Steve Brownlee

Watching a bunch of the MACtion games — you know, the midweek Mid-American Conference football games that were on TV from about mid-October to mid-November — it got me to thinking about the transfer portal and how easily players can move around.

Not only from year to year, but heck, I think I’ve seen some players change schools DURING the season. Or at least they announced they were making a move during the time of the year when games are played.

Almost makes you think they were pros in the NFL.

So I started trying to compare how the two levels of football compare, at least for players.

In both college and the NFL, players can become “free agents,” with collegians able to changes schools from year to year. Pros usually are more constrained, though it’s because multimillion-dollar contracts keep them in place for multiple years at a time. I guess I’ll hang around Jacksonville for five years if you pay me $10 million for each of those years.

One thing I noticed, though. Pros can get traded, and unless they have a no-trade clause in their contracts, which I’m pretty sure only the top pros have the leverage to get, they don’t have much choice when and where they go.

Maybe that should be introduced to the college game.

While I like the idea of college players being able to have some movement, I think the operative word here is “some.”

If you follow Northern Michigan University athletics at all, you’ve seen how the transfer portal has decimated the football and hockey teams.

I was at my dentist’s office about six weeks ago and a man older than me was talking to the receptionist. They got talking about football, and the visitor mentioned that NMU had lost 35 players when Shane Richardson was hired two seasons ago. He seemed to know what he was talking about, and even if his numbers were a bit off, I have heard these Wildcats lost quite a few of their best players with the coaching change.

And I’ve been able to find out more concrete numbers about the Northern hockey team, which this season has four players back from last year on a roster of 28. The rest were incoming freshmen and transfers, the majority new head coach Dave Shyiak had to recruit between the Fourth of July when he was hired and the start of the season in early October.

It just seems a whole lot of the Wild West mentality with all this roster jumping, especially if you figure that something like less than 2% of NCAA Division I players become pros. I can imagine how low a percentage that is at Division II or III, what, way less than 1%, heck maybe more like 0.01%.

Can you imagine if college players got traded? I don’t really think that would happen, since how would you transfer to a school you didn’t want to attend, either because of where it is or what kinds of academic programs it offers?

Although that wouldn’t make much difference to those who are just using college as the minor leagues before becoming pro.

So I have a lot more questions than answers on this topic, but I hope it gives you something to mull over while you’re trying to digest your Thanksgiving turkey on Thursday — and Friday and Saturday, and however long you have to make turkey salad sandwiches until the holiday bird is gone.

Speaking of Turkey Day, let’s look at the games:

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Thursday, 12:30 p.m.

Chicago at Detroit — This used to be the opening act when everybody ate their feast getting ready to watch the more interesting 4 p.m. game involving the Cowboys. It was also in a time where there were just two holiday games — nothing played at night.

Now I guess everyone has to put off eating till after 4 p.m. as this has become the, or at least one of the good games of the day.

Despite the Bears giving both Green Bay and Minnesota resolute challenges the past couple weeks, I just don’t see them keeping up with this Lions team on a big national stage, at least not until Detroit starts cooling down. So give me the Lions, 31-20.

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Thursday, 4:30 p.m.

New York Giants at Dallas — I hear echoes of “Lions-Cardinals” or “Lions-Chargers” from days gone by.

So sure, this might be a competitive game, but probably more of a competition for the No. 1 draft pick than a playoff position. Based on last week’s performance, though, I’ll take the Cowboys, 29-19.

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Thursday, 8:20 p.m.

Miami at Green Bay — I don’t think it’s fair to say the Dolphins are a fair-weather team just because they couldn’t perform in the playoffs last season in Kansas City when it was about 10-below-zero. Who would’ve done well in that, even the Packers?

But one stat I’ve heard echoed of a time gone by — Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has never won when it was below 40 degrees. Remember when they used to say that about Tampa Bay never winning in the cold? Eventually, the Buccaneers did win in the cold, but teams like Green Bay beat Tampa a number of times before it happened.

