In the last two years Thanksgiving Week has rapidly become one of my favorite weeks.  ESPN calls it Feast Week for the "feast" of college hoops thanks in large part to the proliferation of early season tournaments that are held during the week of Thanksgiving.  Of course, there's always plenty of football on the menu as well.

So as the NCAA Tournament hopes for Marquette and Wisconsin ended over the weekend, one can look ahead to next season.  Next season both schools will be participating in Feast Week.  Hey, how about some beer and brats to go with the turkey and stuffing?  The NFL announced earlier this week, the Packers will once again play the Lions on Thanksgiving Day.  As a side note, I was way off on my annual Thanksgiving Day predictions.  Why in the world would the NFL put the Oakland Raiders on Thanksgiving?  Roger Goodell might have found the cure for overeating on Thanksgiving.  I can only imagine the amount of regurgitating after watching Oakland's putrid offense.

But two other things caught my eye as the NFL spring meeting continue this week.  Aside from the Thanksgiving matchup, the Packers will again be featured in a prime time game on Kickoff Weekend.  Remember, Green Bay was 6-10 last year and Brett Favre is long gone.  There was a time when people believed the Packers would sink back to oblivion without Favre.  Evidently the NFL doesn't think so.  Why else would the Packers be featured on the first Sunday night of the year?

Also, Goodell announced he would like to expand the regular season by one or two games.  Normally I cringe at the mere mention of expansion.  The NFL has the perfect setup.  Eight division of four teams and you play six division games, four games against teams from a division within your conference, four games against teams a division out of conference and two games against teams that finished the same place you did.  Perfect balance.  Why disrupt it?  However the trade off is a shorter preseason for a longer regular season.  Now that I can deal with.  There's no question the preseason is too long, even for a fan of August football like myself.  Of course the earliest this would take place would be 2011 and that's assuming the owners approve the plan.  Nevertheless, there's nothing wrong with more football, as long as it counts.