It’s the best holiday of the year.

Yes, Thanksgiving is here.It’s a day built around two things: Food and football.

Is there anything better than that?

The days of the local game have come and gone, there is only one Thanksgiving Day game in the state left that we know of, and that’s in Manchester, with West vs. Memorial set for this morning.

The memories of the Nashua game, from the one Nashua High vs. Bishop Guertin, then the North-South morning game at Stellos Stadium and then the evening game are vivid memories – you can relive those today and the next few days with replays on Nashua ETV.

But Thanksgiving has another memory of an even that took place on this holiday 25 years ago. Do you know that Tom Brady’s first official NFL regular season appearance in a game was on Thanksgiving Day of 2000, November 23 to be exact. Yes, after covering the Turkey Bowl at Holman we caught a bit of it. It was Bill Belichick’s first season as the Patriots coach and a skinny, inexperienced Brady was out there in a mop up role as New England was getting blistered 34-9 by Detroit.

Brady was 23, a rookie, and he completed 1 of 3 passes for 6 yards in the fourth quarter. For the record, Brady’s first completion was to tight end Rod Rutledge. It was four days earlier on the calendar, Nov. 23.

Who knew?

At any rate, you have to wonder if there will ever be a Thanksgiving Night game at Gillette. It would have to be the NBC night game as Detroit and Dallas are the traditional daytime hosts. Selfishly, hope not, but can probably tell you already what will be served on the media dining level. Remember everyone, it’s more important to feed the sportswriters than to read the sportswriters. Well, sort of.

With that, let’s take a look at this week’s NFL picks. There aren’t many great games on Sunday and today has some of the best matchups we’ve had on Thanksgiving for years, so let’s take a look:

PATRIOTS 30, GIANTS 27

Jaxon Dart will likely play in this one on Monday night – he practiced fully on Wednesday – and we’ll see how the Giants manage to blow another fourth quarter lead. That’s something they’ve done five times this season, why stop there? Go for six. The reason they do it is they have no finishing ability on the pass rush and their secondary is abysmal.

BILLS 23, STEELERS 16

This is a biggie for both teams. The Steelers lead in the AFC North has disappeared, and they won’t reclaim it as the Bills need this win to have any realistic shot at the AFC East crown. They’re optimistic in Pittsburgh that Aaron Rodgers can play on Sunday, but they were optimistic last week, too, and he sat out a Steeler loss.

TEXANS 20, COLTS 17

Did you see that Texans defense vs. Josh Allen. If they did that to Allen, what do you think they’ll do to Daniel Jones? The Colts will likely end up with 10 or 11 wins as they fall back to earth but they won’t get one here.

PACKERS 23, LIONS 20.

A Turkey Day pick for today. Dan Campbell’s Lions have a fourth and 3 at the Green Bay 30 with 30 seconds left and Campbell chooses to go for it rather than kick the sure game-tying field goal (indoors, come on). Packers stop ’em.

EAGLES 27, BEARS 17

Philly defense will score at least once as the Bears come back to earth. Yes there’s some dissension in Eagle land but on the Black Friday game on Amazon it’ll be Fly Eagles, Fly. But this season they still aren’t the best team in the NFC. That honor belongs to the Rams.

CHIEFS 27, COWBOYS 24

Another Turkey Day game and a good one.Even while KC’s offense has been sluggish, the Cowboys will give up points. Dallas is tough to figure out and while many think the Chiefs will go on a run now, they will have to earn it.

BRONCOS 16, COMMANDERS 10

The Sunday Night game. There won’t be points aplenty in this one. Denver’s defense is as good as Houston’s, but the Broncos aren’t really strong offensively. Bo Nix is just OK but he’s better than Marcus Mariota, who likely will turn it over against this defense.

So that will do it, fans, for this week, and we wish all of you a great feast. We’re thankful for the opportunity to bring you our prose and thankful for all of you for reading it.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

LASTWEEK: 5-2

SEASON: 55-29

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com. Also, follow King on X (@Telegraph_TomK).