Angles hits inboxes on Thursday mornings throughout the regular season; you can also find Angles in The Scroll on Thursday afternoons.
OWS Fam!
Happy Thanksgiving! As expected, the site is continuing to hum this week, and we aren’t skipping a beat when it comes to having you covered for Thursday’s games. Let’s start there.
But first: I would be remiss here if I didn’t say THANK YOU before writing one more word. I get the privilege to express my thoughts each week here to a community of people whom I consider all sharper than me. I am not the most active OWS community member of the bunch on a week-in, week-out basis, and half the time when I ramble on this site, I wonder whether or not I’m making any sense. But every week, when I sit down to write for this wonderful site, I always smile. I smile because I know how cool it is to put anything out there and see what people think of it. I smile because I know how appreciative this group is for content that thinks, because at the end of the day, we all contribute the same amount to the success of OWS and the broader community. I’m grateful to you for letting me be a small part of it…
Back to the programming: If you haven’t already seen, you can expect to receive a “Full Scroll” for Thanksgiving today, ready to get you into lineup preparation tonight and into tomorrow’s kickoffs. After all, if you’re going to lean into it (by committing to covering this slate like we always do!), then we must lean all the way into it. It’s the OWS way.
It’s only three games, and we’re given only three(ish) days to prepare, but as we always discuss at OWS, we must find an edge in every slate. There will be many content sites out there covering this slate in a “lite” fashion, meaning ‘here are some picks and a few shows, pods, etc.’ But, in my opinion, one of the cool things about OWS is this: This community is so sharp and so diligent that anything less than a 100% coverage of a slate (Edge writeups, Scroll, pods, the usual) would just feel wrong.
Plan your time accordingly over the next 24 hours, and let’s dive in.
Black Wednesday (thru Friday this week)!
OWS is continuing the deals we introduced last week to get 80% off Inner Circle and the Bink Machine for about $2 per week from today through the Super Bowl. If you don’t have Inner Circle or the Bink Machine yet, this will be the lowest price to scoop them up until much, much deeper into the season.
Inner Circle = $46 Rest of Season (Code: BlackFriday25)
Bink Machine = $19 Rest of Season (No code needed)
The Best Thanksgiving Slate Yet?!
That seems to be the consensus. High game totals, mostly tight spreads, a few divisional matchups, and, importantly, no backup QBs—hooray! Most of us would agree we are presented with an awesome setup for the three games to kick off Week 13. I just want to point out that mostly everyone agrees, for what that’s worth. Well, what is it worth?
If we really get into it, every game has four true outcomes: Team A wins a close game, Team A wins a blowout, Team B wins a close game, or Team B wins a blowout. If we want to get fancy about it, we could add two more where the game environment is a close “shootout” or a slow, low-scoring battle, as those are two strong outcomes that affect scoring and fantasy points, but those two outcomes sit within the four true ones, if that makes sense.
As we look at tomorrow’s games, with Joe Burrow likely returning, it seems the consensus is we’re going to have three good games. What defines good? Packers // Lions is a 2.5-point spread, Chiefs // Cowboys sit just three implied points apart, and the Bengals // Ravens is a matchup we expect two offenses to find success, despite the touchdown spread. In other words, Packers // Lions and Chiefs // Cowboys are expected to hit one of two true outcomes, and Bengals // Ravens are expected to follow the same path, with the added third outcome of a Ravens rout.
To see things differently, we always should strive to adjust the macro, not the micro. The macro here is that 50% of the outcomes for the first two games figure to be unexpected, while 25% of the outcome of the night game fits the same category. I hope I’m not losing you, because this is about to get real…
I try not to speak in absolutes because it will come back to bite me. But the true spirit of “angles” content at OWS is to look at things differently, but not too differently that people will think we’re crazy. It’s also important to mention that the “path less traveled/unexpected outcome” is not likely to occur in all three games. Let’s explore these unaccounted-for scenarios in the hopes that one of the paths illuminates itself as we build lineups.
Packers at Lions…(likely to be a close Packers win or a close Lions win)
Chiefs at Cowboys…(likely to be a close Chiefs win or a close Cowboys win)
Bengals at Ravens…(likely to be a blowout Ravens win, close Ravens win, or close Bengals win)
There are some more “sure” bets, like the fact that the Cowboys and Bengals defenses rank first and second in opponent touchdowns per game. The question you need to ask is which of the expected outcomes happens, and which of the unexpected emerges as well. Across three games, we probably won’t get three unexpected events, but we’re almost always destined for at least one.
These are the games within the games on Thanksgiving. Navigate the balance, build those lineups that win, and take down a tournament!
Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving!
(And, as always, thank you for reading.)
~Larejo
