Rice on the Mics

Thankful for the Chaos

• Ian • Season 1 • Episode 41

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We dig into a Thanksgiving week that holds two truths at once: these teams drain us and we’re still grateful to feel it. Jets and Giants chaos, a national slate with real stakes, fantasy edges you can use today, a measured betting card, Knicks defense therapy, and a lively hot stove.

• Jets show effort, penalties and turnovers erase hope
• Giants’ situational calls flip wins into losses
• Cowboys resilience reframes Dak’s ceiling
• Packers grind Vikings, Browns ride Garrett’s surge
• Stafford’s MVP form powers a Rams statement
• Thanksgiving game vibes and leverage points
• Fantasy starts to trust, fades to avoid
• Three-play betting card plus TD parlay
• Knicks’ defense questioned, role players step up
• AL East arms race heats, Japanese talent wave
• Mets move Nimmo, Yankees float payroll restraint

Make sure you follow me on your favorite social. I’m on all of them. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. It’s all at the same handle at Rice on the Radio. Jump in on the Wednesday mic check polls. Send your questions and your rants. Uncle Rice is here for you.


SPEAKER_00:

You ever notice Thanksgiving week is the time of the year where two things can be true at once? You're stressed out about seeing your family, what your crazy aunt's gonna say, you're half hung over from Thanksgiving Eve at the bar, bumping into people you haven't talked to since math class. And you're still sitting there thinking, I kinda love this. I'm thankful for all of this chaos, all of these games, all these bets, and honestly, these miserable teams that keep breaking my heart. Welcome in. This is episode 41 of Rice on the Mics, and I am your host, Ian Rice. Today we're dropping a little Thanksgiving special on you. Normally you get me on Friday, but this week, you get me with the turkey still in the oven and the first play of the game still clean. We got a lot to be thankful for, and I use that term loosely if you refer for the Jets or Giants. We'll touch on the locals first. Jets go into Baltimore, hang tough, change quarterbacks, and still find a way to make it feel like a funeral. Giants blow another double-digit lead, get walked off by Jameer Gibbs in overtime, fire the DC on Monday, and now somehow have to go to New England in primetime on Monday night. Which weirdly is when they turn into the monsters. Then we zoom out a little bit. Cowboys come back from down 21 on the Eagles, Packers absolutely suffocate the Vikings, and JJ McCarthy falls off a cliff after week one, maybe they found something moment. Miles Garrett is on pace to blow past Strayhand's stack record. And Baker does the Warrior thing for Tampa until the Rams and Matthew Stafford, who might be putting together an MVP season at 37 years old, finally snap what's left of the Bucks. Plus, we got a full Week 13 look ahead, three Thanksgiving games to set your mood, Packers Lions while you're picking at the appetizers, Chiefs, Cowboys when you're sitting down with a full plate, and Bengals Ravens while you're putting whipped cream on the pumpkin pie. Fantasy corner and rolling the dice with rights are coming later in the show. The card went 3-2 last week, officially over 500 on the season. So we are now in the house money territory. I'll give you a pick for each of the Thursday games, plus a couple sprinkle Sundays if you uh they feel they're worth it. Later we'll hit the Knicks and their defense is optional week. How Cat got hunted by the magic and like always their dominance over the Nets. Then we'll close with the MLB hot stove. Sunny Gray to Boston, Dylan Seas to Toronto, Nemo for Simeon given Mets an existential crisis, and the Yankees' front office talking about lowering payroll while pretending they're broke. Plus Shohei lining up to play for Japan in the WBC with a wave of new Japanese talent coming over. So grab a plate, grab a drink, or some Advil if you did Thanksgiving Eve properly, and let's talk about the teams we love, the bets we probably shouldn't make, and why somehow we're still thankful for all of it. Cheers. Let's do it to it. So so let's start at home because the locals, man, they are doing everything in their power to ruin your holiday and somehow keep you glued to the TV at the same time. Jets first, same movie, different quarterback. You go into Baltimore as a two-touchdown dog. You change quarterbacks, you hang around all afternoon, and you still walk out feeling like somebody dimmed the lights and handed out black suits. Tyrod comes in for fields, and look, he wasn't bad. He wasn't amazing either. It was exactly actually what you expected. But for the first time in a long time, you watched the Jets quarterback and didn't immediately want to throw your remote. He pushed the ball down the field a little, over the middle, you know, down the sideline, got guys in space and threw them the ball before the window closed. And you could feel the offense kind of breathe for once, which was a nice change of pace. To everyone's surprise, they were actually up 7-3 going into the half. The defense was flying around, Lamar didn't look right, knee, ankle, toe, whatever body part of the week we're on now. And you're sitting there like, oh, wait, they might have a shot at this thing if everything breaks their way. They might actually be able to steal it. And then what happens? The same old jets, the same three things that always show up to kill the clock kill them, like clockwork. Back breaking penalty on third down. You get a stop, you're off the field, and boom. Ref reaches in his pocket, pass interference, bails Baltimore out. You get a head scratching fourth down decision, fourth and two from your own 42, down three, middle of the third, and Aaron Glenn goes, Yeah, we're we're we're doing this. Look, I get the aggression, I really do. I like that, you know, my guys know we we mean business, we're gonna go for it. We're I trust you. But if that's the case, don't dial up a low percentage moon ball to the sideline with your right guard getting absolutely forklifted into the quarterback. You gotta trust your O-line there to make a hole for your shifty 215, 225-pound running back. Trust the guys that you drafted to get you two yards. And then, of course, last but not least, the massive soul-crushing Tony Romo style turnover. Brees Hall puts the ball on the turf inside the five with a chance to make it a one-score game late. That was the ball game. And here's the thing Brees was actually having a nice day. He was explosive in the past game. He had that gorgeous 40-yard run, catch and run down the sideline to even get them down there before he fumbled. But when you're two and nine, your margin for error is zero. Not a play here and there, zero. You can't miss a fourth-down shot play and fumble in the goal line and give Lamar three extra lives with flags, and then expect to be celebrating in the locker room. And by the way, all this has happened against the backdrop of the, hey, by the way, this is gonna be your tenth straight losing season. Ten. There's entire kids' childhoods that have happened since the last time the Jets were winning organization. There was a new Pope, he died, and then the new one was elected since the last time the Jets made the playoffs. And then on top of that, your let's take a flyer, let's see if we can turn this guy into our franchise quarterback, Justin Fields, gets benched and then goes to the podium and basically said, I didn't see this coming, but yeah, I still