The National Football League's Thanksgiving Classic is a series of games played during the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. It has been a regular occurrence since the league's inception in 1920. Since 2006, three games are played every Thanksgiving. The first two are hosted by the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys, with one team from each conference playing either team on a rotating basis; a third game, with no fixed opponents, has been played annually since 2006.
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The game with an NFC team as the visitors airs on Fox, as it has the rights to the NFC; CBS airs the game with the AFC team as a visitor, as it has the rights to the AFC. Since 2006, there has been a third NFL game on Thanksgiving that airs on NFL Network as part of its Thursday Night Football package. Beginning in 2012, NBC will carry the Thanksgiving night game, due to a change in the network's television contract.
The NFL on Westwood One holds national radio broadcast rights to all three games. The team's usual Thursday night announcers handle the evening game, with a mix of other Westwood One announcers handling the Cowboys game. The Detroit game, however, uses other announcers not normally employed by Westwood One; Detroit-area broadcasters were used until 2008, but in 2009, Sports USA Radio Network took over the announcing duties for the Lions game.
Football games being played on Thanksgiving Day date back to 1876, When Yale and Princeton began an annual tradition of playing each other on Thanksgiving Day.[1] The University of Michigan also made it a tradition to play annual Thanksgiving games, holding 19 such games from 1885 to 1905.[2][3][4][5][6] The Thanksgiving Day games between Michigan and the Chicago Maroons in the 1890s have been cited as "The Beginning of Thanksgiving Day Football."[7]
By the time football had become a professional event, playing on Thanksgiving had already become an institution. 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. In 1902, the "National" Football League, a Major League Baseball-backed organization based entirely in Pennsylvania and unrelated to the current NFL, attempted to settle its championship over Thanksgiving weekend; after the game ended in a tie, eventually all three teams in the league claimed to have won the title. 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. A rigging scandal with the Tigers leading up to the 1906 game led to severe drops in attendance for the Bulldogs and ultimately led to their suspension of operations. 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. The game ended in a scoreless tie, leading to a rematch the next Sunday for the league championship.
The first owner of the Lions, G.A. Richards, started the tradition of the Thanksgiving Day game as a gimmick to get people to go to Lions football games, and to continue a tradition begun by the city's previous NFL teams.[8]
Several other NFL teams played regularly on Thanksgiving in first eighteen years of the league, including the Chicago Bears and Chicago Cardinals (1922–33; the Bears played the Lions from 1934 to 1938 while the Cardinals switched to the Green Bay Packers for 1934 and 1935), Frankford Yellow Jackets, and the New York Giants (1929–38, who always played a crosstown rival). During the Franksgiving controversy in 1939 and 1940, the only two teams to play the game were the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles, as both teams were in the same state (Pennsylvania). (At the time, then-president Franklin Roosevelt wanted to move the holiday for economic reasons and many states were resistant to the move; half the states recognized the move and the other half did not. This complicated scheduling for Thanksgiving games. Incidentally, the two teams were also exploring the possibility of a merger at the time.[9]) Because of the looming World War II and the resulting shorter seasons, the NFL did not schedule any Thanksgiving games in 1941, nor did it schedule any in the subsequent years until the war ended in 1945. When the Thanksgiving games resumed in 1945, only one game would be played each year (except 1950 and 1952), and only the Lions would have a permanent Thanksgiving game. In 1951, the Packers resumed its regular role on Thanksgiving, becoming the perpetual opponent to the Lions each year through 1963.
In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys, who had been founded six years earlier, adopted the practice of hosting Thanksgiving games. It is widely rumored that the Cowboys sought a guarantee that they would regularly host Thanksgiving games as a condition of their very first one (since games on days other than Sunday were uncommon at the time and thus high attendance was not a certainty). Incidentally, Texas was the last state to recognize the "fourth Thursday" rule for Thanksgiving that had been imposed as a result of the Franksgiving compromise two decades prior, and had just adopted the rule (as opposed to the previous last Thanksgiving rule) in 1961, five years before Dallas started hosting Thanksgiving games. (The fourth and final Thursdays were the same between 1957 and 1960; the last time Texas had celebrated Thanksgiving on the week after the rest of the country was 1956.) The two "traditional" Thanksgiving Day pro football games have then been in Detroit and Dallas. Because of TV network commitments, to make sure that both the AFC-carrying network and the NFC-carrying network got at least one game each, one of these games was between NFC opponents, and one featured AFC-NFC opponents. Thus, the AFC could showcase only one team on Thanksgiving, and the AFC team was always the visiting team.
