Fantasy Forecast: Week 12
Thanksgiving is about turkey and football.
— -- For millions of Americans, Thanksgiving Day isn’t all about eating turkey. It’s also about watching football.
All three Thanksgiving NFL showdowns will be played in a dome – no weather worries on Thursday!
This year it’s an extra delicious platter of football games with divisional rivalries, high impact offenses, and some of the best teams in the league. Our first course is at 12:30 p.m. ET as the Detroit Lions host the Minnesota Vikings with first place of the NFC North on the line. The Vikings defense is back to being unstoppable, but the Lions have won the past three Thanksgiving games in a row.
The main course is served at 4:30 p.m. and features a divisional rivalry game between the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys, who currently hold the best record in the league. Dak Prescott's and Ezekiel Elliot’s first Thanksgiving game should not disappoint.
For dessert, it’s a prime-time matchup in Indianapolis against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Colts have never lost when they’ve played on Thanksgiving, but with the possibility of Andrew Luck missing the game, it will make it hard for them to keep that streak alive this year.
Now let's skip ahead to Sunday's games. High pressure is dominating much of the east, so home games in Baltimore, New York and Florida look to stay dry. The one problem area is out west where a frontal system dives into Northern California on Sunday, bringing the chance of widespread showers. The Oakland Raiders will be playing at home against the Carolina Panthers and look for running backs Latavius Murray and Jonathon Stewart to have decent games if rain does come to fruition in Oakland on Sunday.
Our "Way Back Weather" game is the infamous matchup between the Dolphins and Cowboys on Nov. 25, 1993. It was the first time ever that winter precipitation was recorded on Thanksgiving in Dallas. The game was dubbed the "Sleet Bowl" and with both teams being from the south, neither of them was very comfortable playing football on ice. A blue norther storm brought sleet and frigid temperatures across the state of Texas just in time for the big Thanksgiving game. A blue norther is a cold front that brings dark black and blue skies, cold temperatures, and strong northwest winds to the southern Plains during the winter. With over a quarter inch of ice covering the field, Emmitt Smith said it was so bad that all players might as well have worn ice skates! It was impossible for players to keep their balance, and because of that, Leon Litt couldn’t gain control of the football, resulting in a Miami victory. In the end it didn’t matter; the Cowboys won the rest of the season and went on to win the Super Bowl!
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