There aren’t metrics for this sort of thing, because it’s basically subjective, but it feels like more often than not, the NFL’s Thanksgiving games, in a word, stink.
This year, adding the Black Friday tilt into the mix, we had a 50% hit rate: Two of the four contests were solid victories (Bengals by 18 over the Ravens, Bears by 9 over the Eagles), while the others were one-score wonders (Cowboys by 3 over the Chiefs, Packers by 7 over the Lions).
Thus, watchability-wise, the NFL's Week 13 holiday programming was half winners and half losers — which means our Thanksgiving wine glasses were half-filled.
But we'll take it. We've seen worse.
However, apparently, Philly fans haven't.
Yikes.
NFL Week 13 Winners & Losers
Here’s who crushed Sunday, and here’s who got crushed.
WINNERS: The Chicago Bears Backfield
If you claim you had both Bears RBs — D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai — in your fantasy starting lineup, be it season-long or DFS, I need proof.
Because there’s like a 99.9999% chance you’re lying.
Because throwing two Chicago Bears running backs into the mix is legitimately foolish.
That said, apparently Black Friday was a foolish day.
Monangai finished the game with 130 rushing yards and a tuddy, while Swift dropped 125 and a score of his own. I didn’t do that deep of a statistical dive — I’m writing this on Thanksgiving Sunday, so there’s only so much time I’m allowed away from the family — but as far as I can tell, this is just the fifth time in the last 13 seasons we’ve seen this sort of two-headed backfield prowess, the last time being in 2022, when D’Onta Foreman (165 yards) and Chuba Hubbard (125 yards) pulled it off for the Panthers.
It looks like Bears head coach Ben Johnson has the Chicago version of Sonic and Knuckles. Sort of.
LOSER: Ravens RB Derrick Henry
Has King Henry fallen off the thirtysomething running back cliff?
Not just yet. After 13 games, Henry has racked up 931 yards on the ground, all but locking down his eighth 1,000+ rushing yards season in the last nine years. And he’s already racked up 10 rushing TDs, the eighth year in a row he’s hit double-digits.
But he’s failed to hit 100 rushing yards in eight of his 12 games, one of which was on Thanksgiving Eve, when he managed just 60 yards. Granted, with only 10 attempts, he was the victim of a garbage game script, but his inconsistent output this season is yet another reason why the Ravens are on the edge of missing the playoffs.
As are owners of Baltimore’s fantasy deity, Lamar Jackson.
WINNER: Bengals QB Joe Burrow
Unless you’re a fan of any team in the AFC North not named the Cincinnati Bengals, you probably dig Joe Burrow.
He’s super-fun to watch play the quarterback position, he generally has fun hair, and he has an over-the-top sense of style that must be seen to be believed.
Which means that his return to the field after 10 weeks of nursing a surgery’d toe was a thrill for anybody who is a fan of any team in the AFC North not named the Cincinnati Bengals.
Cincy’s Burrow-led dub sorta-kinda puts the Who Deys back in the playoff mix, not bad for a team that was, for a minute, somewhat of a league laughingstock.
That said…
LOSER: Bengals QB Joe Burrow
Statistically-speaking, Burrow’s return wasn’t optimal for fantasy managers. Like me.
We’re talking 261 yards on 24-of-46 passing, a QBR of 59.4, a passer rating of 83.7, and 19.2 fantasy points (QB10).
Next week, Burrow and his Cats visit Buffalo to take on a desperate Bills team, then host what will undoubtedly be a pissed-off Ravens squad. Bengals fans and Burrow fantasy owners should be on high alert.
WINNERS: Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb
In Dallas, for the last two months, everybody’s been all like, “George Pickens this” and “George Pickens that,” which is eminently understandable. After all, heading into the ‘Boys’ Turkey Day tilt with the Chiefs, the former Steeler was coming off of consecutive 140+ yard, 1 TD games, outstanding outings that helped catapult Dallas to sorely-needed back-to-back wins.
Despite a pair of good-enough games, his running buddy CeeDee Lamb was an afterthought.
But after Thursday’s 17.2 fantasy point barrage (WR6), the natural order of things appears to be back — Lamb WR1, Pickens WR2 — relieving fantasy managers who drafted Lamb in the first round. At least temporarily.
