The National Football League celebrates Christmas with three games spread out over the entire day. The action begins at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time with the Washington Commanders hosting the Dallas Cowboys. An afternoon and evening affair features the Detroit Lions at Minnesota and the Denver Broncos visiting the Kansas City Chiefs.
I am certain that when the schedule makers selected these three matchups for Christmas Day, they were hopeful that six teams in the playoff hunt would meet in key battles. In fact, only two of the six teams in action today have a chance to advance to the postseason and only one of them leads their division.
It has been a difficult season for both the Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys. The Commanders advanced all the way to the NFC Championship Game last season, but this year have struggled with injuries to key players and seemingly in a year-long fog after last season's surprise success. The Commanders have long been out of serious contention for a playoff berth and currently are nine-point home underdogs to a Dallas team that also has a losing record this season.
Under first-year head coach Brian Schottenheimer the Cowboys traded away their best defensive player on the eve of the 2025 season. Contract negotiations was the major factor in Jerry Jones packing up Micah Parsons and shipping him to the Green Bay Packers. Without Parsons, and with an otherwise below average stop unit, the Cowboys wasted one of Dak Prescott’s good seasons and come into action today out of the playoff hunt with only six regular season victories.
The afternoon game finds two teams that met each other on the final day of the 2024 season to determine which squad would claim the number one seed for the National Football Conference playoffs. This year, the Vikings have already been eliminated from playoff possibilities, and the Lions chances are hanging by a thread.
Early in the season, in a year in which head coach Dan Campbell had to rebuild his coaching staff including a pair of new coordinators with the loss of Ben Johnson to the Chicago Bears and Aaron Glenn to the New York Jets. Those two men, who coordinated the Lions offense and defense respectively last season, got head coaching gigs with the Bears and Jets. After an open game loss to the Packers in Green Bay, Detroit seemed to have steadied their ship with wins in their next four games.
But since that brief winning streak, Detroit has been hit with injuries on both sides of the ball and have won only four of their most recent nine games. Still, with wins and help, the Lions can advance to the postseason. The Vikings, who pinned Detroit with a loss in Detroit to open November play, would like nothing more than to knock them out of postseason possibilities with a win today at US Bank Stadium.
Fair revenge for Detroit dropping them from a possible first seed to the fifth seed last season with their last day of the regular season, and final game for Sam Darnold, Lions win in Detroit. For the Vikings to win, they would have to do it without starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who once again is sidelined with an injury.
The night game on this holiday finds the first place Denver Broncos, who are battling the New England Patriots for the American Football Conference top postseason seed, against the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Broncos have had a weird season against the point spread while Sean Payton’s team features one of the league’s best defenses. The Broncos have played well against the best competition they have challenged, although they got spanked at home last week by the hard charging Jacksonville Jaguars, and have struggled to cover the big spreads against the likes of the Tennessee Titans, New York Jets, New York Giants, Washington Commanders and Las Vegas Raiders.
While those five teams have combined for a season record of 14 wins and 61 losses, in games against the Broncos they are 6-0 against the point spread. Mind you, the Broncos have won all six of those games but covered none of them.
Today, while they meet the Chiefs, who are out of the playoff hunt and without Patrick Mahomes running their offense, do the Broncos have trouble against the point spread while laying nearly two touchdowns on the line?
With the top seed in their sights, and a focus on beating their division foes forced to play a third-string quarterback, I look for the Broncos to have a rare lopsided win over a suspect opponent.
Qoxhi Picks: Denver Broncos over Kansas City Chiefs