Thanksgiving Day Observations
I barely watched the first game because my brother and his family came to Portugal for Thanksgiving, and he wanted to see the world’s biggest waves, so we drove an hour and a half each way to Nazare to watch.
They were pretty big, maybe 20-25 feet. It was a lot of driving for half an hour of standing on the pier, but it was worth it. I told him afterwards, “You want to see the world’s biggest waves, I’m your guy. You want to see the world’s tallest mountain, we’ll be on a plane to the Himalayas tonight.”
That’s my brother at the end of the clip (and also him yacking away the whole time with my niece.) I didn’t ask his permission to use it because he’s sleeping in at his hotel, while I’m getting this posted in the morning, so don’t mention it to him if you see him.
I did see the last two minutes of Bills-Lions, and it’s uncanny how good teams can get that game-winning field goal in 20-odd seconds, while bad teams somehow give up a 36-yard catch to Stefon Diggs when it’s the only thing you need to prevent.
I went 0-3 ATS in my home picking pool, though mercifully I didn’t submit any of them in the Circa Millions. The Giants game was a tough watch, and I’m glad I gave up on it at midnight (midway through the third quarter) and saved it for this morning.
There’s nothing worse than cutting into your sleep for a terrible game that goes against you in almost every way. Even the garbage-time TD late hurt as it had no impact on the game, I had the Cowboys -9.5 ATS and Daniel Jones on my bench in every league. Worse, every play seemed to have a penalty or an injury necessiating yet another commercial break. When you’re stuffed, exhausted, have a headache from the booze and watching your team lose, all the stoppages are torture.
I actually have a solution for the injury delays, though:
The Giants were just too banged up to play on a short week, and while Brian Daboll had them up for it in the first half, they couldn’t sustain it.
Saquon Barkley (11-39-1, 6-4-13-0) had a passable fantasy day, but he’s slipping in the rushing yardage race the last couple weeks. The Giants have the worst offensive personnel in the league behind Barkley, and that’s including Daniel Jones who has been an above average QB (under the circumstances) this year. The rest of the healthy offensive players (aside from Andrew Thomas and Darius Slayton) are castoffs and scrubs.
Ezekiel Elliott (16-92-1, 1-1-3-0) looked healthy at least.
Kayvon Thibodeaux had only one solo tackle, but he was in the Cowboys’ backfield all night. He’s probably not the next Lawrence Taylor, but so far I’m reasonably happy with what they got with the No. 5 overall pick.
The Pats extended the Vikings’ game-winning TD drive on a running-into-the-kicker penalty. They had them stopped on 4th-and-4, but the five-yard penalty gave the Vikings a first down. The ratio of first-down-causing penalties when you attempt to block a punt to actual punts blocked has to be something like 4:1 — you’re better off not even trying given the current ticky-tack rules.
Mac Jones looked pretty good, and all his receivers made plays. Facing the Vikings soft defense in a dome is ideal though.
Rhamondre Stevenson (7-36-0, 10-9-76-0) has 50 catches in 11 games, second in the league among RBs. With Damien Harris hurt again, Stevenson is a top-10 back.
Justin Jefferson (11-9-139-1) is the 1.1 right now. He’s like Jerry Rice. Not that big, fast, but not a burner. He just catches everything, no matter if he’s covered or being hit. And he’s durable.
At least I had Nick Folk going in a few leagues — the Patriots have been huge on field-goal attempts the last couple years.
We overdid it on the food. Not just eating — everyone does that — but we made way too much. We had seven people, and it could have fed 25. I love having Thankgiving leftovers, but we booked restaurants from lunch and dinner the next two days. I loathe wasting food, so I have to figure out how I’m going to eat it all.