Thanksgiving Day Wrap-up- poor performances abound

Five out of Six teams on Thursday look like they have no clue

Wow, did we get spoiled Monday night watching the talent and execution of paly in the Chiefs vs. Rams game! It became so evident when the first game Thanksgiving kicked off in Detroit. The Bears came away with an unimpressive victory over an ineffective Lions team, 23-16. Chase Daniel, filling in for the injured Mitch Trubisky, played well enough to win, but against most teams in the league, the Bears would have come up short. It was a lackluster game full of tryptophan. Matt Stafford and Detroit looked thoroughly unprepared first throwing a 41 yard pick-6 to Chicago LB Eddie Jackson. The $135 Million Stafford looked directly at Jackson and the 16-16 tie was broken with 6 minutes to play. But Stafford wasn’t done. The lions drove to the Bears 11 and again a terribly thrown ball up for grabs in the end zone was picked off sealing the Bears win. It looks like the Lions don’t even practice, the receiver was so off Stafford’s page, it was embarrassing to watch. Detroit fell to last place in the division at 4-7 while the Bears continued their run in a relatively weak NFC North at 8-3. Even with a win and a trip to the playoffs in sight, the Bears are far behind the elite teams and up against a decent level of competition will fail, despite having defensive talent.

Helping, no, pulling the runner

As the Bears were trying to run out the clock, Chicago LG James Daniel grabbed ahold of RB Tarik Cohen and put his arms around him and dragged and pulled him over the line to gain. Well, this is an obvious penalty and for the life of me I have no idea how the officials missed this. Even Stoneface former ref-Mike Pereira said you can’t encircle or pull the runner. The Bears should have been flagged for 10 yard penalty which would have given Stafford another chance at a lame throw to a Bear defender padding his interception stats for the year.

Game 2 delivered more below average performances, especially by the Redskins as they lost in Dallas, 31-23. The Cowboys Amani Cooper scored two easy long TDs on a Washington secondary that was out of position and missed tackles and assignments. Zeke produced enough yards rushing (121) to seal the win for Dallas. Backup Colt McCoy threw 3 picks as he was ill prepared for his first start of the season.

Helmet to Helmet?

Redskin TE Jordan Reed was livid on the sidelines after getting smashed with an obvious helmet-to-helmet hit late in the 4^th quarter. Down by 11, Reed was contacted illegally by Dallas DB Xavier Woods but there was no flag in sight. Reed, in disbelief chucked his helmet in frustration. He has been targeted and suffered maybe 5 or 6 concussions in previous seasons. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were stunned at the no call. As coach Hank Stram one said’ how can eleven of you miss a call like that?”

These two pretenders are now tied at 6-5 for the lead in the NFC Least and like the Bears, neither of these teams are on a level with the Saints or Rams, not by a longshot.

Finally, on Sunday night, a team who prepares and executes played. The NO Saints, an absolute Super Bowl contender dominated the going-nowhere Falcons jumping to to a 17-3 early lead before winning 31-17. Brees, Kamara, Thomas and company efficiently handled an outclassed Atlanta team that has folded up their tents in 2018. Brees has 29 TDs vs. only 2 interceptions. NO has won ten straight.

The Bozos took all the favorites to cover and all won fairly easily, a pretty simple three team Thanksgiving parlay.

-HB