For the past 100 years, the American Thanksgiving tradition has gone hand in hand with NFL football. The league has scheduled at least one game on Turkey Day every single year since 1920, with the notable exceptions of 1941-1944 during World War II. While their Thanksgiving traditions aren’t quite as long as the league’s, the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys have also become synonymous with the holiday over the last half-century.
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Detroit is one of the oldest franchises in football, and their Thanksgiving tradition stretches all the way back to 1934. Dallas, on the other hand, was an expansion team added to the fold in 1960. The Cowboys’ Thanksgiving ties don’t run as deep as Detroit’s, but they run far deeper than any of the other 30 teams.
Dallas’ Thanksgiving tradition began just a half dozen years into their existence, back in 1966. Unsurprisingly, the driving force was money. The Cowboys had been struggling under head coach Tom Landry (a future Hall of Famer), and general manager Tex Schramm wanted to boost the team in the national consciousness. He believed a game on Thanksgiving would help.
The league was apprehensive, even guaranteeing Dallas a share of the gate in case no one showed. It turns out there was nothing to worry about. The Cowboys won (against the Browns) in upset fashion in front of over 80,000 fans in attendance, which was a franchise record at the time.
Since that wildly successful inaugural Cowboys Thanksgiving game, they have played on Turkey Day every year with two exceptions. In 1975 and 1977, the league allowed the St. Louis Cardinals to play on Thanksgiving, hoping it would have the same impact for them as it did for Dallas. It did not, and the Cowboys returned to their familiar spot on Thanksgiving in 1978 and never looked back.
As has become customary, the Lions get the early 12:30 PM kickoff. The Cowboys are happy to take the later afternoon kickoff, generally at 4:30 PM nowadays. For decades that was the Thanksgiving schedule: Lions, then Cowboys. However, by 2006, the NFL wanted to increase its Thanksgiving Day profits, and so added a third game in the evening.
The Cowboys are hungry for more than just turkey this Thanksgiving
Dallas will be hoping that this familiar Turkey Day game can help jolt them back into relevance. They got a shock win against the Washington Commanders last week, but at 4-7, they’re in dire straits. Luckily for them, they have historically fared well on Thanksgiving, boasting a 33-22-1 record all-time.
They are also on a two-game winning streak on Thanksgiving, having snapped a three-game losing skid back in 2022 with a win over the New York Giants.
And who do they take on this Thanksgiving but those same Giants, who are one of the few teams one could say is in a worse situation than Dallas. They cut their $40 million QB, Daniel Jones, last week. Their replacement, Tommy DeVito, is now unsure to play on Thanksgiving after suffering an injury in last week’s heavy loss.
That means Drew Lock is likely to start against Dallas. That’s somewhat unlucky, as it could be argued that he was their best signal caller all along.
Both of these teams are essentially just playing for pride right now. While many have said they’re scheduling their Thanksgiving naps for this game’s 4:30 PM kickoff, we think it might be worth a watch. If Dallas can pull out a win and improve to 5-7, perhaps Dak Prescott will return before the season’s end.
That would be ideal, rather than the star QB being shut down for the rest of the year, which seems the likeliest scenario right now.