Since 2006, a third NFL game on Thanksgiving has been played at night. It originally aired on the NFL Network as part of its Thursday Night Football package until 2011; NBC will carry this game beginning in 2012. The Thanksgiving night game has no fixed opponents or conferences, enabling the league to freely choose whatever marquee match-up to feature on that night.
From 2001 to 2004, teams playing on Thanksgiving wore throwback uniforms to celebrate the teams' heritage, similar to those adopted in the 1994 season when the league celebrated its 75th anniversary. As the traditional home teams Detroit and Dallas were, naturally, the most notable. Detroit always wore uniforms based on those of its early years. Therefore, the Lions had to remove all decals from their helmets to reflect the absence of helmet logos in that earlier era, and for the 2008 season, revived that tradition against the Tennessee Titans on November 27. The Lions and New England Patriots both wore throwbacks for their November 25, 2010 matchup.
From 2001–2003, Dallas chose to represent the 1990s Cowboys dynasty who won three Super Bowls in a four-year span by wearing the navy "Double-Star" jersey not seen since the 1995 season. In 2004, the team went further back into its history by wearing uniforms not seen since the team's inception in 1960. The 2007 season marked the first time since 2000 that the Cowboys chose to wear their home white uniforms for their annual Thanksgiving game.
Since the 2005 season, teams have been permitted to wear their throwback jersey on any two weeks of the year, not necessarily Thanksgiving. In 2009, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the fourth American Football League, both the Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders played in a "AFL Legacy Game" as both teams began play in 1960.
Though the San Diego Chargers have not played on Thanksgiving itself since the AFL-NFL merger, they also wore their throwback white helmets and "powder blue" jerseys on Thanksgiving weekend during this time. The popularity of the throwback jerseys led to the team returning to white helmets in 2007 as well as several other teams (beginning with the Buffalo Bills in 2005 and subsequently with many other teams in 2007) adopting throwback uniforms as their third jersey. The Chargers wore the 1963 throwbacks as part of the 2009 celebration of the AFL's 50th Anniversary, but not on Thanksgiving.
During the years when throwbacks were used regularly, NFL.com altered its team logo frame to have the logos of each team be retro.
A legend states that the Chicago Tigers and Decatur Staleys challenged each other to a Thanksgiving duel, in Chicago, in the league's inaugural season, with the loser being relegated out of the league at the end of the season and the winners getting shared NFL franchise rights to the city of Chicago (along with the Chicago Cardinals). The legend purports to explain why the Tigers were the only NFL team to fold after the 1920 season (no other team would fold until 1921) and why the Staleys relocated to Chicago that year, later adopting their current name, the "Chicago Bears." However, though in fact the two did meet that year (with Decatur winning 6-0), the claims of it being a duel are unsubstantiated. Staleys owner George Halas, by all indications, was looking to move to Chicago all along (but in fact did not do so until a week into the 1921 season). Furthermore, and more importantly, there's no evidence that the Tigers were at any of the league's organizational meetings and is widely believed to have never joined the league at all; the only reason that they are listed as such today is because they played all of their games up to that point against NFL teams. (Some sources claim that it was the Cardinals-Tigers matchup on November 7, 1920 that was the subject of the duel, though this is even more suspicious because they played two more league games after that point.) The Tigers, after a 27-0 win over the non-league Thorn Tornadoes the next week, never played football again.
