The Falcons play late tonight, long after we should all be in bed nursing a stuffing hangover. In the meantime, there’s plenty of football to tide you over, and this is going to be your open thread in between fighting your in-laws over the green bean casserole.
Here are the two games before we settle in for the Falcons tonight.
Bears @ Lions, 12:30 p.m.
This matchup could be extremely ugly.
The Bears are a bit of a mess, as despite their clear talent at key positions, they’ve largely failed to put consistent efforts on the field. Mitch Trubisky has struggled all year, I’m not sure Matt Nagy is actually a good coach, and they’ve settled in as a mediocre team.
They should still probably be the favorites because the Lions, for all their talent, have also underachieved. They’re also potentially going to be starting David Blough, the former Purdue Boilermaker who was an undrafted free agent following the 2019 NFL Draft. Maybe he’ll be amazingly effective, but it’s not a situation the Lions have to be feeling great about.
Watch for the ugliness, though, while you eat your Thanksgiving dinner. For dessert, you can enjoy...
Bills @ Cowboys, 4:30 p.m.
This should be a great game. The Bills are having their best season in a long time thanks to an underrated offense and terrific pass defense, while the Cowboys have a great offense held back by an overreliance on their ground game and a very solid defense. I’m rooting for the Bills—it’d be nice to see someone else come out of the AFC East for a change—but this has a better-than-solid chance of being the best football of the day either way.