Three games yesterday. Not too many good ones. I was thinking that it used to be more of a novelty playing football on Thanksgiving. Now we have a Thursday game every week and even a Friday game today. The league is happy. I'm not sure anyone else is.
Packers 29, Lions 22. Sometimes I give up on players too early. Might have made that mistake with Jordan Love. He looked pretty shaky while Green Bay was stumbling its way seemingly out of the playoff hunt. Now they've won three of their last four, Love has thrown multiple touchdowns and for over 260 yards in three straight, and 5-6 is in the playoff picture in the NFC. There are only six teams with winning records in the conference right now.
Big story yesterday was Christian Watson running by Lions defenders for a game that would have been even bigger had Love not underthrown him on a game-opening bomb. Does this mean Watson can be used every week going forward? I think as with Love, you pick your matchups. He's had some good ones lately, which Detroit's shaky pass defense is. Kansas City next week is not. But looking at the schedule, 9-8 is a possibility for the Packers.
Another rough game for Jared Goff. He was great in fantasy leagues, as long as you don't get penalized too much for another trio of sloppy turnovers. He's got a great line and some great weapons, but he can also look pretty ordinary under pressure, which the Packers were bringing yesterday. And with the Lions defense being flawed, it's hard to see Detroit being long for the playoffs, even though they're pretty certain to win the North. David Montgomery, Sam LaPorta and Amon-Ra St. Brown (thanks to garbage time), paid off at least.
Cowboys 45, Commanders 10. Great game. If you were starting basically anyone on the Cowboys. Sam Howell is a tough one. Early on, I thought he was just too sack and mistake-prone to stick as the starting quarterback. Then I though Washington had found their guy. Now? Well, he can sling it around, but I wonder if he's too sack and mistake-prone. I'm getting a Mark Sanchez vibe. Ron Rivera and company are gonna be out at the end of the season, and I think the new regime will consider other options.
But again, nice game to be starting the key Dallas players. Except for Michael Gallup, he seems to be about this team's 4th-best wideout, at best. Jake Ferguson also quiet. The Commanders are just so bad sticking with wide receivers, those guys were running free in the secondary all game. We saw it with DJ Moore a while back, and it just continues, week after week. Lamb, Cooks, Dak -- fun to watch if you were starting any of these guys, and even Tony Pollard got in on the scoring action. Objectively, I hope the schedule makers give us a more competitive opponent for Dallas next year.
49ers 31, Seahawks 13. Seattle really doesn't want to put Drew Lock on the field. Geno Smith looked hurt at the end of last week's game (but they let him lead a failed final drive anyway), and didn't look right in this one either. Playing a great San Francisco defense, it went about as you might expect. I'm kind of relieved that Kenneth Walker was hurt, otherwise I might have made the mistake of starting him. I don't think Zach Charbonnet is any good, but he also didn't have much of a chance last night. Nor did Tyler Lockett or DK Metcalf, regularly watching passes sail off-target and out of bounds.
When Deebo Samuel is healthy, he's quite the difference maker. Made it hard for Brandon Aiyuk (who at least scored late) and George Kittle to pay off, with Samuel doing it as both receiver and runner. And of course Christian McCaffrey was his usual dominant self. The 49ers dominated, I think they might actually be the league's best team when they're on their game, and Seattle -- currently in line for a playoff spot -- looks like a pretty modest club on both sides of the ball. The NFC is going to put three, maybe four really good teams in the playoffs, and then 2-3 really modest clubs.
Today we've got a really good team playing a good defensive team. Hopefully it's a better game than yesterday's, but I'm not counting on it.