Week 12 - NFL picks

I'll be doing this in two parts this week. I wanted to get these up before Thursday. The rest will go up on Friday, I hope, but before play starts on Sunday for sure....

One comment about Thanksgiving - this has the potential to be an awful day of football. The only one more likely to be competitive than not is Green Bay at Detroit, and that's certainly no guarantee.

That said, here we go...

Thursday:

Green Bay (-3.5) at Detroit - There is no area of play that favors the Lions here. The Packers have the better quarterback, better offense, better defense and better special teams. What the Lions do have is the home field advantage, which has, at times, proven to be very effective on Thanksgiving. The 2003 Lions, for example, finished its their season by losing 5-of-7 while the Packers were winning 6 of their last 7. The Packers loss was one of the Lions two wins, on Thanksgiving in Detroit. Now, they've lost their fair share of Thanksgiving games, too, but even though there's no reason to pick the Lions this week, I'm going to pick the Lions this week.

N.Y. Jets at Dallas (-14) - After their stunning upset of the Steelers, I'm sure that there are Jets fans and players with delusions of going down and beating the Cowboys. Ain't. Gonna. Happen. There is no way that the Jets can stop the Cowboys, and if they score a little, it will be too little.

Indianapolis (-11.5) at Atlanta - Over the last three weeks, the Falcons are 2-1 while the Colts are 1-2. Here endeth the argument for the Falcons not losing by two touchdowns or more. When you actually look at the games, you realize that it isn't a good argument. This is a mismatch that may actually prompt more calls to cancel the NFL Network than to add it.