Bring Football to Chicago Next Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving brings it with many traditions: a big meal with the family, a tryptophan-induced nap and the Lions playing football for a nationally televised audience. Not all traditions deserve to last, though, and having to suffer through the Lions every Thanksgiving is a tradition that deserves to be put out to pasture.

The Lions futility is well-documented. The have the worst winning percentage in the NFL. They haven't had a winning season in this millennium. This season, they haven't won a game. They are objectively terrible. Yet they are given a nationally televised game every year just because it has always been this way. To add insult to injury, the Lions are playing the Titans tomorrow, the team with the best record in football. The turkeys will not the only things getting roasted, broiled and fried tomorrow. Tennessee will enjoy a Thanksgiving meal of Lion, and the game will be decided by the second quarter.

The upside for Bears fans is that we have a chance to see the Bears play on Thanksgiving every now and then. In fact, Barry Sanders turned in one of his epic performances against the Bears on Thanksgiving, rushing for 167 yards and passing Eric Dickerson on the all-time rushers list. In the first Thanksgiving game to be played in Detroit in 1934, the Bears beat the Lions, 19-16. With the futility of the Lions seemingly unending, why can't this game change from Detroit to Chicago?

In the early days of the NFL, Turkey Day belonged to Chicago. In 1925, Harold "Red" Grange led the Bears to a scoreless tie against the Chicago Cardinals. Just four years later, the Cardinals beat the Bears behind Ernie Nevers' six touchdowns. If the reason that the NFL gives this horrible franchise a game on national TV every year is tradition, it seems to make sense that the NFL should take it way back and bring football to Chicago next Thanksgiving.