THANKSGIVING PLAYS:
For NFL fans Thanksgiving day is one of the best days of the year as we have a full day of games, either in the forefront or in the background with turkey, drinks, naps and we hope no work. As is the usual case the day starts out with a game featuring the Lions that isn’t going to have much in way of playoff race drama as they’ll take on the Bears. The afternoon contest is an important game between the Buffalo Bills and the Dallas Cowboys as each team is fighting for a playoff spot in their respective conferences. In the night-cap there is a rematch of the Saints and Falcons with New Orleans looking to avenge their worst loss of the season when Atlanta came into their building and completely bullied them into submission. We’ll be watching all three, even the Lions/Bears, but our bets are focused on the two late games. We’re playing one game traditionally against the spread, and then using that same match as a teaser with the evening contest.
Teaser Bet
Buffalo vs. Dallas and New Orleans vs. Atlanta
vs.
and 
vs. 
Buffalo Bills (8-3) ATS(7-3-1) at Dallas Cowboys (6-5) ATS(7-4)
Thursday November 28th
4:30pm
CBS
AT&T Stadium – Arlington, TX
Dallas Cowboys -6.5 (-110)
Over/Under 45 (-110)
Sandwiched in between (no turkey pun intended) a couple of games that don’t have a ton of playoff ramifications is a late afternoon contest between the Bills and Cowboys that could have major impact at the end of the season. The Bills had a convincing win against an uninterested Denver Bronco team while the Cowboys couldn’t overcome the elements or mistakes in a tight loss at New England, prompting owner Jerry Jones to put the coaching staff and team “on notice”. Both teams have taken some criticism of the fact that they have not been able to beat a “quality” opponent this season, which when you look strictly at the records is a fair assessment. One of these teams will be feeling pretty good after this game, while the other is going to be left hearing those exact same sentiments heading into the final quarter of the season.
The Cowboys defense played pretty well for the most part against the Patriots, and would have likely held them to single digits had it not been for a short field on a special teams miscue. It sounds a little crazy, but when you really break down their matchup against the Bills they’ll have a tougher time for the simple fact that Josh Allen presents a different set of challenges compared to Tom Brady. The Cowboys have been good off the edges getting to opposing quarterbacks which is obviously a necessity against Brady, but Allen’s mobility and scrambling will make things a little more challenging. Before we tackle that, let’s first start with the battle to control the line of scrimmage for the Bills offensive line and their ability to run the football which will be crucial to any offensive success that they have. This team is a run-first club that is at its best when it doesn’t have to get into a shootout or play from far behind. Rookie Devin Singletary is coming off of his first 100 yard game as a pro and the ageless Frank Gore also had a nice day as he passed the great Barry Sanders for third all-time on the NFL’s rushing hierarchy. The Cowboys have been a middle of the pack team stopping the run and will need to make it a point to do that against Singletary and Gore. Not having linebacker Leighton Vander Esch doesn’t help that cause so their safeties which are generally considered more of coverage safeties will need to support the run defense. Going back to Josh Allen, he is going to have opportunities to win this football game through the air as he has had all season. Last week he put the game out of reach connecting on a deep ball over the top to the underrated speedster John Brown with a throw he has missed more often than he’s hit this year. It’s pretty simple, if Allen can hit those type of throws, the Bills are a really tough team to beat, when he misses them, it makes them a lot more vulnerable. Another quiet but interesting player to watch this week is Cole Beasley as he’s returning to Dallas playing some really good football as a slot target. The one receiver that was able to find success last week against the Cowboys was Julian Edelman in the slot. Look for the Bills to try to keep the chains moving through Beasley in the short passing game.
Assuming the Cowboys can hold the Bills to a manageable point total, the real key to this game is going to come down to how well their offense can play. The good news right off the cuff is that they have fared much better at home and in particular wide receiver Amari Cooper. Cooper will draw Tre’Davious White in coverage and that will be one of the individual matchups to keep an eye on. The Cowboys don’t necessarily need a huge day from Cooper but he has to at least be a factor in the passing game, which he wasn’t a week ago against Stephon Gilmore. Unfortunately for the Bills, despite having a very good defense, that is really the only area that they seem to have an advantage and or can hold their own depending on how that goes. Teams that can spread the ball around have been able to take advantage of some much weaker coverage on the opposite side of their number one receivers. Look for Michael Gallup and Randall Cobb to be heavily involved in this week’s passing game and expect both to finish with nice stat lines. While the Cowboys have a slight advantage in that area, their real strength needs to come from their heaviest investments in their offensive line and running back Ezekiel Elliott. The Bills are also middle of the pack against the run, but where they have struggled is against big and physical offensive lines and running backs. In case you haven’t follow the Cowboys, that’s exactly what their offense is built around. Buffalo’s defense is a fast and athletic group but has been unable to really stop the teams that want to muscle up and get physical with them.
