Thanksgiving Football
The GIST: It’s Thanksgiving in America, which means two great things for Canada: tomorrow’s Black Friday deals, and today’s NFL games.
Sweet! When does it start?: Thanksgiving football kicks off as it always does: with a Detroit Lions home game at 12:30 p.m. ET. The Lions have been hosting Thanksgiving games since 1934 (save for a hiatus during WWII), and they’re joined this year by the Houston Texans.
- Neither team has had a particularly stellar season so far, with the Texans at 3-7 and the Lions at 4-6. The Texans are coming off a clutch win over the New England Patriots on Sunday and will look to carry that momentum to give the Lions yet another Thanksgiving Day loss. Fun fact: the Lions own a pretty meh 37-41-2 Thanksgiving record.
Nice. Keep ’em coming: The Dallas Cowboys are the other Thanksgiving Day staple, competing during almost every feast since 1966. While they have an impressive holiday record of 31-20-1, the Cowboys and their fellow NFC East division opponents, the Washington Football Team (WFT), have matching 3-7 records this season.
- The Cowboys will be playing with heavy hearts as they mourn the death of their strength and conditioning coach, Markus Paul. Paul, who won five Super Bowls as a member of the Patriots’ and New York Giants’ coaching staff, suffered a medical emergency during team practice on Tuesday and passed away yesterday.
- We expect this one to be a messy matchup between two below .500 teams, but we think the Cowboys will continue their holiday tradition and take the win in honor of Coach Paul. Kick-off is set for 4:30 p.m. ET.
Any other games?: Unfortunately, that’s it. The undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers were supposed to host the 6-4 Baltimore Ravens in primetime but, of course, 2020 had other plans.
- The Ravens have at least 10 COVID-19 cases amongst players and staff, and have even had to discipline a coach who may have been partly responsible for the outbreak. C’mon, man. As a result, the league decided to push this storied AFC North rivalry to Sunday at 1:15 p.m. ET.
