Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.

Atlanta +4½ -110 over Green Bay

8:15 PM EST. Football is extremely difficult to predict because there is simply too much variance involved. Nobody on planet Earth has ever figured out how to consistently predict the outcome of NFL games, and we're certainly not going to pretend we're the first. Every week you'll hear people confidently breaking down offenses, defenses, matchups, injuries and coaching advantages as if the game is played on a spreadsheet. Then the ball gets kicked off, somebody fumbles, a tipped pass turns into an interception, a questionable flag extends a drive and the entire script gets thrown out the window.

Thursday Night Football adds another layer of uncertainty that we'd rather avoid. The NFL can dress these games up any way it wants, but they're a cash grab. Uncle Roger would trade his mother for a cigar if there was a buck in it. The league wants football occupying as much of your week as possible, and if they eventually figure out how to have NFL games four nights a week, they'll do that too. Whether players are properly recovered from Sunday is somewhere considerably further down the priority list.

That's particularly relevant tonight because Green Bay is coming off an overtime game in New York and now has to turn around and play four days later. The Packers are also banged up, particularly along the offensive line, and they haven't looked especially sharp through two games. However, we're not interested in piling onto the Packers because of it. The market has already done that. Green Bay opened around -7 and we're now seeing -4½. That's a massive adjustment, and anyone taking Atlanta now is getting considerably less value than was available when this number first appeared.

Atlanta brings its own collection of question marks. Michael Penix Jr. is expected to make his season debut after a long absence, and nobody knows what he's going to look like. Maybe his return provides an immediate spark. Maybe he's rusty as hell. Maybe Green Bay's injuries prove overwhelming. Maybe the Packers look completely different at Lambeau. That's exactly the point: there are too many variables here for us to pretend we have some significant edge.

Thursday games have produced enough strange performances over the years that we've generally avoided them unless there was an exceptional reason to get involved. We don't see one tonight. We're passing — no unit bet. But if you held a gun to our heads and demanded a side, we'd take the Dirty Birds +4½ and hope the points are enough to survive whatever Thursday-night nonsense Uncle Roger has cooked up for us. NO BETS

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