When you think of Thanksgiving, you think of eating turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie, and of course football. It’s a tradition unlike any other for America.
One question you are practically guaranteed to hear every year is, “why do the Lions and Cowboys always play on Thanksgiving?”
Let’s go back to 1876, when rivals Yale and Princeton squared off on the holiday as the first football game to be played on Thanksgiving Day. From that day on multiple NFL teams had played on the holiday, but everything changed in 1934.
Lions’ team owner George A. Richards started the tradition for Detroit to play every year on Thanksgiving to get more fans into the stadium. It’s one of the few days of the year in which almost everybody is off so it would make sense that the Lions should be able to get more fans in the stadium that day.
Richards also owned a radio station called WJR. The station was an affiliate of the NBC Blue Network. Richards was then able to negotiate a deal with NBC to broadcast his Lions games on Thanksgiving each season.
Games were not played on the holiday between 1939-1944 until after World War ll.
In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys became involved in playing annually on Thanksgiving.
The NFL wanted to expand its marketing on Thanksgiving games in the early 1960s. The Cowboys’ first team president and general manager Tex Schramm loved the idea and offered to host the game in 1966. Schramm wanted to make sure his Cowboys were guaranteed the home game each season just like the Lions. Schramm had a marketing and broadcast background and knew this could give his Cowboys more national exposure.
Schramm also had the idea that playing on Thursday at home would be an advantage against the opponent because of the short travel week.
As time went on other teams wanted to host the Thanksgiving games so Commissioner Pete Rozelle allowed to St. Louis Cardinals to replace the Cowboys as a hosting team in 1975 and 1977.
Dallas would host the Cardinals in 1976. St. Louis suffered heavy losses in those three games and failed to bring in the same ratings as the Cowboys. Rozelle then agreed with having the Cowboys host a game on Thanksgiving each season moving forward. Since 1978, the Lions and Cowboys have hosted a home game each year on Thanksgiving.
In 2006, a third NFL game was added for a night time game that is now featured on NBC. This years third game won’t take place between the Steelers and Ravens after Baltimore had seven players test positive for COVOD-19 in three days. The game has been postponed to Sunday afternoon.
The Lions have an overall record of 37-41-2, while the Cowboys own an overall record of 31-20-1 on Thanksgiving.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are the only active team in the NFL to not play on Thanksgiving.
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