Football might just be the only thing that gets your drunk uncle to cool it with the political lectures at the dinner table this Thanksgiving. Welcome to an election year, folks.
Six NFL teams will go at it on Thanksgiving, with the Detroit Lions hosting the Chicago Bears, the New York Giants visiting the Dallas Cowboys and the Miami Dolphins hitting the road to face the Green Bay Packers.
This isn’t Christmas, but allow us to put on our cap and nightgown like Ebenezer Scrooge once did so that we can take a trip back to the past to relive some of Turkey Day’s best games.
5. Minnesota Vikings 46, Dallas Cowboys 36 (1998)
Someone should have suggested putting a body on Randy Moss, no?
Moss finished with only three catches—they just all happened to be touchdowns of at least 51 yards for a grand total of 163 yards on the day.
The only question is, what type of disastrous performance does Dallas have in store for us this year?
4. Indianapolis Colts 41, Detroit Lions 9 (2004)
Six passing touchdowns. Count ‘em. Six.
That’s how many Indianapolis signal-caller Peyton Manning had against the Lions to match a Thanksgiving Day record. However, he wasn’t necessarily spreading out the wealth, as three of those scores went to Marvin Harrison and the other three went to Brandon Stokley.
Making the performance that much more impressive was the fact that Manning had all of his TD passes in the first three quarters. Surprisingly, Detroit outgained the Colts 386-356.
3. New England Patriots 49, New York Jets 19 (2012)
Tom Brady threw for 323 yards and three touchdowns while rushing for a fourth, but it was New York quarterback Mark Sanchez who stole the spotlight—for all the wrong reasons.
Early in the second quarter, Sanchez tried to scramble on a busted play and failed miserably, running into his own offensive line. The ball came free when Sanchez collided with Brandon Moore, and thus the “butt fumble” was born.
New England scooped up the ball and scored on the play, adding insult to injury. Bad day to be a Jets fan.
2. Miami Dolphins 55, St. Louis Cardinals 14 (1977)
Before there was Manning, there was Miami’s Bob Griese.
Griese was the first one to throw for six touchdowns on Thanksgiving, and he helped the Dolphins hang 55 points, a record for the holiday at the time.
Plenty of quarterbacks have come and gone for Miami since Griese was under center. Tua Tagovailoa is now the guy, and six TD passes is never out of the question with playmakers like Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle and De’Von Achane alongside him.
1. Chicago Bears 23, Detroit Lions 17 (1980)
No game on Thanksgiving had ever gone to overtime until this one, but fans didn’t end up getting all that much extra football.
Dave Williams found the end zone on a 95-yard return on the opening kickoff of OT, with his fellow Bears rushing out onto the gridiron as he reached midfield during the play. Chicago had trailed 17-3 in the third quarter.
Don’t be expecting the Bears to pull off big plays like this nowadays, though.