LOSER: Eagles QB Jalen Hurts and RB Saquon Barkley
Say what you will about Philadelphia Eagles fans, and, well, just say what you will about Philadelphia Eagles fans.
On Black Friday, they rolled into Lincoln Financial Field with an 8-3 record and the NFC East lead. And when the Bears scored first, the boos began. And kept going. And going. And going.
On one hand, you can’t argue with the Boo Birds. Hurts and Barkley looked like they were dealing with tryptophan hangovers, as Hurts went 19-of-34 for 230 passing yards and a 19.5 QBR, the season-worst in his career as a starter.
Barkley’s brutal season continued, as he managed just 56 yards on the ground, the 11th time in 12 outings that he’s failed to top 100 yards.
Oh, and they lost to a rebuilding team. At home. On national television.
I suppose I’d boo, too.
WINNER: Jets WR Adonai Mitchell
This is the first time in the history of PrizePicks’ NFL Winners & Losers that a Jet has made it into the plus column. (Former starting QB Justin Fields made regular visits to our bad place, but that’s a whole other discussion.) But it’s justified, as in Week 13, the Jets — unlike the vast majority of the rest of the 2025 NFL season — didn’t suck.
In their impressive 27-24 home dub over the Falcons, Mitchell was especially non-sucky, grabbing 8 of his 12 targets for 102 yards, a TD, and 16.2 fantasy points (WR8).
At this point, it’s worth noting that this was one of the weirdest wide receiver weeks of the season, with Mitchell, Green Bay’s Dontayvion Wicks (WR2), and New Orleans’ Devaughn Vele (WR10) all finished top-ten in FantasyLand, while high-end WR1s like Seattle’s Jaxson Smith-Njigba (2.3 fantasy points, WR62), Indy’s Michael Pittman Jr. (1.3 fantasy points, WR79), and Chicago’s Rome Odunze (0.8, WR88) very much didn’t.
LOSER: Rams QB Matthew Stafford
Can you call a dude who’s in the conversation for MVP — who is crushing it for one of the league’s top-four teams — a loser?
When he finishes as QB20 in a stinker of a loss to a theoretically very inferior team, you betcha.
On Sunday, Stafford’s Rams took it on the chin in Carolina, falling to the Panthers 31-28, in a game that wasn’t as close as the score might indicate. The Georgia product was uncharacteristically meh, managing 243 yards on 18-of-28 passing, with a couple of picks and 2 sacks thrown in for bad measure, all of which added up to 13.6 fantasy points, his third-worst outing of the season.
Much to the joy of my Bears-loving heart, the Rams are the NFC’s two-seed, behind Chicago. So thank you, Carolina Panthers. Thank you oh so much.
WINNERS: Chargers RB Kimani Vidal
The Troy University standout was all but unstoppable in L.A.’s dominant 31-14 dub over the Raiders to the tune of 126 rushing yards and a tuddie, good for 19.7 fantasy points (RB3).
Thing is, the poor dude might get dumped into the loser column next week, as the team’s RB1, prized rookie Omarion Hampton, might be returning to the lineup, which means Vidal might be returning to the bench.
Or who knows: The Bolts might just have themselves their very own version of D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai.
LOSER: Vikings WR Justin Jefferson
The man they call JETS heads into Week 14 as fantasy’s WR28 (!), behind the likes of the Chargers’ Quentin Johnston (WR24) and the Giants’ Wan’Dale Robinson (WR22), neither of whom anybody picked in the first round of their fantasy draft.
Jefferson’s biggest blunder this season was not requesting a trade in June, as the poor guy has been catching balls from J.J. McCarthy (ugh), Carson Wentz (double ugh), and, as of yesterday afternoon, Max Brosmer (ugh to the 100th power). Little wonder the poor dude hasn’t topped double-figures in fantasy points since Week 5, and yesterday, with a wildly overmatched Brosmer at the controls, posted a miserable 0.4 fantasy points, which landed him at WR95, which merits all the ughs in the world.
Regardless of whether your Week 13 PrizePicks picks were good (CeeDee), bad (Stafford), or ugly (the entire Minnesota offense), you had a ton of fun making your selections, and will continue to do so as the NFL season progresses.
And if you enjoyed our NFL Week 10 winners and losers, stick with Playbook all season for advice, predictions, takes, winners, and losers.