The 1921 Thanksgiving matchup between the same Chicago Staleys and the Buffalo All-Americans was notable in that the two teams were undefeated; after Buffalo defeated Chicago, the Staleys (who had refused to play any games outside of their home stadium at all that year) demanded a rematch. Buffalo agreed, on the condition that the rematch be considered an exhibition game and not be counted in the standings. After Chicago won the December 4 rematch, Halas turned to the league and demanded the game be counted. The league agreed with Chicago, and furthermore instituted a now-obsolete tiebreaker saying the rematch actually counted more than the original game, giving the championship to Chicago in a decision referred to as the "Staley Swindle" by some Buffalo sports fans.
DuMont was the first network to televise Thanksgiving games in 1953; CBS took over in 1956, and in 1965, the first ever color television broadcast of an NFL game was the Thanksgiving match between the Lions and the Baltimore Colts. NFL Network's "Top 10 Thanksgiving Day Moments" incorrectly recognized the 1965 Dallas-Washington game as being a Thanksgiving Day game, it was played Sunday November 28.
Some memorable Thanksgiving Day games include the 1962 Lions handing the 10-0 Green Bay Packers their lone defeat of the season and the 1974 Cowboys-Redskins game in which unknown Cowboys backup quarterback Clint Longley took over for an injured Roger Staubach with the team down 16-3 and rallied them to an improbable victory on two deep passes. A similar experience occurred in 1994 when Troy Aikman was injured and third-string Cowboys quarterback Jason Garrett was forced to start against the Green Bay Packers and won in a shoot-out with Brett Favre 42-31. Furthering this a decade later, Drew Henson started for the Cowboys in 2004 against the Bears; after showing no performance in the first half, he was benched in favor of Vinny Testaverde. Testeverde, with the help of then-rookie running back Julius Jones, led the Cowboys to a 21-7 win.
In the 1976 Thanksgiving matchup between the Lions and the Buffalo Bills, the Bills put forth at the same time one of the best and the worst performances in Thanksgiving history. On the positive side, running back O. J. Simpson set the league record for most rushing yards in a single game, with 273. However, Simpson achieved this feat due in large part to the fact that the Bills' backup quarterback, Gary Marangi, gained only 29 yards passing and completed only 4 out of 21 passes, in addition to throwing an interception affording a passer rating of 19.7. Despite Simpson's record-setting performance, the Bills lost the game, 27-14. Simpson's record would later be surpassed numerous times (the current record is 296, set by Adrian Peterson in 2007).
In 1980, Chicago Bear David Williams returned the opening kickoff in overtime for a touchdown against Detroit, the only time that has happened on a Thanksgiving game.
1986's Thanksgiving matchup between the Lions and the Packers, the highest scoring game in Thanksgiving history, was the best day of receiver Walter Stanley's career; Stanley netted 207 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns in the contest, including an 83-yard punt return to win the game for the Packers, 44-40. Stanley had an otherwise undistinguished career in the NFL.
The 1989 Bounty Bowl between the Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles, a 27-0 drubbing of the home team, led to allegations that the Eagles had placed a bounty on the Cowboys kicker, thus becoming the first of a string of three bitterly-contested games between the two teams, the other two being Bounty Bowl II later that year and the Porkchop Bowl the next season.
Some of the games have been infamous for other reasons. In 1993, the Cowboys led the Dolphins 14-13 with just seconds remaining in a snow-filled Texas Stadium. Miami's Pete Stoyanovich attempted a game winning 40-yard field goal that was blocked by the Cowboys' Jimmie Jones. Dick Enberg of NBC proclaimed "The Cowboys will win." However, Cowboys defensive lineman Leon Lett chased the ball and touched it, giving the Dolphins a chance to regain possession, and then kick a much shorter field goal to take a 16-14 victory.
In 1998, the Steelers and Lions went to overtime. Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis called the coin toss in the air, but confusion surrounded the call. The officials misheard Pittsburgh's call and awarded Detroit the ball, who went on to win 19-16 on their first drive in overtime. As a result of the fiasco, team captains are now required to call the coin toss before the coin is tossed.
