2011 Gobble Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving to you faithful readers.  All three of you.  Here are the Turkey Day picks to kick off Week 12.

Fav

Spread

Dog

Dre

Jay

	Thanksgiving
GB (10-0)	6½	DET (7-3)			Det	Det
DAL (6-4)	7	Mia (3-7)			Dal	Mia
	Thanksgiving Nite
BAL (7-3)	3½	SF (9-1)			Bal	SF

• Jason's rationale for all of his picks were very similar:  "It feels like a close game."  He's taking the three underdogs because he thinks all three spreads are a little too big.  I'm going with the upset in the first contest and picking the Lions to knock off the Packers.  I said yesterday that Green Bay's defense was going to cost them the perfect season, and it almost did against a piss poor Buccaneers offense.  I think the Lions can really light them up through the air and with a renewed ground attack, and the Detroit defense, which concussed Aaron Rodgers last year, will come out ready to do something similar to him on the national stage and send a message.
• I'm going with all three home teams for different reasons.  Detroit has an emotional component of wanting to prove themselves as contenders.  Dallas wants to show that they're not soft and mentally weak, specifically their QB Tony Romo, and I think they have a nice opponent to beat up and make their point.  Yes, Miami has been ballin' lately, but they've been slaying bums--Kansas City, Washington, and last week, Buffalo.  Jason will take the Fish anyway because they have been much improved lately.
• And I'll take Baltimore in the Family Feud edition of Thursday Night Football because I can't pick San Francisco on the road against such a physically tough opponent in the Eastern time zone on a short week.  It feels like a low-scoring punching contest between two fierce defenses, and I'm taking Joe Flacco and his weapons to make a play over Alex Smith and his weapons.  If the game were out west, I probably would see it differently.  Jason actually sees a high-scoring game, and he thinks that hook may come into play, so he'll land on the side of the underdogs.  At 9-1, it's hard to go against Coach Insane these days, but as he said himself, the Niners really got the short straw for this matchup.