A Kyler Murray debate, a Bills blowout and the best NFL bets of Thanksgiving weekend

It’s hard to believe, but we have already made it to one of the best holidays of the year, Thanksgiving. Quite honestly, there may not be a better holiday on the calendar. There is almost zero risk and all reward [Ed. note: please elaborate on which holidays carry risk, aside from drinking yourself into a coma on St. Patrick's Day (a Rhode Island tradition) or getting into a Roman candle fight on July 4 (a Scumbag tradition)].

You get to spend time with the people you care about (sans presents), eat, drink and indulge in 11-ish straight hours of NFL football. Yeah, if you have to travel that can be a bit of a bummer, but other than that, it’s a top tier holiday for sure. Thanksgiving is also a great time to catch up with the boys, now that we are older and have begun to spread out across the continental United States for various reasons (job opportunities, smothering parents, etc).

This serves as one of the handful of times we are gifted with lapsing back into our post-college, pre-real life selves. A day where an hour at our favorite dive can devolve into a lost day filled with a combination of “athletic”  challenges (bowling, golf, darts, pool) and any form of wagering that involves money pools and screaming in each other’s faces while we sweat out whatever absurd seven-leg parlay we fired in to add a little extra excitement to the day.

I’m very much looking forward to this long weekend, and am hoping to be thankful for several wins on the Sunday docket to bring the holiday to a close.

The Colts got spanked by the Detroit Lions last week and looked nothing like the team that pulled off a big win the week before against the struggling New York Jets. The Patriots also got spanked last week in a puzzling showing against the Miami Dolphins, looking nothing like the team that had been playing respectable football the past few weeks.

New England has bounced back from brutal showings a few times this season, and Jabrill Peppers may make his return this week. If they can slow down the Colts’ rushing attack, they could pull off the upset. Anthony Richarson’s favorite target, Josh Downs, will likely be out this week -- another advantage for the New England defense.

This feels like a bounce back week for the Cardinals against a Vikings defense that ranks 28th in the league in passing yards against. Minnesota didn’t have to do much to take care of business against Tennessee last week, but faces the task this week of keeping Arizona weapons Trey McBride and Marvin Harrison Jr. in check.

The Vikings have been the league's best at stifling the rush, so James Connor and the Arizona rushing attack may struggle. Arizona’s defense is the wild card. If they can regain some of the magic they found earlier in the year, they will cause problems for Sam Darnold and company. We can’t dismiss Minnesota’s no-show in a gross win against Jacksonville in Week 10 (people don’t forget!), which gives me some confidence the Cards can pull off the upset.

This one is simple. Seattle has been playing well as of late. New York hasn’t.

Geno Smith loves playing against his former team. He is 3-0 as a starter against them, and will be 4-0 by this game’s end. The Jets’ defense hasn’t been very effective since the dismissal of Robert Saleh. Now it gets the pleasure of game planning for Kenneth Walker, DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Yikes.

It’s possible Walker could end up with 150 yards from scrimmage. Seattle’s defense on the other hand has been formative in their own right, taking care of business against a (somewhat compromised) San Francisco team, following that up with a stifling of the high octane Arizona Cardinals offense.

I’ll bet on New York laying an egg coming out of the bye, Geno Smith celebrating leaving the Meadowlands with his undefeated record intact, and me collecting two units.

Short anecdote…I played some golf with Scumbag 1.0 this past Sunday (pre-kickoff of course) and we were discussing how I was faring vs. Christian this year. He pointed out how my mirroring Christian’s “boring yet steady” strategy was methodically working, but incredibly vanilla. He was much more exciting to follow, albeit with volatile results, leading to a rollercoaster of a season ending with Christian staring down at him from his championship throne year after year.

Why share this short, mostly insignificant story? To share why I am firing multiple two-unit bets this week. I am confident that the Josh Allen led Bills should take care of a very compromised San Francisco team this week, traveling cross country for their matchup in frigid Buffalo. The spread is only one score, leading me to believe that the oddsmakers either know something we don’t (very likely) or they didn’t watch the debacle in Green Bay last week where San Francisco's best player (Christian McCaffrey) looked more like his father Ed suited up in his place, compounded with a lack of Brock Purdy. To be fair, Buffalo has won, but not covered in games where I felt they should’ve easily done so (looking at you, Miami), but I’ll throw my caution (and two units) into the wind this weekend.