The 2008 season saw the 10-1 Titans (who finished with the league's best record that season at 13-3) on the road at the 0-11 Lions (who finished without a single win that season). Perhaps as expected, the game was a ridiculous blowout, as the Titans scored 35 points in the first half. The Titans finished the game winning 47-10, with two 100 yard rushers. It was one of the all time most lopsided results in Thanksgiving day football history.
The 2010 Thanksgiving game between the Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints saw only the second attempted drop kick since the 1940s. Punter Mat McBriar (who, having played Australian rules football in his youth, was familiar with the maneuver) attempted a maneuver similar to a drop kick after a botched punt attempt, but the ball bounced several times before the kick and the sequence of events is officially recorded as a fumble, followed by an illegal kick, with the fumble being recovered by the New Orleans Saints 29 yards downfield from the spot of the kick. The Saints declined the illegal kick penalty.[10][11]
The 2011 trio of games[12] is being lauded as perhaps the best Thanksgiving slate of games in NFL history and "appealing, for once."[13] The Detroit Lions hosted the Green Bay Packers, the Dallas Cowboys the Miami Dolphins, and the Baltimore Ravens the San Francisco 49ers.
While it has remained a tradition to keep the games in their host cities every season, in recent years NFL fans as well as other teams have wanted the Thanksgiving games rotated on an annual basis. The NFL adopted a compromise position in 2006 when it added the third game to NFL Network, rotated on an annual basis, while also allowing the Cowboys and Lions to keep their annual home games.
The issue once again came to a head in 2008, albeit solely focusing on the Lions, heading into that year's Thanksgiving games. Leading into the game, there was already some popular support (including from NFL.com columnist Nick Bakay[14] and ESPN personalities Mike Ditka, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic[15]) for removing the Lions from the Thanksgiving game and replacing it with a game with more of a playoff impact, either through rotation like the night game or one that is flexibly scheduled. The Lions matchup was with the Tennessee Titans, whose undefeated season had come to an end in their regular Sunday game that week to the New York Jets, while the Lions were entering the game winless and, by the end of the season, had become the first NFL team to lose every game in a season since the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished 0–14 in their expansion season. The team has also had three local blackouts heading into the game, the first non-sellouts for the team since 2001, and required an extension to sell out the Thanksgiving game in time for it to be televised locally.[16] Indeed, the Titans improved to 11–1 for the year by crushing the Lions 47–10, dropping the Lions to 0–12 and handing them their worst loss ever (measured by margin of loss, 37 points) on Thanksgiving.[17]
Following the 2008 season, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed that the Lions will be permitted to keep their Thanksgiving game for at least the 2009 season. Though league officials reserved the right to revisit the situation, this did not occur, and the Lions played on Thanksgiving as usual.[18] Lions president Tom Lewand claims that their game is not in jeopardy, the controversy is media-generated and that the owners have never seriously talked about removing them; however, this contradicts Goodell who stated that "it's come up a few times."[19] On March 23, 2009, the league owners officially kept the Lions on the Thanksgiving game with an announcement that the Lions would host the Green Bay Packers, one of their division rivals, on November 26.
If a change were to be made, under current television contracts with CBS and Fox (which expire after the 2013 season), the early game (with a 12:30 start time) would have to be hosted by a team in the Eastern Time Zone and in the United States (if it were to be moved back a half-hour, the Central Time Zone would also be eligible to host, but because of numerous issues including extended halftime shows, this is unlikely; the annual game in Toronto is also out of the running because the date of American Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Canada), and their opponent be of the opposite conference of the one playing the Cowboys (as it is today). Furthermore, such a move would leave the Dallas Cowboys as the only team to always play on Thanksgiving, and with the Cowboys being the league's biggest television draw,[20] there have been far fewer public calls to remove them. SI.com columnist Peter King had originally speculated during the controversy that when the current schedule rotation ends after 2009, both the Cowboys' and Lions' home Thanksgiving games will be reassessed by the league and possibly revoked—the Lions' for their poor performance, and the Cowboys because of a perceived unfair home field advantage that requires the visiting team to both travel and prepare for a game only four days after their previous one.[21] This never materialized, and the 2010 NFL season featured no changes to the permanent hosting.