think I'm a QB1 in this league. Look, I don't doubt the confidence. To be a professional athlete, you have to be borderline delusional in your talents and your mentality. But I also can't get around this stat that I heard earlier this week. Jackson Smith and Jagba has more receiving yards this year than Justin Fields has passing yards. Yes, you heard me correctly. JSN, the number one wide receiver in Seattle, whose quarterback in Sam Darnold was once supposed to be the Jets savior, is at 1,300 receiving yards. Justin Fields is at 1,200 passing yards. A wide receiver in Seattle has more yards than your quarterback in New York. Let that sink in. So if you're a Jet fan, what are you thankful for right now, right? Not much. No, I'm kidding. Really? Well, look, you're you're thankful you're thankful that the effort is still there, right? You're thankful that the locker room hasn't completely checked out. You're thankful that Aaron Glenn seems to be a leader of men. You're thankful for the upcoming draft picks and the ammo you have to position yourself to go get a quarterback, this draft or the next. You're you're thankful that this wide receiver room went from Garrett Wilson and the tackling dummies to maybe actually having some potential. And I guess I guess you're thankful that at the very least they're finally trying something different at quarterback instead of just letting the same movie play on loop. But yeah, it it's it still feels like a funeral most Sundays. But we'll still tune in though. We we enjoy the pain at this point as Jet fans. Now let's flip it to the Giants. And week in and week out is the same script, but an even lower low somehow. If you're writing a Netflix drama called Ways to Lose the Football Game, the Giants season is your writer's room. You go into Detroit in the dome, which is a notoriously tough place to play, and the offense actually shows up. Jameis is slinging it around, Wandell is cooking, you got trick plays actually working. Jameis catches a touchdown, jukes out a linebacker who will get relentlessly made fun of in the film room for this whole entire week. And staying on Brand, Jameis let it fly. He let it fly downfield, downfield. You built three different 10-point leads. You marched down 86 yards in the fourth quarter, drain almost seven minutes off the clock, and you're sitting there on fourth and goal from the six, up three, and this is the moment. This is where you grab your balls. This is are you a man or are you a boy? You either kick the chip shot field goal, go up six, trust your defense, and force Detroit to have to score a touchdown, or you say, nah, let's let it ride. Let's end it right here. Well, Kafka thought he was the big guy. And he decides we're being aggressive, we're gonna go for it. What happens? Jameis throws incomplete, no points, and they leave the door wide open. Every single Giant fan immediately sunk deep in their seat, knowing exactly what was coming next. The Lions go right down the field, and Jake Bates nails a 59-yard field goal to tie the game. The dude's got a cannon for a leg, by the way, which is a shame on the Giants scouting department for either not doing their homework or not thinking that it would make a difference in this game. Don't you think that would have been something good, some kind of good information to give the interim head coach who has a million things on his plate already? Maybe just a little sticky note that says, hey, just a heads up, their kicker can hit it from 65. So if for whatever reason it comes down to it, they can get in field goal range pretty easy. Do you think if he knew that, then maybe uh maybe would have changed his mind about going for it on fourth down there? So now, instead of sealing a statement win on the road, you're going into overtime in a building that is just waiting to explode. And what happens the first snap of overtime? Handoff to Jameer Gibbs, a semi-truck sized hole opens up, bang, 69 yards to the crib. See you later. Thanks for coming. Have a nice flight home. The one person who should be keyed on every single play, no matter where he is. And by the way, it's not like Gibbs had like a cute game, and him and Montgomery did okay back and forth, and this was a one play that he broke out on. He went for 264 yards from scrimmage with three touchdowns. I think they knew his number by the end of the game. The Giants' defense just got completely dog walked. The angles were bad, the tackling was worse, and the explosive runs just kept stacking up one after another after another. This was a blown double-digit lead, number five on the year. All on the road, and that ties an NFL record. And it got Shane Bowen fired before he could even buckle his seatbelt on the plane. So now you got Charlie Bowen taking over his DC, the outside linebackers coach. And the guys seem to like him. Brian Burns, your best player on defense, especially. He's been raving about him all season. Burns said, I've been playing the best ball in my career under this dude. Straight shooter, detail guy, not afraid to get in your face. Good. That's probably what this team needs. A coach who doesn't care who you are and isn't afraid to remind you that you're not as good as you think you are. Now the bad news is he inherits a defense that's 30th in yards allowed, giving up almost 28 points a game, and literally ranks dead last in yards per carry allowed. The good news, sometimes a new voice and uh some simpler calls can at least stop the bleeding a little bit. But the schedule doesn't exactly give him a soft launch either. Game one, Monday night in New England in front of the whole nation. Now, look, say what you want about the Patriots, and I have for sure as a Jeff fan. But this is their this is their big stage. It's their Super Bowl warm-up game, so to speak. And for whatever reason, the Giants just always seem to have New England's number in these kind of spots. From Super Bowls to random regular season games when the lights are bright and it's Giants versus Patriots, weird stuff just tends to happen. So if you're a Giants fan, you're thankful the offense finally scored a bunch. You're thankful it looks like your rookie QB is cleared and is ready to play this week. You're thankful that Kafka dials up some plays for Wandell and is showing that he can actually play. And you're thankful that the organization didn't just shrug and say, eh, what can you do after another fourth quarter collapse? Somebody lost their job. There's accountability being held. Now we'll see if it actually changes anything, but that's a different story. Alright, I've had my I've had my fair share talking about the locals. It feels like they're one more week away from being a deep fried turkey gone wrong. So let's uh let's zoom out and hit a few of the national games that actually moved the needle this week 12. First on the list, Packers, Vikings, Packers 23, Vikings 6. The JJ McCarthy honeymoon is over. This one was ugly. Green Bay basically looked at the Vikings and said, We don't believe that you can go 10 plays without something bad happening. So we're just gonna run the ball, play defense, and we're gonna wait for you to implode. Emmanuel Wilson, undrafted guy, MVP of the waiver wire this week, if you picked him up, first real shot as a starter, goes for 107 and two touchdowns. Matt LaFour literally said, I've never called the same run play so many times in a row because Minnesota had no answers. And honestly, they didn't force him to do anything else. I just know that line made Brian Flores, the DC of the Vikings, it made