Detroit Lions big underdogs vs. Buffalo Bills on Thanksgiving

Fresh off their third consecutive win the Detroit Lions return home in Week 12 to take on the Buffalo Bills on Thanksgiving day and are surprisingly big underdogs.

The 4-6 Detroit Lions are fresh off a win over the 7-3 New York Giants and are headed home for a Thanksgiving Day matchup with the 7-3 Buffalo Bills. The good folks over at DraftKings Sportsbook have already set the opening line for this game and are favoring the Bills by 10 points.

When the 2022 schedule was originally set, the Bills were favored by eight points for this game, which made sense considering Buffalo was coming off a season where they were one overtime coin flip away from the Super Bowl. Those odds looked pretty good early in the season as the Bills were a dominating team and Detroit struggled outside of a win over the Washington Commanders.

But over the last three weeks, the story has dramatically changed.

The Lions are on a three-game win streak—beating the Packers (15-9), Bears (31-30), and Giants (31-18)—while the Bills have lost two of their last three games—falling to the Jets (20-17) and Vikings (33-30)—but are coming off a win over the Browns (31-23), ironically at Ford Field due to a blizzard in Buffalo.

In the Bills’ win over the Browns, they dominated on the ground, stuffing stud running back Nick Chubb and holding him to just 19 rushing yards on 14 carries, while putting up 171 rushing yards of their own.

At the same time, the Lions are coming off their own impressive performance ground performance, holding the running back Saquon Barkley to 22 rushing yards on 15 carries, while dropping four rushing touchdowns on the Giants.

At the end of the day, the Bills are the more complete team, but they are in the middle of a rocky patch. And for a team like the Lions that is learning how to win and making the most of their opportunities, 10 points seems to be an excessive amount.