How football became synonymous with Thanksgiving

By Andy Scholes, CNN

(CNN) — Family, food and football: That’s what Thanksgiving is all about.

The NFL has hosted games on the annual November holiday since the 1920s, and the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys are the two traditional teams involved in the afternoon games every year.

It all started back in 1934 – the Lions were a brand-new team struggling to fill their stadium. So, owner George Richards came up with a brilliant idea: Host a game on Thanksgiving Day and broadcast it nationwide on his radio network.

Detroit sold out that first game, and the tradition stuck.

Fast forward to 1966 – Dallas wanted in. The Cowboys were still building their fanbase, and general manager Tex Schramm figured a Thanksgiving game would put “America’s Team” on the map.

He was right. The ratings soared – and outside of a couple years in the 1970s, Dallas has been a Thanksgiving mainstay ever since.

So now every year, Detroit kicks things off early, Dallas takes the late afternoon spot – and since 2006, the NFL has added a primetime game to make it a full day of football feasting from sun-up to lights out.

“It’s a blessing. It’s something that I never take for granted,” said Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. “Putting on the special (jerseys), you know, since we went back to the throwback uniforms, it just brings me back to being a kid and watching the Cowboys every Thanksgiving, going outside, playing with my brothers after we ate, or during halftime or whatever it may be.

“And so just to think about all the other families and kids and people out there that are watching us and that we can inspire and just by the way that we play the game, I don’t take it for granted.”

This year’s slate has two great divisional matchups: The Lions hosting the Green Bay Packers in a NFC North showdown, while Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens host the Cincinnati Bengals in the nightcap with Joe Burrow expected to make his long-awaited return from injury.

In the middle game, Patrick Mahomes will make his Thanksgiving Day debut as he returns home to Texas with the Kansas City Chiefs to take on the Cowboys.

“It’s about rebounding fast, trying to be better, even better this next week going into a big environment, big game,” Mahomes said after defeating the Indianapolis Colts in overtime on Sunday. “It’s going to be a lot of fun going to Dallas and getting to play on Thanksgiving.”

The Thanksgiving Day games have also brought iconic voices into our living rooms for much of our lives and made them synonymous with the day. For many, John Madden and Pat Summerall were the voices of Thanksgiving. They called 20 Thanksgiving games together over the course of two decades and, in 1997, introduced the world to the turducken.

“This is a turducken right here. You know what a turducken is? A turducken is a deboned duck stuffed in a deboned chicken stuffed in a deboned turkey. With stuffing and now you’re talking. And that has eight legs,” Madden memorably said at the time.

Madden began celebrating the players of the game with a turkey leg in 1989 and it is a tradition that is still going today.

Even Tom Brady loves him some turducken, trying it for the first time last year in the Fox broadcast booth: “How did a duck and a chicken get roped into this? They thought turkey was a Thanksgiving thing,” he said, pausing for a bite. “Wow, that’s good.”

From the Lions and Cowboys to the turkey legs and turducken, Thanksgiving football is more than a game – it’s a holiday tradition.

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