NFL Week 13 Thanksgiving & Black Friday Recap: Extra Helpings

It's over, Chicago. The bad man can't hurt you anymore.

This year's batch of Thanksgiving games started with an NFC North battle between the Detroit Lions and the Chicago Bears. For the Bears, enough had to be enough. Four days prior, they suffered a devastating OT loss to the Vikings. Of course, before that, the Packers blocked a game winning field goal. And before that, the Hail Mary. The Bears had to go to Motor City to face off against the NFL's lone real 10-1 team... and they were hanging in with them.

Once again, they had a good chance to at least force overtime down three. They got to field goal range, deep this time--unlike two games ago. Penalties and a devastating sack drove them back, but they still had time to get closer. Emphasis on had. The clock, for some reason, was running like a scalded dog, and this is despite the fact that the Bears had one timeout left. There were about 30+ seconds left. By the time the ball was snapped, only six seconds remained. Caleb Williams threw an incomplete pass, and the game was over.

The only thing that kept me, a Packers fan who was hoping for the Lions to be knocked down a peg, from hurling certain four-letter words was the Thanksgiving holiday. Once again, the Bears had a chance to stay afloat, and once again, they sunk themselves. Rather, Matt Eberflus sank himself. Matthew, you did know you had a timeout in your pocket, right?! Even worse, Eberflus defended his inept decision and even threw Caleb Williams, the one man trying to keep Eberflus afloat, under the bus.

And that was, finally, the last straw.

On the following day, hours before the Black Friday game (more on that later), the Bears did it. They fired Matt Eberflus as their head coach. This year is the Bears' 105th year of existence, meaning that the team's only been around over three and a half years longer than the team's owner, Virginia Halas McCaskey, who will turn 102 on January 5--and yes, she's related to that Halas; she's the daughter of the late, great George "Papa Bear" Halas. This is the first time in the team's long, long history that they actually fired their head coach in-season. That's how bad Eberflus was. 5-19 in one-score games. Had only won two division games in almost three seasons. Never beat the Packers. Lost six straight after a 4-2 start that was part of an NFC North that had all winning records. The last three in such stupid fashion. Eberflus had to go.

The sound you hear is Chicago partying like it's January 26, 1986.

Do the Dallas Cowboys still have a chance? If you ask Micah Parsons, they do. The Cowboys have been part of Thanksgiving since 1966, only missing the holiday twice, but this year was different. Because of their terrible record and circumstances, their game against the New York Giants was seen as a "Tank Bowl" game. Many fans wanted the game somehow removed from the Thanksgiving plate, but that was not happening. Even with the Giants and Cowboys being faulty as hell, I knew this would be a good game. It's an NFC East game; those are always good. The Cowboys defense showed out again for the most part, but it still remained close due to Cooper Rush being quite shaky. Despite this, the Cowboys hung on and won, 27-20, snapping a six-game home losing streak dating back to last year's Wild Card Playoff disaster.

With the loss, the Giants have dropped seventh straight and are now 2-10 this season. The loss was also their last relevant one, because the Giants became the first team to be eliminated from playoff contention in 2024. There wasn't too much promise from this team, especially since they let Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney go, and it took them until days prior to realize that they overpaid for Daniel Jones at QB. Even so, it was supposed to be a tad better than this. As for the Cowboys, they've won back-to-back games, but regarding Parsons' claim that they're not done yet, well... he's right, to an extent. There are five teams ahead of Dallas for that last spot, and for the Cowboys to have any chance, they need to win out and have each of those other teams slip on a banana peel or two. And they pretty much have to go for a playoff spot, because even losing out would put Dallas at around 10th on the draft list.

After the side dishes were out of the way, we were treated to the main course: Dolphins @ Packers. The game took place in the typical early winter conditions at Lambeau Field, coming four days after we blasted the 49ers. This game was just more of that same magic from that Sunday. Flawless play all around, a dominant performance from the Packers that resulted in a 24-3 lead at halftime. The Dolphins made a slight dent, but it was too late for their liking. 30-17 was the score in the Packers' favor, and we are 9-3. We won nine games all of last year, and this year, we will enter December with nine wins.

So for the second straight year, the Packers won on Thanksgiving. You know what that means?

Jordan Love finally got his turkey leg. The very leg that was denied him last year, even in victory. I said he should have had two to make up for that. I wasn't alone. Packers Hall of Famer LeRoy Butler said the same thing. So yeah, what a season so far for the Packers. Now, it's off to Detroit! We have Lions to tame!

The second annual Black Friday game on Amazon Prime was an AFC West battle between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs, and I was definitely looking for a repeat of last Christmas. We remember this. The Raiders going into Arrowhead and tearing it up in a Christmas Day game. It did not look like we would get that. Not only were the Raiders down 16-3, they were plagued by missed field goals from Daniel Carlson. All of a sudden, that lead was suddenly gone. Two touchdowns gave Vegas a 17-16 lead. The Chiefs mustered a field goal, but still, it was a two point game, and Vegas had a chance. Unfortunately, that chance saw them with a fourth down situation at the KC 40, and they were set to pooch punt it... until Antonio Pierce called timeout. Oddly, Carlson went back out there to try a 58 yard FG. Not even close.

KC went three and out and punted, but Vegas started in their own eight. They did manage to get to field goal range, closer this time, but a funny thing happened: the ball as snapped earlier than Aidan O'Connell wanted. This resulted in what appeared to be a fumble recovered by KC, and a penalty by the Raiders resulted in the officials huddling together and calling the fumble as well. KC's ball, game over.

Oh boy...

You know, this would be a better story if the Chiefs didn't, oh I don't know, barely skate by and get lucky AGAIN!!! To play off a line from Superintendent Chalmers, the horseshoe up Patrick Mahomes' butt has a horseshoe up its butt. Yes, the win gave the Chiefs the honor of becoming the first team to clinch a playoff spot this season, as one of their scenarios saw them need a win and a Dolphins loss. With that said, I will say this with the greatest confidence: we will not see the Chiefs on February 9, 2025. This team continues to win with blind luck rather than talent. They have fallen behind and barely beaten teams they should trounce. They needed the last seconds, luck, and certain favors to beat the Panthers and Raiders, two teams who are playing for the draft and will most likely get a favorable pick.

The sad part: all of this will be ignored because it's the Chiefs. Talking heads will give that same "Championship teams win games like this" speech and will basically order us to praise the Chiefs for doing the bare minimum to win. I guarantee you, if literally any other team (especially the Ravens and Packers) won games like this, they'd be skewered and called "frauds." Not the Chiefs. In the eyes of the media, barely beating a dead Raiders team due to blind luck is the same as blowing out a playoff contender. And yes, the Raiders are officially dead. They became the first AFC team to be eliminated from playoff contention this season

Regarding any remaining clinching scenarios, the Lions win means that they'll do some scoreboard watching on Sunday for certain teams who need to lose in order for Detroit to get in. The Miami loss also helped the Bills out as well, as Buffalo will only need a win to clinch the AFC East. This was an amazing crop of games for Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year. Amazon Prime now has four games left, five if you count the playoff game they'll air this season. I only have one request regarding next year's Black Friday game: put some NFC teams in that spot!

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