his blood boil. He lost sleep over that throughout this week. Meanwhile, the Vikings had four total yards in the second half. Four. I'm not rereading a Jets box score, and that's not a misspeak. You heard me correctly. Four. That's a drive and a half for an average offense. JJ McCarthy goes 12 for 19 on 87 yards, takes five sacks, throws two picks, and a partridge in a pear tree. Whatever we saw week one on that Monday night game, that little flicker of we might have made the right call by letting Sam Darnold walk, that feels like that game was played in a different universe. They are now four and seven. They've dropped five of six. And at this point, it's not, oh, we're in the hunt for the playoffs. It's we're in the Caleb Williams, Drake May highlight package that our fans hate are hate watching right now. I mean, this team lost to the Titans for God's sakes. On the other side of it, though, Jordan Love is dealing with that left shoulder. Non-throwing, but you can tell that he is in pain. He barely threw it against Minnesota because of the defense just dominating. And you hear the quotes from LaFleur talking about holding his breath when Love gets hit. Love saying it's an injury, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, but I can play through it. If you're a Packer fan, you're thankful for that toughness, but you're also terrified every time he gets hit to the ground. Next game from last week, Browns, Raiders. And God, Raider fans. I have a couple Raider friends that listen to this podcast. What happened, boys? What happened to this team? Browns 24, Raiders 10. In Vegas, we got two storylines in one game, and it's all about the Browns. First, Shador Sanders, rookie, fifth rounder, if you remember correctly, and the 42nd, 42nd different Browns starting quarterback since 1999. His first true start, and he does exactly what he needs to do. He didn't light the world on fire, but he definitely didn't embarrass himself either. 209 yards and a touchdown on 20 attempts, which is pretty good. He operated the offense. He had a huge 52 yarder to Isaiah Bond. And most importantly, he broke a 17-game streak where Eddie Brown's quarterback making their first start automatically lost. I don't mean to laugh. I'm sorry. That's insane. After the game, uh, he hits the podium and he just says the right thing. While also sounding exactly like his father, he said, quote, look, I'm not comfortable. I know how fast that this can get taken away. I just want to keep growing week to week. That's the grown-up answer. And contrary to what all the reports were when he was interviewing with teams during the draft, and Stefanski apparently heard enough. He said, Yeah, we're starting, we're you're starting again against the Niners. Even though Dylan Gabriel's cleared, we're gonna roll with Shador. But the real, the real story from this terrible game that nobody watched, Miles Garrett. Three more sacks, two force fumbles, 14 sacks in his last five games. That's 18 on the year through 11 games. He's now chasing Michael Strahan and TJ Watt for the record of 22 and a half for a single season. And the way that he's playing right now, he might crush it, not just sneak past it. And not to throw shade at TJ Watt, by the way, but he tied Strahan's record in week 17, where Strahan broke his record in week 16. The pace that Miles Garrett is on, he might break this by week 15 with three more games to play. He even said it at the podium, he said, I'm chasing Mike. I'm chasing greatness, but I want to come in with a win. I want to be playing football in January and February. That's the part that matters. The record, the record's cool. But if you're a Browns fan, you're thankful that even in a 3-8 season, you have that dude to build around. That's good stuff. Next game on the list, Cowboys, Eagles, and this was a wild one. Philly comes out and punches Dallas straight in the mouth. It's 21-0 early. AJ Brown, after being a diva for five weeks, starts straight eating. Hurts has two rushing touchdowns, and the Cowboys look like they're about to get booed out of their own building while the Turkey is still defrosting for next week's home game. And then Dak just refuses to let it happen. He throws for 354 yards, breaks Tony Romo's franchise passing yardage record in the third quarter, nonetheless, adds two touchdowns through the air, runs in the game time score with his legs, and leads his 25th career game winning drive to set up a walk-off Aubrey Graham field goal. 25 career game winners for Dak. That's pretty impressive. Meanwhile, the stadium is flashing his name next to Romo's, and he said himself he's trying not to cry mid comeback. Hey, read the room, sound guy. Read the room graphics guy. He said, I saw it and I got emotional, and then I got mad at myself, and I told the guys, we'll celebrate that later. Don't worry about it. Let's go get the win. This was one of those you either believe in this guy or you don't games. And a question that I ask Dallas fans all the time is, Do you think you can win with Dak? And the answer is almost always a resounding no. Well, I think after that, I think a lot of people might have got pulled back in a little bit. Now, with all that being said, it was not a clean win at all. Okay, Tyler Gutton falls starts at the one. Dak throws a pick in the end zone. CeeDee Lamb has three more drops. He's up to eight on the year, six of them, oddly enough, against the Eagles. And Lamb owned it. He literally said, I need to catch the damn ball. And Dak did the right thing, had his guys back, said he expects a huge game from him against the Chiefs on Thanksgiving. So it wasn't pretty by any stretch. But if you're a Cowboys fan, you're thankful for the resilience. And you're thankful your quarterback just proved again that he can drag you back from the dead against a legit team and the defending Super Bowl champions. Next game, Rams 34, Bucks seven. Sunday night, the Rams just sent a message home to Tampa. Everyone and their mother, me included, thought we were going to get a drag them out, heavyweight, back and forth, scoring fest on Sunday night football. But what we really ended up with was a contender flexing their muscles and then telling the yappy little dog to go lay down. They torch Tampa 34-7. Matthew Stafford throws three more touchdowns, two to Devontae Adams, makes it eight straight games without a pick, and SoFi is raining down MVP chance for a 37-year-old quarterback who was supposed to be on the back nine of his career. He's now at 30 touchdowns and two picks on the year. They're 9-2, and they haven't trailed in a game in weeks. This is one of the best seasons we've seen from anybody, not just from Stafford. He's just about in that like Lamar, Brady, Rogers, Mahomes, Peyton historic season conversation. If he keeps his pace up, he's gonna win MVP. And the defense, the defense, the defense is flying to. They honored Aaron Donald pregame, and the front showed out big for the big man. They held Tampa to under 200 yards. Picked off Baker twice, sacked him, and basically turned the lights off by halftime. On the buck side, it's not great. You just you feel bad for Baker at a certain point. I mean, he's been hanging on with duct tape while dudes all around him all year are just going down, and then he takes that big shot in the third, sprains his AC AC joint in his left shoulder, and now he's got his arm and a sling sitting on the sideline. The MRI came back, and they're calling it a low grade sprain, no long-term structural damage, but his status for this week is up in the air and