NFL on Thanksgiving Day
In that year, the college football teams at Yale and Princeton began an annual tradition of playing each other on Thanksgiving Day.
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.
Members of the Ohio League, during its early years, usually placed their marquee matchups on Thanksgiving Day.
For instance, in 1905 and 1906 the Latrobe Athletic Association and Canton Bulldogs, considered at the time to be two of the best teams in professional football (along with the Massillon Tigers), played on Thanksgiving.
During the 1910s, the Ohio League stopped holding Thanksgiving games because many of its players coached high school teams and were unavailable.
This was not the case in other regional circuits: in 1919, the New York Pro Football League featured a Thanksgiving matchup between the Buffalo Prospects and the Rochester Jeffersons.
[10] What differentiated the Lions' efforts from other teams that played on the holiday was that Richards owned radio station WJR, a major affiliate of the NBC Blue Network (the forerunner to today's American Broadcasting Company); he was able to negotiate an agreement with NBC to carry his Thanksgiving games live across the network.
Likewise, the AFL of 1926 also played two Thanksgiving games in its lone season of existence, while the AFL of 1936 hosted one in its first season, which featured the Cleveland Rams, a future NFL team, and the 1940–41 incarnation of the American Football League played two games in 1940 on the earlier "Franksgiving" date.
In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys, who had been founded six years earlier, adopted the practice of hosting Thanksgiving games.
[13] This is only partly true: Dallas had in fact decided on their own to host games on Thanksgiving; team president Tex Schramm was enticed by the publicity that would come with a permanent nationally televised contest and volunteered to be host when the NFL proposed the second Thanksgiving game.
This, combined with St. Louis's consistently weak attendance, a series of ugly Cardinals losses in the three-game stretch, and opposition from the Kirkwood–Webster Groves Turkey Day Game (a local high school football contest) led to Dallas resuming regular hosting duties in 1978.
In 2013, the Cowboys intended to wear their 1960s throwbacks, but chose not to do so after the NFL adopted a new policy requiring players and teams to utilize only one helmet a season to address the league's new concussion protocol; rather than sport an incomplete throwback look, the Cowboys instead wore their standard blue jerseys at home for the first time since 1963.
In 2022, after the NFL lifted the one-helmet rule, the Cowboys resumed wearing the throwback navy "Double-Star" jerseys on Thanksgiving.
In 1997, the Salvation Army began the tradition of kicking off its Christmas Kettle campaign during halftime of the Dallas game.
[43] It has remained a tradition for the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions to host the afternoon games dating several decades.
[45] NFL commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that the Lions would stay on Thanksgiving Day for the 2009 season, but kept the issue open to revisit in the future.
[46][47] Conversely, the Dallas Cowboys, who typically represent a larger television draw,[48] have had far fewer public calls to be replaced on Thanksgiving Day.
With the introduction of the prime time game, which effectively allows all teams in the league an opportunity to play on Thanksgiving Day, along with the introduction of year-long Thursday Night Football ensuring all teams have one Thursday game during the regular season (thus negating any on-field advantages or disadvantages to being selected for Thanksgiving Day), the calls for the Lions and the Cowboys to be removed have diminished.
In 2014, a system known as "cross-flex" was introduced, in which the two networks bound by conference restrictions, CBS and Fox, could carry games from the other conference as part of their Sunday afternoon package,[50][51] including the potential for CBS to broadcast an NFC vs. NFC game on Thanksgiving Day.
New Orleans, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Houston, and Carolina all played their first Thanksgiving games during this time frame.
The Los Angeles Chargers, who last played on the holiday in 1969 (while the team was still an AFL franchise in San Diego), appeared for the first time as an NFL member in 2017.
Running back Emmitt Smith holds the record for most Thanksgiving MVPs with five (1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2002), followed by Tony Romo with four (2006, 2007, 2009, 2013).
The gesture was seen mostly as an amusing gimmick tied to the holiday and relating to Madden's famous multi-legged turkeys and turduckens.
It was represented by a small silver figurine of a cartoonish turkey wearing a football helmet[59] striking a Heisman-like pose.
[60] Much like Cleatus and Digger, the original Galloping Gobbler trophy reflected Fox's irreverent mascots, and went through several iterations.
In 2008, Simms stated it was "too close to call" and named four players to the trophy; he then gave the award to several people every year until 2013, after which he reverted to a single MVP in 2014.
As in CBS' regular Sunday afternoon NFL coverage as well as Fox's regular NFL coverage, Chevrolet will donate money in the player's name to the United Way if the game is played in Detroit, or the Salvation Army if the Thanksgiving Day game is played in Dallas.
NBC began broadcasting the Thanksgiving prime time game in 2012, at which point the MVP award was added.
The winning players are presented with ceremonial game balls and, as a gesture to Madden, a cooked turkey leg.
[2] Turkey legs continue to be awarded to the players of the game in homage to Madden,[68] except for 2023 when Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love was informed that there was none available.
