Butterballs and football have become as synonymous with Thanksgiving as sweatpants and leftovers. A day of gratitude and family has turned into dinner with rivals. The Dallas Cowboys cause more turkey day disputes than kids fighting over the wishbone… Detroit Lions football is a bigger Thanksgiving tradition than the Macy’s Parade. I want to think that the earliest game of football took place between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags in an epic gridiron battle for Plymouth Rock. But unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
The First Thanksgiving Game: The Appetizer
In the late 1800s, someone with foresight decided that holding football games on Thanksgiving was a brilliant idea, since people already had the day off and could attend the games. Judging by the popularity of the games today, I would say that they were definitely onto something.
In 1869, the Young American Cricket Club took the field against the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia, PA, for the first-ever Thanksgiving football game. Two weeks before this matchup, Rutgers University defeated Princeton University in the very first intercollegiate football game. Philadelphia was chosen for the inaugural game because it was approximately halfway between Rutgers and Princeton, so it is believed that both teams played by the same rules.
College Football: The Blessing
On November 30, 1876, Princeton lost to Yale University in the first turkey day college football game. Nearly 1,000 people braved the rain and cold to witness this spectacle. This incarnation of football more closely resembled rugby than the game we know today. They would go on to play each other every year over a five-year span.
Due to the game’s growing popularity, the Intercollegiate Football Association (IFA) decided to move the game to New York and hold its championship game on Thanksgiving. The first three championship games between Yale and Princeton ended in scoreless ties.
Their meeting in 1881 drew over 10,000 spectators, and the attendance numbers continued to grow. By the mid-1880s, more games were added to the Thanksgiving menu to whet the appetites of hungry football fans. Wesleyan and Pennsylvania became an annual tradition that fans looked forward to each year.
Soon, more rivalries were born. One of the biggest rivalries of the 19th century was the annual University of Kansas-University of Missouri match took place in Kansas City, MO, for nineteen straight years, starting in 1892. The University of Michigan also played nineteen consecutive games against its rivals, the Chicago Maroons. The Ohio State University has since replaced the Maroons as Michigan’s Thanksgiving weekend dinner date.
High School Pigskin: Food Fight at the Kiddie Table
By the mid-1890s, high schools joined in the fun, often showcasing rivalry or championship games, depending on the state or region. Typically, the Thanksgiving Day games are the most important and largest attended games for these schools. For most schools, it is the biggest game of the season.
The earliest turkey day high school football game (1875) between Norwich Free Academy (CT) and New London High (CT) became America’s oldest public school rivalry. And Wellesley (MA) and Needham (MA) have crossed turkeys since 1882.
These football rivalries are so heated, they could roast your Thanksgiving bird. Following an NFA-New London game in the mid-1970s, a fight broke out during the post-game handshakes. In 1991, Needham students called in a bomb threat, abruptly cancelling their Thanksgiving game. While these rivalries have their history, another pair of New England high schools takes the cake… or should I say, pumpkin pie.
Boston Latin and Boston English are two of the oldest public high schools in the country. Their rivalry is so strong, they hold the longest continuous streak of Thanksgiving Day games. Their first meeting was in 1887, and they continued until 2020, when COVID-19 ruined everyone’s lives and banned football. The game was so important to these foes that they played through both World Wars, when most other schools paused their games for battle.
Professional Football: The Main Course
The earliest Thanksgiving Day professional football game predates the National Football League back to the 1890s. The first iteration of the NFL, which was affiliated with Major League Baseball, kicked off in 1902 and consisted of only three teams from Pennsylvania. They had scheduled their championship game for Thanksgiving, but it ended in a tie, so all three teams in the league falsely claimed the title. The league folded after just one season.
Also in 1902, another professional football league was launched in Ohio, featuring teams from, you guessed it, Ohio. Most notably, the Canton Bulldogs and the Massillon Tigers. In 1906, the Bulldogs and Tigers were involved in a betting scandal.