probably going forward up in the air. If he can't go, it's good old Teddy Two Glove Bridgewater. And this guy was coaching high school football at the beginning of the year. So look, if you're Tampa, you're thankful that it's not worse, but on the other side of that coin, you're also looking at a three-game losing streak, and Carolina's starting to figure it out, breathing down your neck in a division that you thought you had wrapped up sitting around looking like the Simpsons meme of Ralph Wiggins. I'm in danger. Not great. So now let's move forward. Let's set the table for this week. Literally and figuratively, actually. We got three games on Thursday and one on Black Friday. So I'll save you the official picks for rolling the dice with rice later in the show. For now, let's just talk about the vibes. And Packers at Lions, 12:30, really 1 o'clock. This is the appetizer game. You rolled out of bed with a headache at around 9. You're cleaning up your room because apparently Thanksgiving dinner is going to be eaten up there. You're still assembling the charcuterie board. Someone's burning the rolls. And just when you think you can't take it anymore, you hear that Fox football music, and they throw this game at you to start your day, reminding you that everything, everything is going to be alright. The Packers just played that bully ball game against Minnesota, and now they walk into Detroit where Jameer Gibbs just ended the Giants season by himself. And the Lions are now staring at the standings like, man, we needed that one bad, but we need this one way worse. Look, Detroit's defense is still a problem. You give up that many explosive plays at home to Jameis. That's not exactly nothing. But this team is also a team that can score in bunches. They play tough in the dome, and they got multiple ways to beat you if golf can just stay clean. From the Green Bay side, I I want to see how they manage Jordan Love on the short week with that shoulder. Do they lean into another Emmanuel Wilson, Josh Jacobs, volume day, or do they do they let Love just rip it a little more? This is a huge NFC seating game, and it's it's also one of those, are you really for real, or are you just feasting on bad teams, check-ins? For both teams, really. Chiefs at Cowboys, 4 30. This is the main course. This is the emouge booze. This is the chef's kiss. The ah everyone's finally seated. The wine has been cracked and poured. Most of the family is done arguing. The house smells great. There's stuffing, there's gravy. There's that one family member that won't stop talking about some parlay that's still alive. Uncle Eddie is trying to get everyone to say grace. And you made sure to get the one seat that can see the TV in the other room. Kansas City coming off that emotional win over the Colts at home. They emptied the clip in Arrowhead. Pacheco was out, so they just rode Kareem Hunt like it was 2018 again. Mahomes does his Mahomes things and they survive. But now, now it's a short week on the road against a Cowboy team that just pulled a 21-point comeback and has all the momentum in the world. And more importantly, hasn't had to get on a plane all week. They've been at home sleeping in their own beds. The big storyline here is that Isaiah Pacheco sounds like he's targeting a return. If he's back, that gives Kansas City a little extra gear in the run game that they were kind of missing, but not really. And you just know that Andy Reid is going to have some something a little special cooked up for this national game. On the Dallas side, this is where you find out if the Eagles win was a turning point or just like a cool comeback that we talk about and then forget when they go flat. Lamb versus secondary, Dak versus Spags, Blitz's looks. Can they protect without Guyton at left tackle? That's the stuff that I'm going to be watching for. Love this game at the 430 slot. And last but not least, Bengals at Ravens 820, closure Thursday night out. Now we're in dessert territory. Half your family is either asleep on the couch and the other half is trying to convince you to play board games. But this is when you need to look them dead in the face and say, We've got Joe Burrow back in our lives in prime time. I will not be playing Yahtzee tonight. Thank you very much. This game has pure chaos potential. Burrow off injury, short week on the road in Baltimore against a Ravens team that has pulled itself from one and five to six and five, now tied for first in a division. All while their quarterback is taped together with a knee, an ankle, a toe, a finger, a this, a that. Lamar hasn't exactly been lighting up the stat sheet lately, but he's been. Nails in the fourth quarter, leading game-winning drives and just protecting the ball. And defensively, the Ravens just made Tyra Taylor and the Jets work for every yard. I know that doesn't sound hard, but it's now it's welcome back, Joe. Enjoy our pass rush. For Cincinnati, no T. Higgins. I think concussion protocol, but Jamar Chase is coming off the suspension and the spit drama with Jalen Ramsey, and you just know he is itching to get back on this field with his national championship winning quarterback teammate in prime time. He put the statement out. He apologized, took the one-game hit, and now we see how he responds on the field. I'm expecting big things. We'll see. Last game I want to touch on is the newest addition to the NFL schedule. All courtesy to our Amazon sponsorship, the Black Friday game. And this one actually has some potential to be pretty fun too. Last year was the first year we got Jets Dolphins in a rock fight. This year we at least have some juice. The Bears have won eight of nine. Caleb Williams is out here putting up big plays while completing 59% of his passes and driving his coaches insane. Ben Johnson literally at the beginning of the year said the goal was 70 cent per 70% completions, and they're just not even close. Caleb knows it too. He said, look, my base got wide, my legs weren't under me, the ball sailed on me, yada yada, yada, yada, yada. The Bears offense is explosive as hell, believe it or not. They lead the league in big plays, but that inaccuracy shows up, especially early in games, and it digs a hole for this team to have to force to climb out of. Now they got to go into Philly. They get Vic Vangio's Eagles defense, which is like the anti-Bears. Philly's offense might be confusing as hell, but the defense is still the one thing that you can kind of trust every week. They want to keep everything in front and make you march down the field on them. So this is strength on strength. Explosive Bears passing game versus a defense designed to just kill explosive plays. If Caleb can stay patient, take the underneath stuff, and avoid the hero ball, they might be able to pull it out. And if they do, that's when you start talking about Chicago as something more than a fun story. Talking about maybe they might be making a real play here. So that's where we're at after week 12. The Jets are inventing new ways to lose. The Giants are blowing double-digit leads like it's a hobby. Stafford playing like an MVP at 37, Miles Garrett trying to erase Michael Strahan from the record book. And we're staring down four straight days of football while pretending we're helping in the kitchen, moving some silver around. So if you're going to sit here and stress over every snap anyway, well, we might as well try to make a little money off the chaos, too, right? Last week's rolling the dice with rice card goes three and two. We are officially over 500 on the season, comfortably