Packers: Giving Thanks by Greasing Palms?

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all! Eat heartily, laugh even more heartily (at other people, if possible. Especially if you have National Lampoon, Griswold-ish family members visiting today), and may you be trippin’ on tryptophan when all is said and done.

We won’t deprive you of your daily dose of snark just because it’s a national holiday. How can we, when there’s always something a-buzz and a-twitter in the sports world?

Take the Green Bay Packers, for example. They fit rather nicely into this week’s Thanksgiving theme. Why? Because according to the heads-up Prospero gave me, they really know how to give thanks.

According to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, the Packers played a nifty game called “Defense for Dollars.” Here’s how it works: The team’s defensive backs offered to pay each of their own linemen 500 Simoleons (that’s dollars, for those of you behind the curve on slang) if they held Vikings RB Adrian Peterson to 100 rushing yards two weeks ago. The offer was in place last Sunday against the Carolina Panthers, too—with 60 yards rushing as the Carrot of the Week. (Note the food reference. It’s not the wittiest phrase in our arsenal, but on Turkey Day, it works). 

Per usual, no one knows anything, everyone’s looking into it . . . and we’re making fun of it. But in a very Thanksgiving-y kind of way, so there!