In 2010, the rotating host team was the New York Jets, who hosted the Cincinnati Bengals in the New Meadowlands Stadium, which the two New York teams share. The Jets and Bengals played on the NFL Network Thanksgiving evening. The traditional Thanksgiving Day participants - Detroit and Dallas - played in the afternoon. Detroit hosted the New England Patriots in the early game; Dallas hosted the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints in the late game.[22]
2011 featured the defending Super Bowl champions playing on Thanksgiving - the Green Bay Packers visited the Lions. The nightcap featured the Baltimore Ravens as they hosted the San Francisco 49ers, who ended a long Thanksgiving drought, having last appeared in 1972.
(Winning teams are denoted by boldface type; tie games are italicized.)
* Non NFL team games between league teams and non league teams counted in the 1920 standings. The All-Tonawanda Lumberjacks later joined the league as the Tonawanda Kardex, albeit only for one game.
Of current NFL franchises. This includes American Football League and All-America Football Conference games.
| Team | Last Game | Wins | Losses | Ties | Win Pct. | Other names appeared under |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore Ravens | 2011 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | ||
| New Orleans Saints | 2010 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | ||
| Indianapolis Colts | 2007 | 2 | 0 | 1 | .833 | Baltimore Colts (1953–83) |
| Minnesota Vikings | 2000 | 5 | 1 | .833 | ||
| Philadelphia Eagles | 2008 | 4 | 1 | .800 | ||
| St. Louis Rams | 1975 | 3 | 1 | .750 | Cleveland Rams (1937–45), Los Angeles Rams (1946–94) | |
| Miami Dolphins | 2011 | 5 | 2 | .714 | ||
| Tennessee Titans | 2008 | 5 | 2 | .714 | Houston Oilers (1960–96), Tennessee Oilers (1997–98) | |
| San Francisco 49ers | 2011 | 3 | 1 | 1 | .700 | |
| Dallas Cowboys | 2011 | 28 | 15 | 1 | .636 | |
| San Diego Chargers | 1969 | 2 | 1 | 1 | .625 | |
| New York Giants | 2009 | 7 | 4 | 3 | .607 | |
| New York Jets | 2010 | 4 | 3 | .571 | New York Titans (1960–62) | |
| Chicago Bears | 2004 | 16 | 13 | 2 | .548 | Decatur Staleys (1920), Chicago Staleys (1921) |
| Kansas City Chiefs | 2006 | 5 | 5 | .500 | Dallas Texans (1960–62), does not include 1-0 record of unrelated NFL Dallas Texans. | |
| Oakland Raiders | 2009 | 3 | 3 | .500 | ||
| Cleveland Browns | 1989 | 3 | 3 | .500 | ||
| New England Patriots | 2010 | 2 | 2 | .500 | ||
| Atlanta Falcons | 2007 | 1 | 1 | .500 | ||
| Detroit Lions | 2011 | 33 | 37 | 2 | .472 | |
| Green Bay Packers | 2011 | 14 | 18 | 2 | .441 | |
| Buffalo Bills | 1994 | 3 | 5 | 1 | .389 | Does not include 1-0 record of unrelated AAFC team of same name. |
| Denver Broncos | 2009 | 4 | 7 | .364 | ||
| Seattle Seahawks | 2008 | 1 | 2 | .333 | ||
| Pittsburgh Steelers | 1998 | 2 | 4 | .333 | ||
| Arizona Cardinals | 2008 | 6 | 15 | 2 | .304 | Chicago Cardinals (1920–59), St. Louis Cardinals (1960–87), Phoenix Cardinals (1988–93) |
| Washington Redskins | 2002 | 1 | 6 | .143 | ||
| Cincinnati Bengals | 2010 | 0 | 1 | .000 | ||
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | 2006 | 0 | 1 | .000 |
The current active franchises that have never played on Thanksgiving through 2011 include:
An idiosyncracy in the NFL's current scheduling formula, which has been in effect since 2002 and revised in 2010, effectively prohibits any member of the AFC North from playing the Lions or Cowboys on Thanksgiving, which partially explains why the Cincinnati Bengals had not played on Thanksgiving in their history until 2010 and the Baltimore Ravens did not play until 2011. Conversely, the AFC East appears in back-to-back Thanksgiving games—the first against the Lions, the next against the Cowboys. As far as it is known, this idiosyncrasy is unintentional. The East appears in years where the mod4 of the current year is a 2 (vs. Lions) or 3 (vs. Cowboys); the AFC South appears (always against the Lions) when that number is 0, and the AFC West appears (always against the Cowboys) when that number is 1 (the last of these is a helpful coincidence, since the league tries to schedule its teams in the two western time zones, three of which are in the AFC West, into as many late games as possible). Any AFC North Thanksgiving appearances would then have to come in the night game, which is how both the Bengals and the Ravens received their first ever Thanksgiving appearances.