in that house money, but don't be stupid zone. On the other side, we will move from pure fan mode into fantasy corner and roll in the dice with rice. We'll talk you through who you can actually trust in your lineups this week, and I'll give you a pick for all three Thanksgiving games, plus the local teams. So grab a notebook, face ID, your favorite betting app, and let's set the table for the week 13 five. Okay, let's dive into some fantasy talk for a second before we get back into yelling about real football lives being ruined. We're gonna keep this tight this week. No waivers, no 20-minute deep dive on some tight end who runs 17 routes a game but only gets two catches. Just who you should feel good about, who you should feel nervous about, and then we'll roll right into the rolling the dice with Rice segment. So first, quarterbacks. If you got Mahomes, this is not the week to galaxy brain yourself. I know it's been a weird month for him. The rushing has cooled off, the monster weeks have cooled off. He's been living in that 14 to 16 point fantasy meh neighborhood. But Dallas is the pretty nice bounce back spot. Their front is getting better. Quinning has been awesome, but the secondary is still giving up the most fantasy points to a quarterback in the league. You're not sitting Mahomes anyway, but if you've really been annoyed at him and thinking, do I really trust him on Thursday, Thanksgiving? Yeah, you do. You set it, you forget it, and you live with the result. On the other side of that coin, Daniel Jones with the Colts against Houston. Look, I love what he has been this year. I love the rushing, I love the efficiency. He's been crushing it with Tyler Warren, but I hate this matchup. The Texans are giving up the fewest fantasy points of quarterbacks. They are rushing the quarterback at an uninsane level. Their defense is letting in the lowest EPA per dropback, second lowest success rate, and they're just squeezing people. So if you've been rolling Danny Dimes out as your every week quarterback one, I think this is the week you at least look at your other option and see if you got a safer play. He can still get there with a rushing score, but if you're desperate for a quarterback one output, he's probably gonna be more of a quarterback two this week. Running backs, this is where the matchup really pops. I really, really like Trevion Henderson this week against the Giants. We literally just watched Jameer Gibbs go full Madden create a player mode on that defense. And the numbers back it up, man. The Giants are just now the second softest matchup in the league for fantasy running backs. They're giving it up over six yards per carry. That's not just bad. That's we should have a in-house, no press, no coaches meeting bad. And Henderson's usage last week was actually pretty encouraging, even if the box score wasn't sexy. 18 carries, four targets, two-thirds of the snap count. If he sees that kind of usage again against this run defense, he's a strong running back, too, with legit running back one upside this week. Start him with confidence. Same game on the flip side Monday night, Tyrone Tracy going into New England. He is clearly the lead guy for the Giants now, but this is a brutal spot. The Patriots are the hardest matchup in football against running backs, the best yards per carry allowed, the fewest rushing touchdowns to the position. Giants are big underdogs, and you're probably not getting 34 rushing attempts for this backfield. Devin Singletary is going to still mix in, he's still gonna eat up that red zone work. Tracy's path this week is basically catch four to five balls and hope that he falls in the end zone. If you don't have another option, you cross your fingers. But if you got a similarly ranked guy in a neutral matchup, go that way. Receivers, this might be the first week whole year, where I'm actually kind of excited to play Khalil Shakir if I have him. He is usually that looks great on the stat line, scares you on the volume kind of guy, but the matchup is just too good. Pittsburgh is the second most fantasy points to wide receivers behind Dallas. Most targets, most catches, most yards allowed to the position. And they're not exactly locking down the slot either, whereas where that's exactly where Shakir lives. If you're staring at that wide receiver three flex spot and you're between like a couple guys, this is the kind of matchup where you chase that spike week. Chase that Jameson Williams big touchdown play. I'm not calling him a must-start if you have better options, but he is very much a green light if you're on the fence about him. On the other hand, I said it before with Danny Dimes, Colts receivers. Michael Pittman Jr., Alec Pierce, that same Texans defense that scares me off Daniel Jones. Well, Houston allows the third fewest points to wideouts. And both those guys have had games where they just completely disappear. If this turns into another Jonathan Taylor run for four touchdowns game, one of them is most definitely going to get squeezed out. Probably both, to be honest with you. Pittman, you should probably start in most leagues just because of where you drafted him, but temper the expectations. Pierce is more of a, I got some guys on by, desperation shot in deep leagues, and hopefully he does well. As for tight ends, Mark Andrews against the Bengals is about as good as it gets. I said it last week with Hunter Henry. I'm saying it again with Mark Andrews on Thursday. Cincinnati is somehow comically bad against tight ends this year. They are giving up way more points than anybody else, more touchdowns, more volume, just more everything. Even if Andrews isn't playing at 100%, and neither is Lamar, you aren't thinking twice about this start. He is a smash this week. And if you're truly desperate, even Isaiah Likely has had a little bit of a pulse as of late. And just because of how awful Cinse's defense is against tight ends, he could be worth the start. On the fade side, Colson Loveland with the Bears against Philly. I love the talent long term. I love the flashes. He's got great hands, but I don't really love the usage yet. He's ran rounds on just a little over half of the dropbacks last week. And the Eagles are the second toughest matchup in the league for tight ends. They're giving up basically nothing. Low yards, low points, almost no touchdowns. That's not where you want to chase last week's touchdown. He's still a bench guy, bench and watch guy, but you got to do what you got to do in a pinch, right? Okay, let's roll into the rolling the dice with Rice gambling card. Last week's card, we go three and two. Colts plus three and a half, check. Cowboys plus three and a half, check and outright winner. Jets plus thirteen and a half. We bought it up to 14.5, both covered, winner. Bucks and Rams over 49.5. Well, I said before I thought this was going to be a knockdown, drag them out, shootout. Nope, not even close. And Lions minus 10.5 against the Giants. Bought it down to 9.5. Still didn't win. I've been wrong on the Giants all year. You would think I learned my lesson by now. But on the season, we are now officially 28 and 26. Officially over 500. Still on a little bit of a heater. As always, this is entertainment. Not call your guy and refinance the house money. But I got three plays for Thanksgiving and an anytime touchdown parlay that I love. So game one, early window, Packers at Lions. And I'm on the Lions, minus two and a half. Look, Detroit needed that game against the Giants and still tried their hardest to blow it. But Gibbs bails