Thinking the Dolphins’ hex, or simply the nonadjustment to the cold, will continue, give me the Packers, 27-22.

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Friday, 3 p.m.

Las Vegas at Kansas City — With the way Kansas City seems to play close games, whether it’s playing down to their competition or whatever it is, I’m kind of disappointed that this game can only be seen on Prime Video. Of course, I’ll be here at The Mining Journal office when this game is on, so maybe I’ll watch the rebroadcast on the NFL Network, which I see will show this game that night at 7 p.m. and midnight.

Either way, I don’t know how you wouldn’t pick the Chiefs, 26-24.

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Sunday, 1 p.m.

Los Angeles Chargers at Atlanta — I don’t like the Chargers for a myriad of reasons — they’re on a short week having to travel cross country, playing a game at 10 a.m. their time, doing it during a holiday week, and finally, Atlanta coming off its bye week. All these traps lead me to take the Falcons, 28-23.

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Pittsburgh at Cincinnati — As if I was a meteorologist, I won’t predict another snowstorm for the Steelers like they faced in Cleveland a week ago, but in Cincy maybe an ice storm is a possibility.

Taking the weather out of it, I see Pittsburgh won 11 games in a row in this series between 2015 and 2020, but since then, the Bengals are 4-3 over the last seven.

With Cincy coming off the bye, give me the Bengals, 30-27.

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Houston at Jacksonville — Even as poorly as Houston has played lately, Jacksonville is still playing worse. Just based on their upside, give me the Texans, 26-20.

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Arizona at Minnesota — Minnesota isn’t inspiring much confidence lately, despite working on a four-game win streak, as those wins have come against the dregs of the AFC South plus needing overtime to get past the spiraling-downward Bears. But Arizona isn’t exactly a world beater, either, with its most recent wins over the Jets, Bears and Tua in his first game back with the Dolphins. Just because that darn Skol horn or whatever it’s called will annoy the visitors, give me the Vikings, 33-29.

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Indianapolis at New England — With no byes this week, this means we have to deal with every bad team in the NFL, so we might as well have them play each other. With New England as the “worser” of these two, I’ll take the Colts, 23-20.

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Seattle at New York Jets — I discovered last week that Seattle is a better road team than home team, so it’s enough to pick the Seahawks, 20-15.

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Tennessee at Washington — Washington is in need of its bye, which actually comes after they play this game. However, playing the Titans is like a mini-bye, not withstanding their win over Houston last weekend. Or going on my “reverse momentum” theory, because of it. Commanders, 24-19.

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Sunday, 4 p.m.

Tampa Bay at Carolina — Considering the low level that the Panthers have been on, call them being on a three-game winning streak — they’ve edged New Orleans and the Giants, then lost by just three points to KC, which is like a win. Nevertheless, I can only give them another almost-win this week. Buccaneers, 27-25.

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Los Angeles Rams at New Orleans — Oh, this is a tough one, as the Saints could parlay their always good home-field advantage with coming off the bye. And I like the Saints’ defense to at least slow down Matthew Stafford & Co. Saints, 23-18.

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Philadelphia at Baltimore — A couple teams that played in prime time last weekend, so I guess they should go back to Sunday afternoon this week. But this sure would make a good Sunday night game, wouldn’t it? With my distrust of the Baltimore defense still out there, I’ll take the Eagles, 32-29.

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Sunday, 8:20 p.m.

San Francisco at Buffalo — Until and unless the 49ers can show some semblance of their recent Super Bowl-qualifying teams, they’re just another washed-up Dallas Cowboys-like squad. Bills, 37-24.

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Monday, 8:15 p.m.

Cleveland at Denver — Good news Browns — if there ever was a place for a November snowstorm, Denver would o be it. Not counting on that actually happening, give me the Broncos, 21-16.

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Last week — 8-5, 62 percent. Season — 117-62, 65 percent.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 552. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.