Thanksgiving Football: A Long-Standing Tradition
November 24, 2020 2021-08-06 16:57Thanksgiving Football: A Long-Standing Tradition
NFL celebrates 100 years of Thanksgiving football games
Football is almost as synonymous with Thanksgiving as turkey, stuffing, and pie. So, what is the story of football being played on Thanksgiving? To find out, one would have to go back over a century.
The tradition stems from a college football game that was played in 1876 between Yale and Princeton. Yale ended up winning the game by the highly uncommon score of 2-0 in Hoboken, N.J. At that point in time, football was a newly invented game, but it didn’t take long for the tradition to take hold.
A similar Thanksgiving Day rivalry developed between the Universities of Michigan and Chicago in the late 1880s before spreading to the professional ranks. The first NFL game on Thanksgiving can be traced back to 1920, when seven games were played, including an All-Ohio matchup between the Canton Bulldogs and Akron Pros, who won 7-0.
The ensuing decades saw a dramatic shift in the tradition when college and high school football resigned to the bright lights of primetime NFL. Ever since 1934, when Detroit Lions owner George Richards first had the Lions play on Thanksgiving, Motown has hosted a Thanksgiving game each year, save for a few years missed in the ’40s due to World War II. The Dallas Cowboys are also well known for being consistent hosts of Thanksgiving matchups, having only missed two Turkey Day games since they began hosting in 1966.
2006 saw the expansion of the Thanksgiving “plate” of football games from two to three ballgames. I suppose we can assume that the NFL league office knows we can never get enough football, just like we can never get enough food.
This year the Lions will take on the Houston Texans in the CBS early time slot at 12:30 pm ET. The Cowboys will naturally host the Washington Football Team at 4:30 pm ET on FOX. You can cap off your day of socially distanced feasting by vegging out to watch the Baltimore Ravens take on the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers on NBC at 8:20 pm ET.