him out. Giants DC gets fired. And now they come home on a short week in front of everybody. That Thanksgiving crowd, with everybody asking, are you actually contenders or was last year just a cute story? They're going to play their hearts out. Meanwhile, Green Bay just beat up Minnesota, but Jordan Love is clearly not 100% with that non-throwing shoulder. They hit it in last week's super conservative run the ball game plan. And that's a little tougher in Detroit in a dome against an offense that can get up to 27-30 points fast when they're clicking. Under a field goal, I'll trust the Lions to make a statement. Something like 27-20, 27-23. I'm going to lay the two and a half with Detroit. Game two, late afternoon, Chiefs at Cowboys. And I'm taking the Cowboys plus three and a half. How about them, Cowboys? This is a classic. Give me the home dog with the hook territory. The Chiefs just emptied a lot of the bag against Indy. Huge emotional win. Mahomes had to be special. Kareem Hunt carried the mail, the whole thing. But now short week, travel, big national window, and you walk into a Dallas team that just had their season basically saved against Philly. We know what Jerry World is like on Thanksgiving. Dak at home, CD in the bounce back spot after all those drops, pickings being pickings. The Chiefs defense is legit enough, and Mahomes should have a big fantasy day, but this feels like a one-score game either way. So if Kansas City wins by a field goal, we cash. If Dallas can win outright, cool. But I'm absolutely taking that plus three and a half at home. Game three, nightcap, Bengals at Ravens. And I'm doing it. I'm on it. I'm on the Bengals plus seven and a half. I'm buying the hook. It's at seven. I'm taking it up to seven and a half. The prodigal son is back home. Joe Burrow, prime time, division game against the Ravens team that he has made very clear he hates losing to. That matters. Plus, he said he's been dying to play on Thanksgiving. Baltimore has won five straight, but it's all been in that win ugly, win close mode. Lamar's banged up. They're leaning on Derrick Henry. Defense is good, but not suffocating. On the Bengals side, you got Burrow back, Jamar Chase back for suspension. Higgins is out, but the structure of that offense is still let Joe Cook and live with it. I don't need Cincinnati win. I just need them to not die by two scores. Over a touchdown in a division game with Burrow back on Thanksgiving. I'll take my chances. If Baltimore wins by seven, we go home happy. So give me Bangles plus 7.5 to keep it sweaty late. Now for the parlay that I promised you, a nice lottery card. Give me all three stud wide receivers to score a touchdown. St. Brown, CeeDee Lamb, Jamar Chase. All three of them together will put you at plus seven thirty-four. That's seven to one. And just to get a little extra spicy, I'm going to throw in a super lotto ticket for all three of them to score two touchdowns each. That puts you at 600 to 1.$5 pays at$3,000. Shit, I've spent$15 on smokes. I'll throw$5 on a lottery ticket like that all day. So, just to recap, the Thanksgiving card is out now. It is now Lions minus two and a half. Cowboys plus three and a half. Bengals plus seven and a half. And the stud wide receiver parlay I gave you. We might sprinkle a Sunday play or two off air that you can catch on the Instagram in the morning before the game start. But those are the three that I'm stamping as official. That's the fantasy corner. That's rolling the dice with rice for this week. On the other side, we're headed to the hard way. Knicks Benz, we gotta talk about this defense. This roller coaster week. And why somehow he's still alone Brooklyn even when everything feels sideways. Keep it right here. All in about five days. We'll start where the blood pressure spiked, the magic game in Orlando. Franz Wagner gives you 37. Orlando hangs 133. And it just felt like every single time the Knicks needed one stop, they got the opposite. Offensively, you can't even complain either. Brunson gives you 33-11. Kat drops 24-8. The team shoots over 54%. Those numbers, those are usually numbers that win you the game. But this was the full on why people call Carl Anthony Towns soft experience on defense. Late on switches, flat feet in space, wrong help, wrong angle, and the magic just straight up targeted him. It wasn't subtle either. They went hunting for him, and it worked. You could see it in Mikhail Bridges' face a couple times throughout the game. He gave him that. Look, that's not even Twitter slander, that's just on court frustration. That game was the red flag. This was supposed to be a team built on high scoring and defensive DNA. You bring in Bridges, you bring in OG when he's healthy, Josh Hart, Mitch, Brown running a real system. And then one breakdown at the five spot just seems to nuke the whole possession. That's where the is this actually going to work in May conversation starts creeping in. But then you go across the bridge to Brooklyn, and it's like they remember who they are in that matchup. You beat the Nets for the 12th straight time. That's no longer a rivalry, by the way. That's living rent-free in their heads. Cat absolutely destroys 37-12, super efficient and in control the whole game. Brunson glides to 27, Bridges adds another 16. And yeah, look, Noah Clowney going for 31 on the other side is a little weird, but the Knicks basically kept Brooklyn at arm's length the entire second half. The fun part there is the psychological piece. For years, it was always, oh, the Nets are the cool new team in town. They're the cool New York team. The Stars want to play there. The Knicks are a joke. Yeah, now the Nets are 0-8 and home, and their biggest home court advantage this year has been when the Knicks fans showed up to play against them. So you go from Cat is getting turned into a traffic cone in Orlando to this is exactly why they traded for him in Brooklyn. Floor spacing, shot making, rebounding, taking pressure off Brunson. Same guy. Two completely different vibes depending on the matchup and the effort. And then you hit Charlotte. And that was just uh that was a business trip with a side of extra credit. It's an NBA Cup game. You're already two-and-one in group play. You know point differential matters, and the Knicks showed up like they read the rulebook. They dropped 72 in the first half. All five starters in double figures before halftime. Josh Hart plays like a man who heard the word tournament and thought it was game seven. 