San Diego, who has the longest active appearance drought as of 2011, has not played in a Thanksgiving game at all during their time in the NFL (all of their appearances came in the American Football League). This is partially because, from 2002 to 2009, they have been in the same subdivisional pairing as the Oakland Raiders (meaning they always play at Dallas in the same year), and the league's scheduling policy requires that the Raiders and San Francisco 49ers get priority on nationally televised games because they share the San Francisco Bay market. Due to a change implemented in 2010, the Chargers will no longer face this problem (but the Denver Broncos will), but in 2013 San Diego may or may not travel to Dallas again depending on how the 2013 season schedule turns out.. The Cleveland Browns have not appeared since the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy (due in part to being in the AFC North) and the Rams have not played since relocating to St. Louis (see "Dallas was replaced by the St. Louis Cardinals..." above).
Since the 2010 season, the NFL has made efforts to end the longest of the appearance droughts. The New Orleans Saints and Cincinnati Bengals had never played on Thanksgiving prior to 2010, but both played a Thanksgiving game in 2010. Similarly, the San Francisco 49ers had the second-longest appearance drought of any active team, while the Baltimore Ravens have never played on Thanksgiving, before the two teams were chosen to play in the 2011 Thanksgiving game. As of 2011, there are only three teams left with Thanksgiving appearance droughts of longer than twenty years: San Diego, St. Louis, and Cleveland. The next-longest after them, the Buffalo Bills, last appeared in 1994.
Houston and St. Louis, however, have had previous franchises based in the city play the Thanksgiving game (Oilers and Cardinals respectively).
| Team | Wins | Losses | Ties | Win Pct. | Other names appeared under |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frankford Yellow Jackets | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1931) | |
| New York Yankees* | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1949) | |
| Pottsville Maroons | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1928) | |
| Boston Yanks | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1948) | |
| Buffalo Bills* | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1949), unrelated to current NFL team with this name | |
| Dallas Texans | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1952), does not count AFL's Dallas Texans, which are now the Kansas City Chiefs | |
| Los Angeles Buccaneers | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1926) | |
| Oorang Indians | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1923) | |
| Rock Island Independents | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1925) | |
| All-Tonawanda Lumberjacks | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | Defunct (1921) | |
| Akron Pros | 3 | 1 | 1 | .700 | Defunct (1926) |
| Buffalo Bisons | 1 | 1 | 1 | .500 | Buffalo All-Americans (1920–23), Defunct (1929) |
| Canton Bulldogs | 1 | 1 | 1 | .500 | Defunct (1926) |
| Cleveland Bulldogs | 1 | 1 | .500 | Defunct (1927) | |
| Dayton Triangles | 1 | 1 | .500 | Defunct (1929) | |
| Kansas City Cowboys | 1 | 1 | .500 | Kansas City Blues (1924), Defunct (1926) | |
| Milwaukee Badgers | 1 | 1 | .500 | Defunct (1926) | |
| Brooklyn Lions | 0 | 1 | .000 | Defunct (1926) | |
| Chicago Tigers | 0 | 1 | .000 | Defunct (1920) | |
| Detroit Heralds | 0 | 1 | .000 | Defunct (1920) | |
| New York Yanks | 0 | 1 | .000 | Defunct (1950) | |
| Providence Steam Roller | 0 | 1 | .000 | Defunct (1931) | |
| Racine Legion | 0 | 1 | .000 | Defunct (1926) | |
| Toledo Maroons | 0 | 1 | .000 | Defunct (1923) | |
| Brooklyn Dodgers* | 0 | 2 | .000 | Defunct (1949) | |
| Chicago Hornets* | 0 | 2 | .000 | Chicago Rockets (1946–1948), Defunct (1949) | |
| Columbus Panhandles | 0 | 2 | .000 | Defunct (1926) | |
| Detroit Panthers | 0 | 2 | .000 | Defunct (1926) | |
| Hammond Pros | 0 | 2 | .000 | Defunct (1926) | |
| Rochester Jeffersons | 0 | 2 | .000 | Defunct (1925) | |
| Los Angeles Dons* | 0 | 3 | .000 | Defunct (1949) |
*All-America Football Conference team.
