Official ‘Other Games’ Thread - Thanksgiving Week - 12

[Foxx]

This week's slate of games kicks off with three Thanksgiving day games. Early: Bears @ Lions. Late: Raiders @ Cowboys and tonight: Bills @ Saints.

 

Four Sunday games will have a direct significant bearing on the AFC standings. Steelers @ Bengals, Titans @ Patriots, Chargers @ Broncos and the Browns @ Ravens. While two intraconference games, Raiders @ Cowboys and Buccaneers @ Colts could also carry some weight. 

 

For our Bills, while an out-of-conference loss would not be the end of the world, and a team with 6 or 7 losses will probably make the playoffs, a fifth loss on the season would essentially put their backs up against the wall. To remain in the thick of the AFC playoff race, quite simply, the Bills have to win tonight.

 

Do we want the Patriots or the Titans to win? Without knowing how the rest of the season is going to unfold, you have to go with what the standings and seedings say and that would be rooting for the Patriots. After the Patriots game, the Titans have their bye then play vs.Jaguars, @Steelers, vs.49ers, vs.Dolphins, and @Texans to end the season. With that schedule, while they could lose on any given Sunday, they really only have two tough games in the Steelers and 49ers. At this point, if we are going to catch them, because they are a game and a half up on us (and also have the head to head tiebreaker in their favor), they have to lose at least two more games for us to have any hope of surpassing them in the standings and get a better seeding.

 

As for the Patriots, we control our own destiny against them being as we play them twice before the end of the season. The problem lies in the conference records. We are 5-4, the Patriots are 5-1. The rest of the Patriots games are all in the conference with four of those six being tough games. The Bills have three conference games left, two of which are against the Patriots. Sweep them, we should be good. If however, we split the head to heads, we would need to finish with a better record to win the division. Get swept, we are looking at the draft.

 

For information purposes, here is each team's schedule for the rest of the season.

 

Patriots:

vs. Titans

@ Bills (Monday night)

Bye

@ Colts (Saturday night)

vs. Bills

vs. Jaguars

@ Dolphins

 

Bills:

@ Saints

vs. Patriots (Monday Night)

@ Buccaneers (late Sunday game)

vs. Panthers

@ Patriots

vs. Falcons

vs. Jets

 

 

Week 12

Visitor	Home	Info	Location
Bears	Lions	Thu, 11/25, 12:30 p.m. ET, FOX	Ford Field
Raiders	Cowboys	Thu, 11/25, 4:30 p.m. ET, CBS	AT&T Stadium
Bills	Saints	Thu, 11/25, 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC	Caesars Superdome
Steelers	Bengals	1 p.m. ET, CBS	Paul Brown Stadium
Buccaneers	Colts	1 p.m. ET, FOX	Lucas Oil Stadium
Panthers	Dolphins	1 p.m. ET, FOX	Hard Rock Stadium
Titans	Patriots	1 p.m. ET, CBS	Gillette Stadium
Eagles	Giants	1 p.m. ET, FOX	MetLife Stadium
Falcons	Jaguars	1 p.m. ET, CBS	TIAA Bank Field
Jets	Texans	1 p.m. ET, CBS	NRG Stadium
Chargers	Broncos	4:05 p.m. ET, CBS	Empower Field
Rams	Packers	4:25 p.m. ET, FOX	Lambeau Field
Vikings	49ers	4:25 p.m. ET, FOX	Levi's Stadium
Browns	Ravens	8:20 p.m. ET, NBC	M&T Bank Stadium
Seahawks	Washington	Mon, 11/29, 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN	FedExField

 

 

Rooting interests this week include:

Cowboys

Steelers

Buccaneers

Patriots

Broncos

Browns

 

 

Go Bills!

[Ann]

Diggs brothers fighting over the wishbone...
 

 

[Uncle Joe]

2 hours ago, Foxx said:

Rooting interests this week include:

Cowboys

Steelers

Buccaneers

Patriots

Broncos

Browns

Reported!

[Core Four]

I'm fairly certain we do not want the Patriots to win.  We need to win out and they need to lose as much as possible.  The easiest way to the playoffs is the win the division.

[Figster]

2 hours ago, Ann said:

Diggs brothers fighting over the wishbone...
 

 

 

[Foxx]

41 minutes ago, Core Four said:

I'm fairly certain we do not want the Patriots to win.  We need to win out and they need to lose as much as possible.  The easiest way to the playoffs is the win the division.

We win out, we win the division. Wouldn't matter what the Patriots do. 

[Uncle Joe]

48 minutes ago, Core Four said:

I'm fairly certain we do not want the Patriots to win.  We need to win out and they need to lose as much as possible.  The easiest way to the playoffs is the win the division.

 

6 minutes ago, Foxx said:

We win out, we win the division. Wouldn't matter what the Patriots do. 

I was there 3 weeks ago. Now I'll take all the help we can get.

[Foxx]

Is Fields injured? Dalton starting.

[devnull]

22 minutes ago, Foxx said:

Is Fields injured? Dalton starting.

 

Fields injured his ribs last week against the Ravens

 

 

[Foxx]

The referee said, "Chicago is challenging the ruling on the field that the quarterback was down by contact." Came back and proceeded to overturn the ruling on the field.

 

Umm... since when is "down by contact" reviewable, let alone reversible?

[KD in CA]

2 hours ago, Uncle Joe said:

Reported!

Yeah, pretty sure I’ll be rooting for few if any of those teams.

 

Patriots??  🤨

[Foxx]

Lol @ Bears.

 

Extra point attempt and they snap the ball before one of their player's gets completely off the field, resulting in a too many men on the field penalty.

[GG1]

I can't believe this game is still going.  

[Foxx]

2 minutes ago, GG1 said:

I can't believe this game is still going.  

Detroit is just terrible. They keep shooting themselves in the foot.

[Ann]

6 minutes ago, Foxx said:

Detroit is just terrible. They keep shooting themselves in the foot.

That was bad coaching…. WTH calls back to back timeouts!? Gotta hand that last drive to Andy Dalton… it was impressive.

[devnull]

6 minutes ago, Foxx said:

Detroit is just terrible. They keep shooting themselves in the foot.

Back to back time out penalty should include a one game suspension for the offending coach to review the rulebook

[Ann]

Lol

 

 

[devnull]

6 minutes ago, Ann said:

Lol

 

 

NFL should have scheduled the Bears at Lions snoozer for the late afternoon game, a time that coincides with most of America dozing off after the big meal

[Foxx]

1 hour ago, Ann said:

Lol

 

 

The Raiders Cowboys game should be a little better, capped off with our Bills tonight. I'll forgive the NFL for their transgression.

[Foxx]

1 minute ago, devnull said:

NFL should have scheduled the Bears at Lions snoozer for the late afternoon game, a time that coincides with most of America dozing off after the big meal

We actually had our meal quite early this year so the early game worked like the late afternoon one.