22 points, does everything. Brunson goes for 33 again and is getting MVP chance in Charlotte, which is hilarious and also actually kind of real now. Kat quietly gives you 19 and 10, another double-double on the book, exactly what you want efficiency-wise. And Miles McBride, the sneaky big one, 19 points, 5 for 5 from 3. Real confidence, real rhythm. That's not just garbage time stat padding either. Those are like, those are shots that you're going to need with Landry Shamut out. And while we're here, let's touch on the Shamut piece. Because I know everything's, oh, Landry Shammit, who is he? Who cares? But it matters. It matters more than it looks on paper. He's out at least four weeks with his shoulder sprain from the Magic game. But before that, he he had played his way into this starting lineup and was shooting over 42% from three. That's exactly what this team was missing last year. He just had that 36-point game in Miami and finally looked comfortable, and now he's gone through probably the end of December. That's a big loss. So now what? Now you're asking, you're asking McBride, can you be more than just a defense and hustle guy and actually punish teams for loading up on Brunson? Can you hit your shots consistently? You're asking Clarkson to give you that bench microwave stuff without like turning every possession into a mixtape. And you're asking Hart and Bridges to keep this at a level, this level of aggression going. Just stay fast, stay hard, stay play mean, not just wait around for like the Brunson heroics and hope for the best. And that's kind of really the theme of the Knicks this week. You can argue it from both sides, and you're not wrong on either side. If you're negative by nature, you look at Orlando and say Cat is going to get hunted in every playoff series. Mikhail is already getting annoyed by him. OG's hurt. Sham is hurt. The ceiling is fake. But if you're a if you're a glass half full kind of guy and you look at the Brooklyn and Charlotte games, even if they are terrible teams, you say we just smoked two teams. We're three and one in the NBA Cup group play. Our starting five can drop 70 and a half if we need to. Our point differential is healthy. Brunson is playing as an at an all-NBA level, and we're still winning games while we're trying to figure it out. Both things are true. That's kind of the whole episode. Thankful but not blind, right? For me, with the Knicks, this comes down to cat and defense. Look, offensively, this is exactly what the Knicks paid for. He makes the floor huge for Brunson. He can punish mismatches. He can carry a quarter when Brunson's off the floor. That's real value. But defensively, he he cannot continue to be the big red attack this dude button every time you play an athletic team with a good wing. I mean, Mike Brown and the staff have to keep chipping away at the bad habits, being early on rotations, trusting scheme, communicating, just taking pride in that defensive side. You can live with the occasional blow by. It happens. It's fine. You can't live with every good team circling him on the whiteboard in April. That's bad news. The good news, it's still early. It's November. Most people don't even consider the NBA season starting until Christmas. Your banking wins while you're sorting this out. You dominated the Nets, you handled Charlotte, you survived an ugly night in Orlando with some lessons. And you're doing all this without OG and without Shaman for the next month. And by the way, if you're a Knicks fan, you know exactly where you came from. There were years when the highlight of the week was Nate Robinson jumped up on a table. Or we almost beat the Celtics on a random Wednesday. Now you're debating whether your max big is good enough in round two while your point guard gets MVP chance on the road. So it could be better, but it could be a lot worse. All right, let's put a pin in the garden for now and flip over to the other winter sport that somehow never sleeps. The hot stove. Sunny grade of Boston, Dylan C's cashing out in Toronto, the Nimo for Simeon Trade ripping Mets fans in half. And the Yankees doing that yearly. We'd love to lower the payroll routine while the Dodgers spend like they found a second salary cap. Diamond talk next. Keep it right here. Let's slide headfirst into home and cover the diamond for a minute. Because the hot stove is starting to get the water boiling this week with some big names moving around. First one, Sonny Gray to the Red Sox. Boston goes out and gets Sonny from the Cardinals. St. Louis eats like 20 million of the money. And now the Sox are rolling into 2026 with two of the five guys in baseball who have 200 plus strikeouts each of the last two years. That's Garrett Crochet and Sonny Gray. That's a nice one to punch. Look, Sonny's 36. He's not the Cy Young runner-up version every single night anymore. But his strikeouts to walks is still pretty elite, and the stuff is still real. And he takes the ball. He is not afraid to push innings to go deep into games. In that ballpark with that division, you need adults in the room in your rotation, and that's what this move is about. And then right on cue, the next AL East Arm domino falls. Dylan Cease to the Blue Jays, seven years,$210 million. Toronto just went to game seven of the World Series, came up short, cried about it, and basically said, okay, let's run it back, but let's add more strikeouts. Cece is Cece is one of those hilarious weird pitchers in the most pitcher nerd way possible. When he is on, he is legitimately one of the five best starters on earth. But when he is off, you are looking at his stats and you're wondering how a guy with this good of stuff has a 4-5 ERA. The big picture, the last five years, he's fourth in pitcher war. The slider dipped a little bit last year, and the ERA was a little funky, but the Padres were kind of messy too. Even with all that being said, he still he still punched out nearly 30% of everyone he faced and posted strong numbers throughout the year. So now looking at the AL East, you got Cease and Toronto to pair with Shane Bieber, Kevin Gossman, and their rookie stud Treasavage. You got Sonny and Crochet in Boston, mix in maybe Brian Bellow or something. You got Cole and Freed and Rodon and Schlitler and Lis Hill in the Bronx. And then you got the Rays doing Rays things with three dudes that you've never heard of who all have a 2-9 ERA and a closer who can literally just make the ball disappear disappear. The division is an arms race again, literally. You love to see that. That's the kind of stuff that breeds good playoff baseball between these guys. Alright, we got a showhei quickie here. Otani announced that he's going to be playing for Japan again in the next WBC. And it's it's pretty cool for the sport. I mean, I personally like the WBC. I'm a Met fan, you guys know that. I had to watch Edwin Diaz tear his knee up, celebrating a close, but I still appreciate the WBC. It's kind of like the all-star game of all-star games. It's cool for the sport. I mean, the last time, the last time we saw Otani in the WBC, he was striking out Mike Trout for the final out in a movie script that would be rejected for being too on the nose. Now, X amount of years later, he's coming off back-to-back rings, four MVPs, an entry to the 50-50 club, of which he is the only member of. I mean, he's putting his nation's jersey on his back, and as much as I hate on the guy, if you're into baseball, this tournament is probably going to be appointment viewing TV. He's not the only story coming out of Japan, too, by the way, this winter. We got a little wave of uh players coming to America. Alright, bear with me. I got these names written down here, so bear with me here. Uh Tatsuya Ima, mid-three ERA projection pitcher, 93 to 97, but with a nasty slider. I think kind of Kodai Sanga. Munataka Murakami, video game style left-handed power. He broke the net the MPB home run record at 22 years old. And Kazuyama Okamoto, a righty thumper, more steady than Flash, probably a really solid everyday first baseman over here. Someone that both probably the Mets and Yankees are looking at. I mean, I we don't have to do a full scouting report on the three of them just yet, but just know that that real Japanese talent is coming even after Sanga, Shohei, Yamamoto, Yoshinobu, all those guys. There's more real talent coming to America. And both New York teams are always lurking that foreign market. Now, speaking of New York teams, let's talk about the move that probably ruined a few Mets fans' Thanksgiving appetite this week. Marcus Simeon to the Mets, Brandon Nimo to the Rangers, straight