NFL on Thanksgiving Day

• 1. Origins And Early Traditions

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  The concept of American football games being played on Thanksgiving Day dates back to 1876, shortly after the game had been invented. In that year, college teams at Yale and Princeton began an annual tradition of playing each other on the holiday. The University of Michigan also made it a tradition to play annual Thanksgiving games, holding 19 such games from 1885 to 1905. Records of pro football being played on Thanksgiving date back to as early as the 1890s, with the first pro, am team, the Allegheny Athletic Association of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the time football had become a professional event, playing on Thanksgiving had already become an institution. The Ohio League placed its marquee matchups on Thanksgiving Day during its early years. For instance, in 1905 and 1906, the Latrobe Athletic Association and Canton Bulldogs played on Thanksgiving. A rigging scandal with the Tigers leading up to the 1906 game resulted in severe drops in attendance for the Bulldogs and ultimately caused their suspension of operations. In the 1910s, the Ohio League stopped holding Thanksgiving games because many of its players coached high school teams and were unavailable.

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• 2. Detroit Lions Tradition

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  The fourth Detroit NFL franchise, the Lions, began their Thanksgiving tradition in 1934 with a game hosting the Chicago Bears. George S. Halas & Co. won 19, 16 in front of 26,000 people. The first owner of the Lions, George A. Richards, started the tradition as a gimmick to get people to go to Lions football games. Richards owned radio station WJR, a major affiliate of the NBC Blue Network. He was able to negotiate an agreement with NBC to carry his Thanksgiving games live across the network. During the Franksgiving controversy in 1939 and 1940, the only two teams to play the game were the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles. Due to World War II, the NFL did not schedule any Thanksgiving games in 1941 or until the war ended in 1945. When the games resumed in 1945, only the Lions' annual home game remained on the holiday. In 1951, the Packers began a 13-season run as the perpetual opponent to the Lions each year through 1963. This pairing became popularly known as the "Yooper Bowl".

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• 3. Dallas Cowboys Era

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  In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys joined the Lions as annual Thanksgiving Day hosts with a defeat of the visiting Cleveland Browns, 26, 14. It is widely rumored that the Cowboys sought a guarantee that they would regularly host Thanksgiving games as a condition of their very first one. Team president Tex Schramm volunteered to be host when the NFL proposed the second Thanksgiving game. Schramm anticipated a home field advantage because the shorter week would favor the home team. In 1975 and 1977, at the behest of then-Commissioner Pete Rozelle, the St. Louis Cardinals replaced Dallas as a host team. The Cardinals were nowhere near as popular nationwide as the Cowboys. A series of ugly Cardinals losses and opposition from the Kirkwood, Webster Groves Turkey Day Game led to Dallas resuming regular hosting duties in 1978. With their resumption as a regular NFL Thanksgiving Day venue, the Cowboys requested and received an agreement guaranteeing them a spot on Thanksgiving Day indefinitely. Since 1978, Thanksgiving games have been hosted in Detroit and Dallas every year.

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• 4. Prime Time Expansion

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  Since 2006, a third NFL game on Thanksgiving has been played in prime time. It originally aired on the NFL Network as part of its Thursday Night Football package until 2012. The night game was moved to NBC's Sunday Night Football package under the NFL's current television deals. The night game has never had a dedicated host team or any conference tie-in. The league can place any game into the time slot. The Kansas City Chiefs hosted the Denver Broncos in the first "Thanksgiving Tripleheader" primetime game in 2006. This game also marked the first time that more than two games were played on Thanksgiving since the AFL, NFL merger. In 2014, a system known as "cross-flex" was introduced, allowing CBS and Fox to carry games from the other conference. From 2014 to 2016, CBS carried all-NFC contests every year on Thanksgiving Day. The originally scheduled 2020 primetime game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers was postponed due to COVID-19 outbreaks.

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• 5. Broadcasting Evolution

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  DuMont was the first network to televise Thanksgiving Day games in 1953. CBS took over in 1956, and in 1958, the first color television broadcast of an NFL game was the Thanksgiving Day match between the Lions and the Baltimore Colts. Starting in 1970, the Detroit "early" game and the Dallas "late" game initially rotated annually as intra-conference and inter-conference games. This satisfied then-television contract balances between networks holding rights to the AFC package and the NFC package. When Fox acquired NFL rights in 1994, they debuted the hour-long Fox NFL Sunday pregame show. After Fox acquired rights, the league began rotating which network aired the early and late games. In 2014, cross-flex rules allowed for more flexibility in scheduling. Westwood One most recently held national radio broadcast rights to all three games. The participating teams also air the games on their local flagship stations and regional radio networks. While the Lions' Thanksgiving Day game is usually in the top five, the Cowboys' Thanksgiving Day game has regularly been the most watched NFL regular season telecast each year.

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• 6. Iconic Games And Records

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  In 1929, Chicago Cardinals' Ernie Nevers scored all 40 points in a 40, 6 rout over the Chicago Bears. A record that still stands. In 1962, the Detroit Lions handed the 10, 0 Green Bay Packers their lone defeat of the season, 26, 14. The game was dubbed the "Thanksgiving Day Massacre" due to the dominant performance by the Lions defense. In 1976, Buffalo Bills running back O. J. Simpson ran for 273 yards, an NFL record. The Lions won, 27, 14. In 1980, with the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears tied 17, 17, the first Thanksgiving overtime game was born. Speedy Bear Dave Williams returned the opening kickoff 95 yards in 13 seconds for a game-winning touchdown. In 1993, Cowboy defensive lineman Leon Lett gained fifteen minutes of national infamy when he accidentally turned an apparently game-winning field goal block into a fumble. In 2012, New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez ran headfirst into the buttocks of his own offensive lineman, guard Brandon Moore. The New England Patriots returned the fumble for a touchdown and would go on to win 49, 19.

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• 7. Cultural Impact And Awards

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  In 1997, the Salvation Army began the tradition of kicking off its Christmas Kettle campaign during halftime of the Dallas game. The campaign kickoff event includes a halftime show by a major recording artist. Halftime concerts were eventually added to the Detroit game, which traditionally supports the United Way's Live United campaign. In 1989, John Madden of CBS awarded the first "Turkey Leg Award" for the game's most valuable player. Reggie White of the Eagles was the first recipient. The gesture was seen mostly as an amusing gimmick tied to the holiday. Since then, however, the award has gained notoriety. Madden brought the award to Fox in 1994, and it continued through 2001. In 2002, Fox introduced a new award named the Galloping Gobbler. It was represented by a small silver figurine of a cartoonish turkey wearing a football helmet. Unimpressed by its tackiness, Emmitt Smith famously threw the 2002 award into a trash can. In 2011, the trophies were discarded altogether and replaced by a commemorative plaque. All three of the 2025 Thanksgiving games set NFL regular season viewership records.

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