Early start to race for top pick … The three teams – Jacksonville, NY Giants and Las Vegas – which appear to have the best chance of ending up with the #1 pick overall at the 2025 draft all are in relatively tough this weekend. And it starts early with both the Giants and Raiders playing in Thanksgiving week matinee specials. The Giants, for starters, will be playing in Dallas on Thursday in the Cowboys traditional Thanksgiving 4:30 PM ET time slot, while the Raiders will be in Kansas City on Friday to play the 9-1 Chiefs with a 3 PM ET KO time. The Jaguars will have to wait until Sunday, though, when they host division-leading Houston in an early afternoon contest. And each of the three 2-9 teams has some kind of QB issue which will impact their odds of ending up with that top pick. The Giants, for example, are likely to have their 3rd starting QB in the past three weeks as Drew Lock will get the call with Tommy DeVito, who took over after Daniel Jones was rather unceremoniously relaesed last weekend, nurisng a sore throwing arm. Interestingly, Lock may actually give the Giants a better chance to win as DeVito seemed to have been chosen as Jones’ replacement because he’s a fan favorite. Meanwhile, Aiden O’Connell is going to get the start for the Raiders in KC replacing Gardner Minshew, who suffered a season-ending collarbone injury in last Sunday’s loss to the Broncos. O’Connell who started a number of games last season as a rookie will get the call over Desmond Ridder whom the Raiders signed of Arizona’s practice squad late last month. At the same time, Trevor Lawrence did return to practice, at least on a limited basis, in Jacksonville this, but he remains very much a question mark for the Jags’ meeting with Houston on Sunday. In fact, Lawrence and the Jags have not ruled out Lawrence, who has been hampered by separated shoulder joint, undergoing surgery sooner rather than later which needless to say would end his season.
O’Connell was given the starting job over Desmond Ridder,