KEY STATS: The Cowboys are 10-3 straight up in their last 13 games
following a loss
Based on the records alone, this spread seems a little high and the public agreed as it opened as high as Dallas -7.5 and has moved down to -6.5. The Buffalo Bills are a very solid football team, but they are in a really unenviable spot in this game. Having a short week playing their only national TV game against a team that is better at home and used to playing both on prime-time and Thanksgiving is tough. More importantly. the type of team that Dallas is will prove troubling as it’s built to exploit the weaknesses of a team designed like the Bills.
New Orleans Saints (9-2) (7-4 ATS) at Atlanta Falcons (3-8)(4-7 ATS)
Thursday November 28th
8:20pm
NBC
Mercedes-Benz Stadium – Atlanta, GA
New Orleans Saints -7 (Even)
Over/Under 49 (-110)
The only other team playing on Thanksgiving with a legitimate focus on the playoffs are the New Orleans Saints as they’ll head to Atlanta to take on a Falcons team that gave them their worst beating of the season just a couple of weeks ago. The Saints enter as a touchdown favorite despite their recent loss and some big injuries upfront to their offensive line. The Falcons have undoubtedly improved over the past month of the season and will be ready to go toe-to-toe with their division rivals.
In the previously mentioned game between the Falcons and Saints, Atlanta completely dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball forcing Drew Brees to hold the ball and taking a season high six sacks. New Orleans was already down Andrus Peat on their offensive line before losing Terron Armstead their solid left tackle last week. The obvious question in this game is will the Falcons be able to control that line again, particularly with the Saints offensive line injuries? If you can answer that definitively you most likely know the outcome of this game. The challenge is we don’t know for sure how things will shape up in that battle so we’re left to try to decipher that with our best guess and focus on the numbers. Sean Payton is one of the top scheming offensive minds the game has ever seen and we have to put some faith in the fact that he’ll adjust his game plan this time around. Last week he really made sure that his team started strong in the run game in order to loosen things up in the passing game. The Falcons rank near the bottom stopping the run, but they are actually allowing a pretty impressive 3.9 yards per carry, well below the league average this season. Despite that, it’s always a little easier for backup offensive linemen to run block than it is to pass block so look for New Orleans to run it often even if they’re not having great success early in the game. If they can run the ball, they should have no trouble controlling and winning this game, if they cannot, it will become a lot more interesting. In the passing game we know Michael Thomas will find his receptions so as has been the case with this team, it’s who can compliment and make big plays? Jared Cook has played well the past couple of weeks and that’s a really good sign for the Saints if they can get Cook going down the stretch run of the season. Ultimately, this breakdown comes full circle as it can’t be stated enough that the battle of the linemen is going to be huge here. Grady Jarrett, Takk McKinley and gang have to stand up tall and be disruptive to give the Falcons a chance.
When Matt Ryan’s X-rays came back negative and it was confirmed he had a mild ankle sprain there wasn’t much to pay attention to with that story. A few weeks removed from that, it’s fair to wonder just how much that ankle is bothering him as his play has fallen off drastically since that injury. Playing against a Tampa Bay defense that hadn’t been able to stop anyone throwing the football, Ryan and the Falcons had relatively limited success moving the ball consistently and putting points on the board. Although they’re at home, they won’t have an easy road to improving that against the Saints defense that continues to play at a high level both stopping the run and the pass. Atlanta has not been able to find a lot of success running the football all season and it’s doubtful that they’ll be able to do much Thursday night with their banged up corp of backs. That will put a lot of stress on Ryan and his skill positions to carry the burden of sustaining offense. One loss the Falcons have to deal with that is a little under the radar is tight end Austin Hooper as it looks as though he probably won’t be able to go on Thursday. If he can suit up it would be a big boost as Ryan and Hooper have been on the same page all season, but again it doesn’t look like he’ll be in the lineup. With a shaky running game and Hooper unavailable, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to defend the talented wideouts of the Falcons. The Saints hope to have Marshon Lattimore available in the secondary, which would be a big boost against Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley. If Lattimore can’t go, look for New Orleans to play more zone coverage as they did last week.
KEY STATS – The Saints are 6-3 ATS in their last 9 games against the
Falcons
When you look at this game as a whole there are trends and matchups that favor each team. Being a prime-time game in their home stadium, you have to believe that the Falcons will be hyped up and ready to go as this is really their last “meaningful” game of the season. That being said, the Saints are a better football team with a lot more to play for including that factor of wanting to redeem their performance against Atlanta two weeks ago. The spread seems about right based on all of the dynamics in this game, so if you’re feeling the Saints, you have to ask yourself how much you like them in this spot? If you want to take the touchdown with the Falcons, well, you have some courage.
There are quite a few question marks with the Thanksgiving Day games which makes the spreads very much the equalizer. For the BetCrushers that makes us look even more closely at the number lines and not the players wearing the jerseys. With two teams fighting for playoff spots as fairly large favorites, being able to move the lines to what amounts to straight up wins just makes the most sense Thursday. We actually would lean toward laying the points with both the Cowboys and the Saints, however those spreads based on the situations are by no means a sure thing. Picking two winners is a lot higher percentage wager in this subset in our opinion so we’ll go with a two-team teaser with the Cowboys and Saints. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
