While turkey dinners are generally the star of the show on Thanksgiving, the action on the NFL gridiron is also a key to the festivities, with three games on the docket.
Those games feature five teams with playoff aspirations, including the 7-3 Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants, who will square off at AT&T Stadium.
The 7-3 Buffalo Bills are also hoping to keep pace in the AFC East, and they’ll go up against an upstart Detroit Lions team that has shown some serious improvements of late.
In the primetime contest, the Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots will face off in the Twin Cities.
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This year’s games will pay tribute to broadcaster John Madden, who passed away late last year. Madden became well-known for his adoration of the Thanksgiving Day games, giving out turkey legs to the best players in each contest and professing his love for the dish known as “Turducken,” a hybrid of turkey, duck and chicken.
Here are the three Thanksgiving games this season.
11:30 a.m.: Buffalo Bills vs. Detroit Lions (CBS)
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For the 83rd time, the Detroit Lions will play on Thanksgiving, and this year they’ll welcome the Buffalo Bills to Ford Field.
The Lions have hosted Thanksgiving games each year since 1945, and actually pioneered the concept in the very early days of the NFL. Since 1978, the Lions and the Dallas Cowboys have hosted games on the holiday each year.
All-time, the Lions are 37-43-2 on the holiday.
The Bills actually played their last game in Detroit as well, beating the Cleveland Browns in a contest that had to be relocated due to heavy snowfall in Buffalo.
Interestingly, the Bills and Lions have played on Thanksgiving before. In 1975 the Lions beat Buffalo 27-14, and in 1994 they defeated the Bills again by a score of 35-21.
The Bills have appeared on Thanksgiving in three of the last four seasons. They beat the Cowboys 26-15 in 2019, and then blew out the New Orleans Saints 31-6 in primetime last season.
The Lions meanwhile have not won a Thanksgiving game since 2016 when they beat the Minnesota Vikings. Since then they have lost to the Chicago Bears three times, including a 16-14 defeat last year.
3:30 p.m.: New York Giants vs. Dallas Cowboys (Fox)
Shockingly, this will only be the second time that the Giants and Cowboys, both NFC East rivals, have played on the holiday. The only other matchup occurred in 1992, when the Cowboys beat the Giants 30-3.
The Cowboys have regularly hosted Thanksgiving games since 1966, and have played a total of 54 times on the holiday. They have a 31-22-1 record in those contests.
The Giants have played 15 times on Thanksgiving, most recently in 2017. They have a record of 7-5-3.
The game will have significant ramifications in the NFC East race, as both teams come into the contest with 7-3 records. The Cowboys drew first blood in the rivalry earlier this season, winning at MetLife Stadium by a 23-16 margin.
A Dallas win Sunday would give them the tiebreaker over the Giants this season.
7:20 p.m.: New England Patriots vs. Minnesota Vikings (NBC)
The Vikings have not played in a primetime Thanksgiving game since the third contest was added to the schedule in 2006, but they do own one of the league’s best record in holiday games, going 6-2 in those contests.
The Patriots also have a winning record on the holiday at 3-2, but haven’t played in a Thanksgiving game in a decade. That last Thanksgiving tilt was a doozy for the Patriots, as they blew out the New York Jets 49-19 and took advantage of Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez’s infamous “butt fumble.”
This game will also have playoff implications for both clubs. The Patriots are currently tied with the Cincinnati Bengals and the jets at 6-4 in the standings, and hold tiebreakers over both teams. They also trail the Dolphins by a game in the divisional standings.
The Vikings have raced out to a sizable lead in the NFL North, leading the Lions by four games already. They also trail the Philadelphia Eagles by one game for the top seed in the NFC, which would give them a first-round bye and home-field advantage in the postseason.