In 1989, John Madden of CBS awarded the first "Turkey Leg Award," for the game's most valuable player. It was an actual turkey. Reggie White of the Philadelphia Eagles was the first recipient. The gesture was seen mostly as a humorous gimmick relating to Madden's famous multi-legged turkey, cooked and delivered by Irving, TX restaurant owner Joe Pat Fieseler of Harvey's Barbecue (located less than a mile from Texas Stadium), served on Thanksgiving; Madden disavowed the dish in 2008. Since then, however, the award has gained subtle notoriety, and currently, each year at least one MVP has been chosen for both the CBS and Fox games. Madden brought the award to Fox in 1994, but it was abandoned and replaced with the "Galloping Gobbler" -- a running silver turkey wearing a football helmet—when Madden left for ABC in 2002. When CBS returned to the NFL in 1998, they introduced their own award, the "All-Iron Award", which is, suitably enough, a small silver iron, a reference to Phil Simms' All-Iron team for toughness. The All-Iron winner also receives a skillet of blackberry cobbler made by Simms' mother. (Simms actually began calling commentary for NBC in 1996, but did not introduce the All-Iron Award until he moved to CBS.)
The NFL Network has given out the Pudding Pie Award for MVPs of the night game from 2007 to 2011; the award is an actual pie. In 2009, the NFL Network gave Brandon Marshall a pumpkin pie rather than the chocolate pudding pie of the previous two years. NFL Network no longer owns the rights to Thanksgiving games, due to the sale of those rights to NBC.
Because of the informal nature of the award, the awards can be given to multiple players. John Madden has done this five times (all on Fox), to as many as four players (in fact, for Fox's first Thanksgiving broadcast in 1994, Madden actually issued the Turkey Leg Award to players on both teams, the only time this has ever happened). Since Madden left Fox, the network's "Galloping Gobbler" has only been awarded to one player. Until 2007, CBS never issued the award to more than one player, but does occasionally issue a "group award" in addition to a single player award (the network has done so three times, Madden did it in 1992 and Simms did it in 2004 and 2007). In 2008, Simms stated it was "too close to call" and gave four players the award, and Simms would follow by selecting three players for the All-Iron Award in 2009.
Former Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith holds the record for most Thanksgiving MVPs, having won the award five times: 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996 and 2002. Former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre (1994, 2001, and 2007), Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo (2006, 2007, and 2009), and Cowboys linebacker DeMarcus Ware (2007, 2008 and 2011) are tied for second with three each. Wide receiver Randy Moss, who has won the award twice (both times with the Minnesota Vikings), is the only other player to have won a Thanksgiving MVP more than once, and no player to date has won a Thanksgiving MVP award playing for two separate teams.
