Philadelphia (4-6) at Detroit (3-7)
When: Thursday, November 26th 2015
Where: Ford Field, Detroit, MI
Time: 12:30 ET | TV: FOX
Two teams going in opposite directions at the moment meet on Thanksgiving Day as the Detroit Lions host the Philadelphia Eagles. Detroit was sitting at 1-7 after its bye week and then shocked everyone by winning at Green Bay for the first times in two decades. They followed that up with an 18-13 home win against Oakland last week. It may be a little too late to salvage the season, but they can play spoiler the next two weeks when they host both Philadelphia and Green Bay. Matthew Stafford is on pace for his most interceptions since his rookie season despite the fact that he has the highest completion percentage of his career at 64.2% coming into Thursday’s game. He’s coming off a 282 yard performance against Oakland in which he failed to throw a touchdown for just the second time in a game this year. Detroit really needs a rushing game to help out Stafford and they don’t have one, ranking dead last with 71.1 yards a game on the ground. The Lions have scored over 20 points just twice this season despite having the 8th best passing attack in the league. Calvin Johnson is healthy again and has 59 catches for 828 yards, but only three scores this season. The defense, which gives up 27.4 points a game, is playing much better holding their last two opponents to a combined 29 points.
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The Philadelphia Eagles are a mess right on both offense and defense. Quarterback Sam Bradford will miss his second straight game with a concussion and Mark Sanchez will get the start again. Sanchez has not been much better than Bradford so far. He threw a key interception against Miami in relief of Bradford, then threw three more picks in an embarrassing 45-17 home loss to Tampa Bay last week. Last season’s NFL rushing leader DeMarco Murray has only 515 yards rushing this season and a career low 3.7 yards a carry. He’ll probably get a bigger workload this week with Ryan Mathews questionable with a concussion. To say the Eagles defense gave up last week would be an understatement. They let rookie Jameis Winston throw five touchdown passes and running back Doug Martin to run for 235 yards. The Eagles now rank 28th against the run in the league. Despite calls for Chip Kelly’s job, the Eagles are only a game behind the Giants in the NFC East and they own a win over them already. Philly could really use a win today with New England, Buffalo, and Arizona coming up on the schedule.
Detroit seems to have figured out how to play defense and the Eagles are coming in slumping. As we know from this season already, you can throw common sense out the window. I think the Eagles will have success running the ball with Murray today in hopes of trying to limit Sanchez’s mistakes, because he will make them the more he throws. Philadelphia pulls out a sloppy win.
Pick: Eagles PK
