Predictions for Thanksgiving Day NFL Football Games

There are traditionally two NFL games on Thanksgiving Day. The Detroit Lions always host a game early in the day and the Dallas Cowboys follow with an afternoon game in Dallas. In recent years, due to the NFL Network, there has been an NFL game at night on Thanksgiving.

In this year's Thanksgiving Day NFL games, the Detroit Lions host the Green Bay Packers. Later in the afternoon after lunch starts to settle in, maybe after some touch football out in the yard, the Dallas Cowboys host the Oakland Raiders. The night game on the NFL Network will be the New York Giants in the Mile High City to take on the Denver Broncos.

As for the first game, the Green Bay Packers, like most other NFL teams, have dominated the Detroit Lions the last 2-3 years. The Lions, while not exactly "restoring the roar" are improved from their winless 2008 campaign.

In my estimation the Lions, while improved over last year the team has the 27th ranked pass defense of 32 teams in the NFL, not a prescription for victory against a good passing team like Green Bay.

This is an intra-divisional game within the NFC North division. While I believe the Lions can and will keep the game competitive, Aaron Rodgers throwing to Greg Jennings and Donald Driver will be too much for Detroit even at home.

Green Bay Packers 27 Detroit Lions 20 is my call, starting early in the day on Fox. Just be careful on the ride home Packers, don't forget that Detroit annually is among the most crime-ridden cities in the U.S.

In the second game of the NFL Thanksgiving Day tripleheader on CBS, the woeful Oakland Raiders visit the Dallas Cowboys at the new Cowboys Stadium located in suburban Arlington, TX. This game normally kicks off around 3 PM Central Time.

Growing up, the Cowboys were my least favorite team and the Raiders have always been my favorite NFL team. Forget that, the Dallas Cowboys and quarterback Tony Romeo, I mean Romo, will romp over Oakland "led" by Ja-Mar-bust Russell.

You see the Raiders cannot stop the run and Dallas has Marion Barber, Felix Jones and Tashard Choice...Those three men running through the Raiders porous defensive line will pave the way for Tony Romo to throw play action passes to Miles Austin, Jason Witten and the other Dallas recievers, minus of course the gone but not forgotten Terrell Owens.

Dallas romps 31-10 over the Cable Guy, Raiders "coach" Tom Cable who alledgedly broke the jaw of an assistant coach and has been accused of battering several women. There is your Thanksgiving Turkey, folks. Or as John Madden might prefer, one of those turduckens, emphasis on the first four letters.

In the final game of Thanksgiving, on the NFL Network around 7ish, the New York Giants visit Denver, until last Sunday still undefeated.

The Baltimore Ravens thumped the Broncos in Baltimore, home of Edgar Allen Poe, last Sunday, the day after Halloween. The Giants probably won't dominate the Broncos to that extent on their home turf in Denver.

The Giants and QB Eli Manning have been struggling lately, losing big to New Orleans, then dropping games to Arizona at home in the Meadowlands and at Philadelphia. Fuhgeddaboutit. The Giants are too good a team to continue to wallow around like they have the last three outings and Denver is overrated.

The teams that beat the Giants had prolific passers Drew Brees, Kurt Warner and Donovan McNabb at QB. While Kyle Orton of Denver is an okay "game manager" type quarterback, the Broncos have star wide receiver Brandon Marshall on offense, but the rest of the players on offense are just a bunch of guys as John Madden might say.

I'm still not convinced that Denver's defense is among the better units in the NFL, either. New York Giants 24 Denver 20.

Don't overeat please and have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving Day. Now if I could only follow my own advice so easily...Just remember the meaning of the Thanksgiving Holiday and count your blessings instead of focusing on the negative so much as we all do too much of the time.