NBC did not issue an MVP award for Thanksgiving games they aired prior to 1998, and did not hold rights to Thanksgiving games between 1998 and 2011.
| Year | MVP | Team Opponent |
MVP | Team Opponent |
MVP | Team Opponent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NFC vs. Cowboys/Lions Turkey Leg Award 1989–2001 (CBS/Fox) Galloping Gobbler 2002–present (Fox) |
AFC vs. Cowboys/Lions All-Iron Award 1998–present (CBS) |
Thanksgiving night game Pudding Pie Award 2007-11 (NFL Network) |
||||
| 1989 | Reggie White | Philadelphia Eagles Dallas Cowboys |
NBC did not issue a game MVP on Thanksgiving games they aired. |
Night games were not played until 2006. | ||
| 1990 | Troy Aikman Emmitt Smith |
Dallas Cowboys Washington Redskins |
||||
| 1991 | Barry Sanders | Detroit Lions Chicago Bears |
||||
| 1992 | Emmitt Smith Cowboys Offensive Line |
Dallas Cowboys New York Giants |
||||
| 1993 | Richard Dent | Chicago Bears Detroit Lions |
||||
| 1994 | Emmitt Smith Jason Garrett Sterling Sharpe Brett Favre |
Dallas Cowboys Green Bay Packers |
||||
| 1995 | Herman Moore Brett Perriman Johnnie Morton |
Detroit Lions Minnesota Vikings |
||||
| 1996 | Emmitt Smith | Dallas Cowboys Washington Redskins |
||||
| 1997 | Luther Ellis | Detroit Lions Chicago Bears |
||||
| 1998 | Randy Moss | Minnesota Vikings Dallas Cowboys |
Stephen Boyd | Detroit Lions Pittsburgh Steelers |
||
| 1999 | Gus Frerotte Greg Hill Johnnie Morton Robert Porcher |
Detroit Lions Chicago Bears |
Dexter Coakley | Dallas Cowboys Miami Dolphins |
||
| 2000 | Robert Smith Randy Moss Daunte Culpepper Cris Carter |
Minnesota Vikings Dallas Cowboys |
Charlie Batch | Detroit Lions New England Patriots |
||
| 2001 | Ahman Green Brett Favre |
Green Bay Packers Detroit Lions |
Mike Anderson | Denver Broncos Dallas Cowboys |
||
| 2002 | Emmitt Smith | Dallas Cowboys Washington Redskins |
Troy Brown | New England Patriots Detroit Lions |
||
| 2003 | Dré Bly | Detroit Lions Green Bay Packers |
Jay Fiedler Chris Chambers |
Miami Dolphins Dallas Cowboys |
||
| 2004 | Julius Jones | Dallas Cowboys Chicago Bears |
Peyton Manning Colts Offensive Line |
Indianapolis Colts Detroit Lions |
||
| 2005 | Michael Vick | Atlanta Falcons Detroit Lions |
Ron Dayne | Denver Broncos Dallas Cowboys |
||
| 2006 | Tony Romo | Dallas Cowboys Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
Joey Harrington | Miami Dolphins Detroit Lions |
||
| 2007 | Brett Favre | Green Bay Packers Detroit Lions |
Tony Romo Cowboys defense* |
Dallas Cowboys New York Jets |
Reggie Wayne | Indianapolis Colts Atlanta Falcons |
| 2008 | DeMarcus Ware | Dallas Cowboys Seattle Seahawks |
Albert Haynesworth Chris Johnson Kevin Mawae LenDale White |
Tennessee Titans Detroit Lions |
Donovan McNabb Brian Westbrook |
Philadelphia Eagles Arizona Cardinals |
| 2009 | Donald Driver | Green Bay Packers Detroit Lions |
Miles Austin Tony Romo Jason Witten |
Dallas Cowboys Oakland Raiders |
Brandon Marshall | Denver Broncos New York Giants |
| 2010 | Drew Brees | New Orleans Saints Dallas Cowboys |
Tom Brady | New England Patriots Detroit Lions |
Brad Smith Darrelle Revis |
New York Jets Cincinnati Bengals |
| 2011 | Aaron Rodgers | Green Bay Packers Detroit Lions |
DeMarcus Ware | Dallas Cowboys Miami Dolphins |
Terrell Suggs | Baltimore Ravens San Francisco 49ers |
*Of the members of the 2007 Cowboys defense, Chris Canty, DeMarcus Ware, Terence Newman and Greg Ellis were particularly noted.