NFL betting begins early on Thanksgiving as the Detroit Lions host the Green Bay Packers in a game that can be seen on Fox television. The Packers are favored in football betting but the Lions proved last week they can win and be competitive. NFL betting has not been that successful on Detroit this season but at least last week it was exciting. The Lions did come back to defeat Cleveland 38-37 but they did not cover the 3.5 point football betting number. Rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford threw for 422 yards and five touchdowns and showed true grit coming back into the game after getting injured on the next to last play of the game. Stafford’s 422 yards were the third most in Detroit Lions history and the most ever by a Lions rookie. Wide receiver Calvin Johnson had a career-high 161 yards. “It’s big for us.” Johnson said about the win, “We play again on Thursday, so we had a short time between games, but at the same time its better that we won the game. We’ll be on our own little high going into the game.”
Green Bay comes into Thursday’s NFL betting matchup off a 30-24 win over San Francisco. The Packers played a great first half and a poor second half but held on for the football betting win. Green Bay is 6-4 on the season and they are now tied with the Giants and Eagles for the top Wild Card spot in the NFC. “I thought we played an extremely productive first half as a football team, you know, in all three phases,” Head Coach Mike McCarthy said. The Packers played well at times but made mistakes that nearly cost them the NFL betting win. “I’m going to tell them exactly what they did good and I’m going to tell them exactly what we need to work on.” McCarthy said, “And we’re going to focus on doing whatever it takes to win games and then with that approach we’re going to focus on improving.”
The Packers have won 9 of the last 10 games against Detroit and they are 6-4 against the NFL betting odds in those games. The teams met last month in Green Bay and the Packers won 26-0 in NFL betting. The Packers have won and covered the NFL betting number in three of the last four trips to Detroit. Last season the Packers won 48-25 in Detroit. Three of those four games also went over the football betting total.