Football Picks - Thanksgiving Day: Lots of hemming and hawing goes on about who has the advantage on these weird mid-week games. Statistically, the home team gets an even larger boost than usual (although not much larger), but these statistics are misleading. Usually what you get quoted is something like Dallas (or Detroit) has won 54% of the time on Thanksgiving versus, 51% of the rest of the games. That's all poppycock. First, to do this properly you would have to control for all sorts of things, not the least of which is to compare only home games, or compare versus home games in the same year, or games versus opponents with similar records. Suffice to say that, outside of baseball, sports statistics are so horribly misguided they are little different than superstition. I never pick winners because of any silly statistics. I pick based on what the voices in my head tell me.

• New England -6 at Detroit Evil Minions cover. Normally I would pick the Lions, just because it's time for them to unexpectedly win another game. But they couldn't win unexpectedly because that's just what I would be expecting. On the other hand, since Marty and the Lions seem to be determined to give games away, any demonic curses the Minions cast to upset the Lions plans could end up making the Lions win. You see, it's all very complicated.


• Washington -pick 'em- at Dallas Cowboys win. On a hunch. The Cowboys beat the Jags last week when there was no earthly reason for them to do so. I'm thinking there is something going on there that I don't see, plus they will be pumped to salvage their season with a victory over the hated Potatoes. I was going to make some kind of vapid allusion to Mashed Potatoes and Thanksgiving, but I can't force myself to do it.