yes they put up 40+ points on the Falcons who lets be honest their defense is horrible. Out the game where he returned from injury against Denver he put up 16 points in garbage time after being 0-30 going in the 4th so lets not count that, and 9 points against KC, a real under achievement in many’s eyes. He’s going to be without Amari Cooper with COIVD and probably CeeDee Lamb with concussion. So he’s likely without his top 2 receivers. Zeke worked through and injury in the KC loss, and is banged up with it being a short week. Tony Pollard and Dalton Schultz should have another good week, look to Schultz going over his yards best priced at 49.5.
So how good really is their D, we know Micah Parsons is an absolute stud, Randy Gregory wont be playing again, and Demarcus Lawrence has had his 21 day window opened, safety Donovan Wilson was placed on IR this week. My question is can Dallas win the game on defense if they are down on offense against a Raiders D that is trending upwards.
The Raiders can’t move the ball downfield, Carr seems reluctant to throw the ball deep since Ruggs decided he was a complete cunt. Deshawn Jackson hasn’t had his customary 80 yard TD reception that he has before he gets cut yet, so maybe that statement will come back and bite me in the arse! Although Brian Edwards does offer some threat deep. The can move the chains with Waller and Renfrow, and the two pronged running back attack, I think we’ll see a lot of clock chewing drives from Vegas that will hopefully end in field goals.
PICK: The pick we’ve gone for in this game is a bet builder on Bet 365, much like the way we’ve increased the total in the Bears game, we’ve done that with this pick too, we’ve added points to the total making it 58.5 and with liking the Raiders catching over a touchdown we’ve bunged on a field goal for good measure making it 10.5, which still comes out nicely in the plus money.
Let’s hope were right about CeeDee lamb being out, and Dallas being down on offense, couple that with the Raiders improving offense. At 23/20 we like Raiders +10.5 and under 58.5.
Rounding out the Thanksgiving schedule the Bills travel to New Orleans, and right out of the gate the Saints are decimated with injuries. Alvin Kamara – out. Ryan Ramczyk – out. Marcus Davenport – out. Mark Ingram who is the next man up and RB2 behind Kamara is questionable too. On the flip side the Bills are pretty healthy.
I can’t with good conscious bet on either of those sides, if i had to, gun to head I’d lean Bills, but it’ll get up from -6 before kick off no doubt with money coming in on the Bills I would suggest. With that being said I don’t really need to say too much more about this one then!
PICK: The pick is a prop based around the Saints being banged up in the back field, if Ingram can’t go, or is less than 100% their redzone running options surely fall to Taysom Hill. I think he’ll be used in short yardage goalie situations, UK book makers still have Alvin Kamara listed as a possible TD scorer (11.45pm Wednesday night) and its been known that he is out for a while now. So while the value is there at 7/2 anytime td (rush/rec) it would be remiss of us not to take that value.
Good luck to everybody who tails or fades us, we dont care if you want to fade us! Happy Thanksgiving to readers in The States and to us here in Europe and UK, enjoy having midweek football on a decent times?
Cheers, The Fat Man
Fat Lad Sports 