2023 NFL season, Week 12: Six things to watch for during Thanksgiving Day games
Thanksgiving, football and Madden — they’re the holy trinity for one of America’s favorite family holidays, and all three will be celebrated again on Thursday.
Last year’s inaugural John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration was not a one-off. Madden’s legacy will be honored again on the football day he helped stamp in red letters on the calendar. This year’s trio of games is pretty zesty, too, with each one holding postseason relevance.
Think of Thursday’s tripleheader as a turducken — the mysterious, Frankensteined fowl dish Madden helped make famous — which is a deboned chicken stuffed inside a deboned duck stuffed inside a deboned turkey. Each layer provides a different texture and flavor, and by the end of the day you’re stuffed into tryptophanic oblivion.
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The first bite is Packers-Lions: The turkey portion of the dish that serves as the traditional, familiar layer for the day. But unlike prior seasons during which the Lions were less competitive, this year’s beast has been beautifully prepared. Detroit is 8-2, its best mark through 10 games in 61 years, and is coming off a 12-point comeback in the final four minutes in Week 11 against the Bears despite the offense struggling for three quarters. The Packers also have stayed alive at 4-6 and remain in the playoff hunt. This is no dry white-meat game.
Next comes the duck layer, which can be a little too rich and fatty for some folks. But the middle-game matchup of Washington at Dallas has given us some classics over the years since their first Thanksgiving Day meeting in 1968, including NFL Network’s No. 1 all-time moment on the holiday, when Clint Longley came off the bench to bomb the D.C. into submission in 1974. Dallas clearly is the better team right now, winning four of five games, while the Commanders have dropped four of five. Still, the Cowboys might be dominant at home this season so far, but they’re only 2-4 in their past six Turkey Day games.
Last comes the final dish, that scrumptious chicken that has been basting in its own juices all day. Just when you think you can’t take another bite, arguably the most important game of the day arrives with 49ers-Seahawks. San Francisco looked pretty bland during its three-game losing streak earlier this season, but the Niners have packed some punch since. The Seahawks have looked a little shaking in losing two of three, and Geno Smith has a banged-up wing, but they’re only a game back from San Fran in the NFC West.
“There’s no place that I would rather be today on Thanksgiving than right here, right now, at a football game,” Madden said during the 1997 Bears-Lions Thanksgiving Day game. Although the turducken made its Madden debut during a Saints game the previous December, many saw it for the first time when Barry Sanders grabbed one of its six (!) legs and got to eating. There even will be a special turducken-themed coin flipped during Thursday’s three games, in case you wondered about the power of the poultry.
In honor of the mighty triple-bird chimera and all its extra appendages, here are six things to watch for from the three games during the NFL’s John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration:
- WHERE: Ford Field (Detroit)
- WHEN: 12:30 p.m. ET | FOX, FOX Deportes
- WHERE: AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas)
- WHEN: 4:30 p.m. ET | CBS
- WHERE: Lumen Field (Seattle)
- WHEN: 8:20 p.m. ET | NBC, Telemundo
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