Re: Home advantage and capping.
I think with past DET teams they were also possibly undervalued on Thanksgivings because they were more often than not a pretty bad team but often not quite as bad as the public would perceive them. This might have a greater impact in the line for a Thanksgiving day game which I suspect gets a little more action than your average DET game.
So you have a bit of BSP'ism potentially driving the line a bit perhaps combined with the possibility that a team going nowhere, like DET in most seasons, can still summon up some amount of inspiration late in the season for a rare national TV appearance.
Just some possible other reasons for it off the top of my head.
Your point of the super-short week impacting the away team more is certainly valid too. But I do think this year's matchup is a little different than other Thanksgiving situations in that it is unusual in recent seasons for DET to actually be considered a decent team by the public and/or still be in the playoff race.
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