The 2019 viewer’s guide to Thanksgiving football and avoiding your family

Hey, you there. Happy Thanksgiving! You, like so many, are likely feeling some combination of: 1) glorious, decompressive relief facing a long weekend and a bounty of food, and 2) mild to extreme annoyance at having to share this restorative time with your dweeb family.

Even if you like your folks, you’ll probably want to steal some time away from them. We all get it: your sibling’s kids are loud, your uncle has been telling the same four stories for years, and there’s a power struggle going on in the kitchen that you’d rather abstain from.

When you feel like you have nothing left, know that you have football. Pure, blissfully middling football.

One of the only reasons anyone knows that the Detroit Lions exist is because they’ve been playing inoffensive, oft-hilarious football on Thanksgiving Day since 1934. Sure enough, they will be on television yet again, bumbling and stumbling to comfort you that, yes, there are things in this world even more dysfunctional than your relatives.

A rematch of division rivals, both of whom are having a real rough go this season.

No one would say “yes” in good conscience. The Lions have lost four straight, and are down to, uh, David Blough at quarterback. That makes the Bears the default favorite despite a dour offense. Stakes are bottom-of-a-well low. But hey, the Bears won with a backup last year, and at least there were some fun touchdown celebrations.

Cross-division matchup of two teams on journeys to discover their true selves, and also solidify their playoff standings.

This game feels like the setup to a bad Christmas romance movie. Buffalo is a young, go-get-’em intern out to prove that it is ready for a promotion. Dallas is a wealthy, over-worked corporate finance drone struggling to find meaning in life. The twist is that they’ll be trying to beat the hell out of each other rather than falling in love. This ought to be a fun litmus test for two teams at crossroads of sorts.

One of college football’s most entertaining and nonsensical rivalries.

Yeah you should! Ole Miss has a chance to knock Mississippi State out of bowl eligibility, adding a dash more zest to a rivalry built upon nuclear levels of cussedness. In 2017, the game was a chippy mess. Last year, there was a bench-clearing brawl. This game annually gives the finger to the idea of being thankful towards your friends and neighbors, and thus it is a perfect way to comfort yourself away from your supposed loved ones.

One of the most hateful rivalries among the NFL’s many hateful rivalries.

Absolutely, yes. The Falcons had been a mess this season until they unleashed a shocking mollywhopping on the Saints in Week 10. As a result, what seemed like a down year in the rivalry has some juice. Now even if the Saints whomp the Falcons, just as everyone expected three weeks ago, you can share in their joy of revenge against a little sibling who was feeling too good about themselves. Or in the case of the Falcons beating the Saints again, the joy of hoodwinking your big sibling even when they say they’re ready for you “this time.”

Either way, somebody’s broken feelings will be to the benefit of us all.

Happy Thanksgiving, again. And remember, if NFC North football is too vapid for you, there’s always the Hallmark channel.