Touchdowns, tradition and roast turkey! Thanksgiving Week in the NFL is here – and you can watch it all live on Sky Sports, along with some bonus Black Friday football featuring the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. 

The US holiday and the NFL have a longstanding love affair, with games being played on ‘Turkey Day’ for over 100 years.

The first instance of American Football being played on Thanksgiving Day itself was way back in 1876 – not long after the sport itself came into being – while the first NFL game came in 1920, the year of the league’s launch.

In that inaugural Thanksgiving clash, the Decatur Staleys faced off against the Chicago Tigers, with the Staleys winning a ‘thriller’ 6-0. Those very same Staleys went on to become the franchise we now know as the Chicago Bears, while the Tigers folded at the end of that season.

Annual Thanksgiving games have become a tradition ever since, although not necessarily in Chicago. No team in the NFL has played on Turkey Day more than the Detroit Lions, who have featured on the holiday 84 times with a 37-45-2 record over that span. The Dallas Cowboys are next best with 56 appearances and a 32-23-1 return. And the pair will be playing host to the festivities yet again this year.

What are the games?

Dan Campbell’s rampant Lions (10-1) kick off the Thanksgiving action at 5.30pm when they host the No 1 pick quarterback Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears (4-7) in their march towards the playoffs as Super Bowl frontrunners. The Dallas Cowboys (4-7) then return to action in the wake of their dramatic late win over the Washington Commanders as they host the Tommy DeVito-led New York Giants (2-9) in an all-NFC East clash from 9.30pm.

Since 2006, a third prime-time match-up has been added to the mix on Thanksgiving Day (with the exception of 2020 when a Covid outbreak forced a postponement to the game between the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers). The Miami Dolphins (5-6), boosted significantly by the recent return of Tua Tagovailoa, will seek to keep their playoff hopes alive when they hit the road to face the Green Bay Packers (8-3) in a potential cold-weather cracker at Lambeau Field, live from 1.20am in the early hours of Friday.

For the second year running the NFL will stage a Black Friday match-up as the Super Bowl champion Chiefs (10-1) take on the Las Vegas Raiders (2-9) from 8pm, featuring as part of eight games live on Sky Sports in Week 13.

What to watch:

Chicago Bears @ Detroit Lions: The Lions enter Thursday’s match-up riding a nine-game winning streak that positions them as the class of the NFC in their bid to reach the Super Bowl. Quarterback Jared Goff has been outstanding amid his career resurgence, throwing for 2,761 yards and 20 touchdowns to nine interceptions with a completion percentage of 72.9 and a passer rating of 109.9 through 11 games.

Running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery have accounted for 2,024 yards and 22 touchdowns from scrimmage, while Amon-Ra St Brown has a team-high 71 catches for 747 yards and nine touchdowns as part of the league’s No 1-ranked scoring offense, orchestrated by offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. The Lions’ defense lost star edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson to injury earlier in the season, but features standout safety Brian Branch at the heart of Aaron Glenn’s unit.

Williams leads the Bears as the No 1 overall pick at the Draft having arrived in the NFL likened to Patrick Mahomes such is his playmaking ability outside of the pocket. He has completed 233 of 372 passes for 2,356 yards and 11 touchdowns to five interceptions as well as rushing for 339 yards on the ground during a mixed rookie year in the league.

The Bears’ offense has looked more dangerous over the last two weeks following the firing of coordinator Shane Waldron, though Chicago find themselves out of the playoff picture at 4-7 at the bottom of the NFC North. Running back D’Andre Swift leads the team with 943 yards and eight touchdowns from scrimmage, while DJ Moore, Rome Odunze and Keenan Allen head up Williams’ receiving options.

New York Giants @ Dallas Cowboys: Cooper Rush will start at quarterback again for the Cowboys after taking the reins from Dak Prescott, who was ruled out for the rest of the season in the wake of surgery on his hamstring injury. Rush finished 24 of 32 for 247 yards and two touchdowns in Sunday’s dramatic win over the Commanders, with CeeDee Lamb representing his key weapon having made 77 catches for 841 yards and four scores on the year.

