Do we really have to be subjected to Thanksgiving mismatches every year?

I have to admit, I love Thanksgiving. Nothing like the presence of family, friends, and of course, mouth-watering food on the last Thursday of November. That day also includes NFL football. For years, the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys have hosted NFL games on Thanksgiving Day. To those fans of the Lions and Cowboys that live outside of their team's respective markets, it means they get to watch their favorite teams alongside turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

But given how both teams have performed this year (in this case the Lions have been bad for years now), the quality of the matchups in Dallas and Detroit are bound to be complete mismatches, and they're games I'm not exactly looking forward to watching. The Lions are hosting the New England Patriots (who I think are a heavy favorite to play in the Super Bowl) and the Cowboys are hosting the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints.

In recent years, the league has scheduled a third game to be played in prime time, televised live on the NFL Network. And they have been diverse in where that game takes place. This year's prime time game is also primed to be a shellacking, as the New York Jets host T-Ocho and the Cincinnati Bengals.

But given there has been plenty of parity in the NFL this year, anything is bound to happen. Regardless, all three games have the makings of not looking pretty. Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Mark Sanchez could very well have a field day dissecting the bad defenses of the teams they'll be facing much like my father dissecting his way through the Thanksgiving turkey once it's out of the oven.


And now on to some favorite Thanksgiving Day football moments. Perhaps a favorite moment of mine came from the 1993 game in Dallas against the Miami Dolphins:


Another favorite Turkey Day game of mine was from 1980 in Detroit (I wasn't born until four years later), a divisional matchup against the Chicago Bears, which included the shortest OT period in NFL history:

Enjoy the football tomorrow, everyone. I'll be giving my take on the college football rivalry I was first raised on: the Washington-Washington State rivalry