The three games on Thanksgiving provided the bulk of the best and worst from Week 12 of the NFL season.
The Detroit Lions blew out the crumbling Philadelphia Eagles, the Carolina Panthers roughed up the already hurting Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bears crashed a legendary party in Green Bay and upset the Packers. It was a day of Thanksgiving carnage only turkeys could appreciate.
Here is the rest of the best and worst from Week 12:
Best
Detroit Lions
The Lions kicked off the NFL’s Thanksgiving slate with a bang, using five touchdown passes from Matthew Stafford to steamroll the visiting Philadelphia Eagles by a 45-14 final.
Detroit has now won three straight games to get to 4-7, a mark that keeps the once 1-7 Lions in the race for a postseason spot in the uneven NFC. The Eagles were held to just 227 yards of total offense, while three of Stafford’s scores went to Calvin Johnson. The surging Lions host the struggling Green Bay Packers next week.
RB Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings
The NFL’s rushing leader gained 158 yards and scored two touchdowns as the NFC North-leading Vikings pounded the fading Falcons in Atlanta on Sunday. He found the end zone from 35 yards out in the fourth quarter to seal Minnesota’s eighth win. Peterson now has 1,164 rushing yards through 11 games, which puts him on pace for almost 1,700 in 2015.
Minnesota is 6-0 when Peterson rushes for at least 100 yards this season. He might not rush for 2,000, but shouldn’t a running back carrying his team to the postseason be a MVP candidate?
QB Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks
Wilson celebrated his 27th birthday with one of his best games as a professional. The Seahawks quarterback threw for 345 yards and a career-high five touchdowns as Seattle beat Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Wilson found Doug Baldwin for three scores, including two in the fourth quarter. The first gave Seattle the lead; the second (an 80-yarder with 2:01 left) sealed the win. The Seahawks are now 6-5. If the season ended today, Seattle would be playoff bound as the NFC’s sixth seed.
Washington Redskins
Another miracle touchdown from Odell Beckham wasn’t enough for the Giants to catch the Redskins, who scored the game’s first 17 points and eventually beat New York to take the lead in the NFC East.
Nothing is ever pretty in the NFL’s most turbulent division, but credit the Redskins for rebounding from last Sunday’s whipping in Carolina grab their biggest win of the season. Kirk Cousins threw for 302 yards and a score, while the Washington defense turned Eli Manning over three times. All five of the Redskins’ wins have come at home this season.
Winning QBs
The concept of quarterback wins needs to disappear from the NFL, but Week 12 wasn’t kind to the argument. The quarterbacks of winning teams from the first 14 games threw 32 touchdowns and three interceptions, while the losing quarterbacks tossed 21 touchdowns and 23 interceptions.
Among the best of the winners were Russell Wilson (five touchdowns), Matthew Stafford (five), Philip Rivers (four), Ryan Fitzpatrick (four) and Derek Carr (three), five quarterbacks who combined for 21 scores and zero picks. The only quarterbacks to not throw an interception and still lose were Tyrod Taylor and Mark Sanchez, while Teddy Bridgewater, Andy Dalton and Brian Hoyer accounted for the three interceptions among the winners. The NFL is a quarterback-drive league, as Week 12 once again showed.
Worst
Philadelphia Eagles
The slide continues for Chip Kelly’s Eagles, who have lost three games in a row after a spectacularly average 4-4 start. The Lions embarrassed Philadelphia on a national stage, scoring 45 points and beating the Eagles by 31 points during the early Thanksgiving game.
Over just the last two weeks, Philadelphia has allowed 90 points and lost by a combined 59. Up next for the Eagles? A trip to Foxborough to play the Patriots. It’s getting ugly in Philly.
QB Tony Romo, Dallas Cowboys
Romo threw a pair of pick-sixes and three interceptions overall, but his Thanksgiving rock bottom wasn’t a turnover. That moment came later, when Panthers linebacker Thomas Davis sacked Romo and re-broke his collarbone with Carolina up big in the second half.
The Cowboys are now 3-8 and without Romo for the rest of the season. His injury-plagued season fittingly ended with a big-time dud. Just that kind of year in Dallas.
Green Bay Packers
On a night when the Packers retired Brett Favre’s No. 4 and welcomed home Super Bowl quarterback Bart Starr, Green Bay scored only 13 points and dropped a home game to Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears. Reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers had four shots to win the game late in the fourth quarter but threw four straight incompletions.
Since starting 6-0, Green Bay has won just one game in five tries. The Packers lost back-to-back home divisional games for the first time since 1992. This is a broken team struggling to find answers.
Atlanta Falcons
It’s getting harder and harder to remember the Falcons’ 5-0 start. Sunday continued Atlanta’s fade from relevance, as the visiting Vikings roughed up the now 6-5 Falcons in the Georgia Dome. Matt Ryan threw two picks, including another one in the end zone, and Atlanta’s top-ranked run defense allowed 191 yards on the ground.
It took a garbage time touchdown for the Falcons to get to 10 points. A trio of road games over the next three weeks could serve as the knockout punch for Atlanta’s once promising 2015 season.
QB Nick Foles, St. Louis Rams
Foles did nothing with his opportunity to start in place of the injured Case Keenum (concussion) against the Bengals, throwing three interceptions during Cincinnati’s 31-7 win.
Cornerback Leon Hall returned one of his picks for a touchdown, while the Rams’ only score came with Todd Gurley lined up in the wildcat formation. Eventually, head coach Jeff Fisher pulled Foles in favor of rookie Sean Mannion. The Rams are having some serious buyer’s remorse on the two-year deal Foles signed this summer.