up, pretty much one for one. Maybe some money changed. Look, on paper, you can sell it. Simeon's 35. The OP has dipped a little bit, but he still plays every day, still wins gold gloves, still does all the little winning things. Great clubhouse guy. Stearns wants to improve run prevention, tighten up the infield, bounce the lineup with a righty who can hit for some power, a legit second baseman instead of McNeil who's bounced. And all over the place. From a spreadsheet standpoint, fine. I get it. I don't like it, but I get it. From a fan standpoint, this one stings. Moving Nimmo. Homegrown kid. Last active met who played with David Wright. That hurts. Was kind of the face of the franchise when we didn't really have much. And then he waves a no trade clause, like an ironclad, I'm not going anywhere unless I say so. No trade clause. Because probably he heard all the smoke from the front office or whatever got leaked out of we might move him and yeah, blah blah blah blah. And he probably said, Listen, if you don't want me, I'll go somewhere else. I'll go to a team that does. And where does he land? Texas. With good old Jacob deGrom, the prodigal son. I mean, you couldn't script a more of course that's how this ends scenario for the Mets. I do think there is a version of this where it ages fine on the field. I mean, look, see me in a second. The young outfit is getting some runway. You had some pitching. It looks like part of an actual plan. I don't know. We'll see what they do with Pete, what they do with Diaz, who's gonna play. Fine. But emotionally, you don't just replace the guy tipping his helmet after every walk and sprinting down at first and being the last link to the David Wright era. That's a scar. And then you hear David Cerns come out and basically saying running it back wasn't the right thing to do. And yeah, you're right. No kidding. The core has failed. It's time to make some changes. But that's also not because of Brendan Nimmo, it's because you never fix the rotation. Nimmo wasn't really the problem. He's not great, but he's not the problem. Anyway, across town, the vibes are different. But somehow just as annoying. The Yankees and Hal are talking about payroll. Like you're not the New York Yankees, like you're not the evil empire. Hal gets on a call and says, quote, ideally we'd like the payroll to go down from 319, but that doesn't mean it will. We still want to build a championship team. End quote. And every Yankee fan collectively rolled their eyes and immediately goes, here we go again. Because this is the cycle. This is the Yankee cycle of the last five, six, seven, eight years. Cashman hands out giant contracts like it is the evil empire. Stanton, Cole, Rodon, Judge, Freed takes on Ryan McMahon, takes on this, that, and the other. All that money on the books. But then when it comes to time for the free agent signing, that the fans actually want, the guys that actually make their team better, suddenly the conversation turns into well, you know, we got to be responsible. There's a budget, the luxury tax, it's not a great fit. We like our internal options. Come on, man. You can't play both sides forever. You're wasting judges' prime. You either lean all the way in into being the big bag Yankees again, or stop pretending you're broke while charging Yankee Stadium prices and finishing second in the division. The funniest part is for all the noise, they're still sitting on a massive payroll, even if they trim it. They still need an outfielder, which would be either Cody Bellinger or Kyle Tucker or somebody else, and that's going to cost a bunch of money. They still need bullpen help, and they're still probably going to be in on at least one of the Japanese guys, plus whatever mid-tier arms that they want to try and fill the rotation in, since C's and company are off the board. So when Hal talks about weak correlation between spending and championships, that's cute. But nobody in the Bronx is buying that small market cosplay BS. Either go big or go home. You literally have the greatest player in baseball on your team entering the last couple years of his prime. Go for it or don't. But don't sell us garbage. So yeah, that's uh that's the hot stove. The stove is definitely on, and it's only gonna get hotter. These guys, once one guy falls, the rest of them are gonna fall right behind him. So if you're a Mets or Yankee fan, it's that same kind of Thanksgiving feeling we talked about at the top of the episode. You're stressed, you're annoyed, you're side-eyeing ownership, and you're still weirdly thankful that your teams are in the middle of the chaos and not on the outside looking in. Let's take a breath, we'll grab one more metaphorical plate, and then we'll close this thing out the right way. A little perspective, a little gratitude, and a reminder to spread some good energy while we're all yelling about sports. Let's land this plane. The turkey's gone cold, and the episode ran long. But that's kind of the whole point, right? I mean, I'd rather sit here and give you the real version of how I feel about the Jets being allergic to winning, or the Giants inventing new ways to blow double-digit leads, or Dak dragging the Cowboys back from the dead, or Miles Garrett hunting down Strayhand's sack record, and the Mets trading the last guy who played with David Wright. I'd rather go long on all that than give you some 35-minute here are your talking points, thanks for listening version of the show. If you're still with me at the end of this one, you guys are my people. Thanksgiving week is supposed to be about being thankful and as dumb as sports make us feel sometimes, this stuff matters. You remember where you were when the Giants ruined the Patriots perfect season. You remember where you were for Jeter's final at bat, the first time you saw Mike Trout or Mello or whoever your guy was, with your dad, with your mom, your grandpa, your best friend. Hell, you're gonna remember where you were when Stafford put together this late career MVP run, or when Miles Gary broke that sack record, or when Joe Burrow came back on Thanksgiving night and either cooked the Ravens or cooked your parlay. So, yes, the locals are a mess, the Yankees are crying poor, the Mets just shipped out a fan favorite, and Justin Fields has fewer passing yards than Jackson Smith and Jigva has receiving. But the fact that we can sit here, complain about it, laugh about it, and sweat a gambling card together, I'm thankful for that. If you tailed the Thanksgiving picks, let me know how the card treated you. If you faded me and won anyway, well, hey, good for you. You don't have to brag, but definitely screenshot it and DM it to me. I can take it. Make sure you follow me on your favorite social. I'm on all of them. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. It's all at the same handle at Rice on the Radio. And make sure you jump in on the Wednesday mic check polls. Send your questions and your rants. Uncle Rice is here for you, handing out sports therapy for free. All of it is welcome. So enjoy the food, enjoy the games, enjoy the chaos, enjoy your family. Lots of people in this world who would give anything to have one more conversation with someone who is no longer with them in their life. Don't take it for granted. As always, make sure you spread some good energy in this world and make sure you tell someone you love them. And if you're going out on Thanksgiving Eve next year, make sure you hydrate. This has been Rice on the Mikes. I appreciate you more than you know. We'll talk again next week.