Gang Green Nation
There are three NFL games today. The Lions host the Bears, the Cowboys host the Giants, and the Packers host the Dolphins. The teams playing the night game change annually, but you might notice that the Lions always host the first game of the day, and the Cowboys always host the second game. How did that come to be?
The Lions played their first Thanksgiving game in 1934. It was their first season in Detroit. They had previously been located in Portsmouth, Ohio, where they were known as the Portsmouth Spartans. A radio executive named George Richards bought the franchise and moved it to Detroit. The Lions were having difficulty gaining any sort of popularity in their new home city. Richards came up with the idea of scheduling their team’s big game against the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving. The Lions were 10-1 at the time, and the Bears were 11-0. This was before the days when the league dictated the schedule to its teams. The teams themselves could schedule the times of their games. Richards used his connections in the radio business to get the game broadcast nationally. Even thought Detroit lost, it was a huge success. The Lions sold the game out, and they have played on Thanksgiving ever since with the exception of World War II years despite some calls for them to lose the game during the dismal Matt Millen Era.
Thanksgiving gained a second traditional team in 1951. For the next thirteen years, the Green Bay Packers traveled to Detroit to play the Lions on Thanksgiving. Vince Lombardi ended the arrangement. Lombardi cited the end of an agreement that paid the Packers $10,000 extra for playing the game, the difficulties of playing games on a short week every year, and having to face a rival in front of an electric crowd on the road every season. Of course since the teams are in the same division, the Packers remain a frequent Thanksgiving opponent for Detroit.
So how about the Cowboys?
In the mid-1960’s the NFL was looking to add a second Thanksgiving game. It was not entirely clear it would work outside Detroit, where Thanksgiving NFL was already a tradition. The Dallas Cowboys were a six year old team with no history of winning. General manager Tex Schramm was a visionary. (He was a driving force behind other innovations like instant replay, the flags on goal posts, the NFL-AFL merger, and too many others to name). He jumped at the opportunity. The Cowboys hosted their first Thanksgiving game in 1966.
They kept the game annually until the 1970’s when the league hatched a plan to alternate between the Cowboys and the then St. Louis Cardinals. The Cowboys were to host the second game in even years and the Cardinals in odd years. The Cardinals only hosted two home Thanksgiving games, however, which took place in 1975 and in 1977. The games weren’t competitive, and attendance was relatively poor. Then commissioner Pete Roselle put an end to...
