Happy Turkey Day! In honor of one of the most fun and festive holidays of the year, the Sporting News has assembled a bonus list of best bets exclusively for the Thanksgiving triple-header and Black Friday game.
If you’ve been tailing the wagers from our weekly best bets column, you’ve enjoyed a head-start on the feast. We’re now 74-58-1 on the season, as plentiful a number as the amount of pumpkin pie slices we’ll devour on Thursday.
MORE NFL WEEK 13: Odds, lines, totals | Best bets for Sunday
We’ll also be devouring football on Thursday, with three solid games on the docket. And, since it’s a special occasion, we figured it’s only right to compile a special holiday edition of our best bets column.
Let’s get to the top moneyline, spread, over/under and player prop wagers on BetMGM and Caesars for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Good luck, have fun and have a happy and healthy holiday with your loved ones.
JUMP TO: Spreads | Moneylines | Over/unders | Player props
All odds courtesy of BetMGM and Caesars Sportsbook.
We don’t typically go for big spreads, just like I typically pass on candied yams and creamed spinach. However, this one’s too good to pass up. The Lions have been the best team in the NFC all season, they’re 10-1 straight up (SU) and 9-2 against the spread (ATS), and they’re 4-1 at Ford Field.
The Bears have failed to beat the Lions on Thanksgiving Day since 1993, back when I was playing Nintendo and basketball nearly every waking moment. Don’t hold your breath on rookie QB Caleb Williams and Chicago making history and mounting an upset over this juggernaut. The Bears have gone an NFL-worst 0-4 SU and 0-3-1 ATS in away games this season.
Detroit simply has too much of everything. Too much of a running attack with Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery. Too much pass-catching firepower with Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams and Sam LaPorta. Too much great coaching with Dan Campbell, Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn. It’s an embarrassment of riches, like my dessert table on Turkey Day. Take the Lions.
SCORE PREDICTION: Lions 28, Bears 16
This is a fun way to bet a favorite without taking on massive moneyline juice or sweating out a favorite with a -3.5 spread. We like the Packers to narrowly pace this one at home on Thanksgiving night, where the temperatures at Lambeau Field could drop to the 20s by kickoff.
That’s no bueno for Tua Tagovailoa, a native Hawaiian with a 0-6 career record when the temps drop to 46 degrees or lower. It’s great, however, for Jordan Love. The Pack’s signal-caller has gone 11-6 lifetime at Lambeau, including a 27-19 upset over the Chiefs last December in the coldest game of his young career.
Some risk comes with betting Green Bay to win the first half and game, considering a tie at halftime serves up an L (so would overtime). But Love has been slingin’ the rock over the past few weeks, and we simply can’t see the well-rounded Packers falling short against a Miami team that has lost two of its past three road games.
HALFTIME SCORE PREDICTION: Packers 13, Dolphins 10
FINAL SCORE PREDICTION: Packers 27, Dolphins 24
This could be the ugliest part of the holiday. Tommy DeVito looked downright incompetent in his first start of the 2024 NFL season, and now he gets the pleasure of playing against Micah Parsons at AT&T Stadium.
Mike McCarthy is coaching for his job at this point, and luckily for him he still has some weapons out on the field. Cooper Rush has a 6-3 career record as a starter, CeeDee Lamb remains one of the most electric receivers in the NFL, and the Cowboys’ D can still capitalize on poor QBs.
The Giants have been held below 18 points six different times this season, including a 30-7 stomping by the Bucs last week and a 20-17 loss to the lowly Panthers in overtime two weeks ago. It will be a Thanksgiving miracle if the G-men can eclipse 17 in Arlington, with or without the curtains closed.
FINAL SCORE PREDICTION: Cowboys 20, Giants 17
We were looking for some Isiah Pacheco touchdown props for his first game back from injury, but we’ll settle for the nation’s top tight end hitting the OVER at home in a standalone game.
The Raiders are in an utter state of dismay, having lost multiple QBs to injury, Davante Adams to the Jets, and falling to 2-9 last week. Now they get to play the back-to-back reigning champs at Arrowhead Stadium on a short week!? Yuck.
Las Vegas has surrendered the sixth-most yards and the second-most TDs to the tight end position this season. Kelce seems like a strong bet to rack up 75-plus yards and a TD (he’s -110 to score if you want to bet that one, too). Don’t be surprised if we see a couple of Taylor Swift cutaways on the Amazon broadcast, too.
