Hold on tight. You know what they say about plans, especially in the NFL, but let’s stay hopeful. Let’s expect that things will go as planned tonight as the Dallas Cowboys face the Detroit Lions. If that’s the case,

Entering the night, the Lions and Cowboys were the first two teams on the outside looking in at the playoff picture. That’s still the case following the Lions’ victory, but both teams’ chances to make the playoffs changed drastically with the Thursday Night Football result.

The NFL uses flexible scheduling late in the season to ensure that the biggest games end up in the best time slots.

Dallas' late resurgence and Detroit's sudden urgency come together for a banger of a TNF matchup. Points could be plentiful.

The Dallas defense regressed, as did the protection for quarterback Dak Prescott, in a game the Cowboys badly needed to win to maintain any realistic hopes of making the playoffs. In a 44-30 loss to the Detroit Lions,

As we do every week throughout the season, we've collected all of the best picks and gambling content from CBS Sports and SportsLine and put them in one place, so you can get picks against the spread from our CBS Sports experts as well as additional feature content for each game,