The plot involved the Tigers’ end, Walter East, and Bulldogs coach Blondy Wallace fixing a series of games that would guarantee that their championship series would go the maximum three games. Both denied fixing the games, but it cost the league viewership as a result. The Bulldogs wound up in the league’s doghouse and ceased operations.
Eventually, the Ohio League would become the NFL, and in 1934, it held its first Thanksgiving Day football game. Detroit Lions owner George A. Richards introduced this tradition to encourage attendance at games. The game featured the Lions versus the Chicago Bears, a match that helped build the historical rivalry we see today. Americans had football with their meals every Thanksgiving until World War II starved fans in 1944.
From 1951 to 1963, the Lions and the Green Bay Packers would hold on-field debates over which casserole side dish was better, green bean or sweet potatoes… Soon, cranberry sauce began gaining steam as a formidable companion to turkey, so in 1966, the Dallas Cowboys entered the fold.
Former Cowboys owner Tex Schramm sought a larger television audience and believed that hosting the Thursday afternoon game gave his team an advantage. Dallas would host from 1966-1975, until former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle awarded hosting duties to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1975 and 1977, with Dallas resuming host duties in 1976 and 1978.
Since 1978, Detroit and Dallas have hosted Thanksgiving games. The Lions eat early, typically at 1:00 pm EST, and the Cowboys have an early dinner around 4:30 pm. This year, Detroit hosts their cheese-headed rivals, the Packers, while Dallas welcomes the Kansas City Chiefs to an old western-style shootout.
Just as over-indulged football fans were unfastening the buttons on their fat pants, in 2006, the NFL offered us dessert. They added a third game to the primetime schedule. This game doesn’t have an assigned host, but it typically features divisional matchups, like this year’s AFC North battle between the Baltimore Ravens and the visiting Cincinnati Bengals.
Fun Facts: Leftovers
Many teams playing on Thanksgiving choose to have a little fun and wear throwback uniforms. I am a sports historian and can appreciate when teams dig deep into their closets and dust off some classic digs for old times’ sake. Like when Dallas dug out the navy blue “double star” jerseys as a shout-out to the 1990s Cowboys dynasty.
In 1989, legendary football coach and commentator John Madden (yes, the video game guy) began awarding a turkey leg to the Thanksgiving game MVP. This evolved into a six-legged turkey so he could award more than one MVP, like the Dallas Cowboys’ offensive line. Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith holds the most Thanksgiving MVP awards, earning five.
As of 2024, three teams have played only one Thanksgiving Day game: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Carolina Panthers, and the Bengals (who will soon have played two). One lonely team has never been invited to dine at the table: the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Los Angeles Rams have played in five Thanksgiving games but have not been invited back since 1975.
If you weren’t already stuffed, in 2023, the NFL added a Black Friday game to the menu. Thus far, the Black Friday games have been divisional rivalries: Miami Dolphins vs. New York Jets and Las Vegas Raiders vs. Kansas City Chiefs. This year’s contest is a historic rivalry, often unspoken, between the Chicago Bears and the Philadelphia Eagles.
The two teams have battled each other 47 times. Some older fans might remember the 1988 Bears’ playoff victory in a game known as the “Fog Bowl.” Or the “double-doink” Eagles playoff win from 2018, where Cody Parkey hit the upright and crossbar on a missed field goal.
Turkey Day Food Coma
Say what you want about the NFL, but they are keeping us fed this Thanksgiving. This year, I will be wearing my throwback Aiden Hutchinson Lions jersey while feasting on cranberry sauce, mashed taters, and turkey drowned in gravy, and trying my darndest not to put myself into a pie-induced food coma.
My Turkey Day advice: show up to the table in your stretchiest sweatpants; it will ease the discomfort of the gluttonous festivities you may partake in. Take a pre-meal nap. Don’t be that guy, passed out on the couch, catching flies with your mouth wide open because you indulged in too much turkey. Be thankful. Not just for family, friends, and food, but for football as well… Oh yeah, be safe and save room for pie.
