Since 1934, it’s been a tradition for the Detroit Lions to play on Thanksgiving. And almost every year (because the Lions are not good almost every year), football fans who are not from Michigan complain that one or both of the franchises in the Lions’ Thanksgiving matchup are bad and shouldn’t be given such a prime date.
Even if they’re right about the quality of the teams, the NFL still owes the Lions — without them, watching football may not be a quintessential Thanksgiving activity.
The Lions weren’t the first team to play on Thanksgiving, and football on Thanksgiving didn’t even start with professionals. But the Lions did bring Thanksgiving football to the masses.
It helped that they had an advantage in their inaugural season in Detroit in 1934: Lions owner George Richards also owned WJR and had made it into a major radio station in Detroit (it remains so today). As the Pro Football Hall of Fame describes the history, “The Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day heritage gained national attention in another way, starting with the very first game in 1934. Knowing the publicity potential of radio, Richards along with NBC Radio, set up a 94-station network to broadcast the Lions-Bears showdown.”
It wasn’t until 1966 that the Dallas Cowboys would start their own Thanksgiving tradition. By then, the tradition of the Lions playing on TV on Thanksgiving had already begun. CBS started nationally televising the Lions’ Thanksgiving game in 1956, and the first-ever color broadcast of a football game was the Lions’ Thanksgiving game in 1965.
Yes, it may have helped that the Lions were so good in the 1950s. Believe it or not, before the Super Bowl era, the Lions won four NFL championships, three of those coming in the 1950s.
Some critics say it’s not just about quality, but the lack of attractive rivalry games for the Lions. Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina wrote: “It’s not just because the Lions are always bad, but also because, unlike the Cowboys, they have such few rivalries that their Thanksgiving games lack excitement. This year is the perfect example. Texans at Lions? Talk about a giant shoulder shrug.”
He’s right that Texns at Lions is a lackluster matchup, but that blame should fall squarely on the shoulders of the NFL schedulers. Thanksgiving is about tradition. The Texans are the newest NFL team, joining in 2002. Why did the NFL put them in a matchup that’s supposed to be about tradition?
There are plenty of great opponents the Lions can play against on Thanksgiving. The most traditional matchup is against the Packers, which was played every year from 1951-1963. Lions against Bears is the second-most frequent matchup. But the NFL could put any team with great history against the Lions on Thanksgiving, slap throwback jerseys on the players, and play up the tradition of the day. In addition to the Bears and Packers, who the Lions play twice every year, the NFL could have pitted the Lions against a number of teams with great history from their 2020 schedule: The Arizona Cardinals (the oldest continuously run professional football team), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Tom Brady!), Indianapolis Colts, or New Orleans Saints would have been interesting picks.
Or maybe the point was to put bad teams on Thanksgiving. After all, people are going to watch anyway because it’s tradition (again, a viewing tradition the Lions started). As the great Jim Nantz of CBS told Traina: “The ratings are probably going to be the same no matter what the matchup was in that window. Houston, obviously, is having a down year as well, and you watch, the ratings will not plummet. It’s just part of the Thanksgiving tradition.”
Case in point, 2019. The 3-7-1 Lions played the 5-6 Bears, with Lions star quarterback Matt Stafford sidelined by injury and neither team with a prayer of making the playoffs. But the game still averaged 27.3 million viewers, and of all the games broadcast throughout the NFL’s 17-week regular season, it was in the top five in viewership — because of tradition.
If it weren’t for the Lions, the Thanksgiving tradition wouldn’t be there in the first place. For all their decades of hapless history, mismanagement, and stars retiring prematurely, the Detroit Lions have tradition. So sit down, watch the game like you always do, say thank you to the Lions — and let us Lions fans have this one nice thing about our franchise.