Despite Sunday’s victory, head coach Mike McCarthy finds himself on the hotseat and potentially staring at a January firing with the Cowboys on course to miss out on the playoffs in their desperate search for a return to the Super Bowl. Dallas’ porous defense ranks 27th in total yards and 31st in scoring, though does include one of the league’s elite edge rushers in Micah Parsons, who has five sacks on the year after missing time through injury.

DeVito is expected to start for the Giants at quarterback having taken over from Daniel Jones in Sunday’s 30-7 defeat to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after the former first-round pick was benched and then released during the week. DeVito was limited to just 21 completions for 189 yards against Tampa as the Giants fell to 2-9, raising more uncertainty surrounding the future of head coach Brian Daboll.

The Giants, who moved on from running back Saquon Barkley during the offseason, feature star – but disgruntled – rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers, who leads the team with 67 catches for 671 yards and three touchdowns – while nose tackle Dexter Lawrence represents the heartbeat of their defense with nine sacks on the season.

Miami Dolphins @ Green Bay Packers: Thursday night’s finale might be the pick of the games. Tua Tagovailoa’s return to action has reinjected life into Miami’s playoff pursuit, which appeared as though it might have been over when their quarterback was sidelined by a concussion earlier in the season. Tagovailoa has completed 77 of 104 passes for 812 yards, eight touchdowns and just one interception across a three-game winning streak for the Dolphins, which leaves them 5-6 and still with a chance of salvaging a postseason berth.

His presence is a welcome boost to the production of wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, while tight end Jonnu Smith is enjoying a hot streak with 188 receiving yards and three touchdowns in the last two games. Defensive end Zach Sieler remains an unsung contributor on Miami’s defense, while veteran cornerback Jalen Ramsey is having a quietly impressive run.

The Packers are 8-3 and on the tails of the Lions in the NFC North after dismantling the San Francisco 49ers on the way to a 38-10 victory in Week 12. Josh Jacobs has emerged as a focal point to Matt LaFleur’s eye candy-filled rushing attack with 944 yards and seven touchdowns on the ground, three of which came against the 49ers. Jordan Love continues to live by his aggressive style in a mixed year for the quarterback, who has thrown for 2,244 yards and 18 touchdowns to 11 interceptions while completing just 61.8 per cent of his passes.

He continues to spread the ball between a pool of receiving talent, led by Jayden Reed with 41 catches for 669 yards and four touchdowns, with rising star tight end Tucker Kraft having also found the end zone six times. Offseason addition Xavier McKinney is also enjoying a career year at safety with seven interceptions, tied for the most in the NFL alongside Detroit’s Kerby Joseph.

Las Vegas Raiders @ Kansas City Chiefs: The bonus football continues on Friday night when the back-to-back defending champion Chiefs resume their search for a historic third straight Super Bowl against their divisional rival Raiders. Patrick Mahomes and co just swerved a potential upset against the Carolina Panthers with a last-gasp game-winning field goal at the weekend, marking their response to suffering their first defeat of the campaign against the Buffalo Bills following a 9-0 start.

Mahomes, statistically, is off to his worst-ever start to the season, having thrown 18 touchdowns to 11 interceptions, though there have been signs of an offensive awakening from the Chiefs since the trade arrival of veteran wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, whose introduction came after the season-ending injury to Rashee Rice.

Travis Kelce leads the team with 68 catches for 569 yards, while Kareem Hunt has hit the ground running with 155 carries for 577 yards and five touchdowns after re-signing with the team in light of Isiah Pacheco’s injury. Yet again, though, the Chiefs’ winning form has been built on the defining contributions of Steve Spagnuolo’s defense, which proved instrumental on the way to Super Bowl glory last season.

Little has gone right for the Raiders in 2024. Antonio Pierce’s side traded away Davante Adams earlier in the season, and just lost starting quarterback Gardner Minshew for the rest of the season due to injury. It leaves former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Desmond Ridder in line to start against the Chiefs this week as part of an offense that ranks 28th in total yards and 26th in scoring. Rookie Brock Bowers has been the sole positive as he continues to chase down records with 74 catches for 744 yards and three touchdowns while looking like the NFL’s next great stalwart tight end. Maxx Crosby also remains the unrivalled talisman on defense with 6.5 sacks.

Why the Lions and the Cowboys?

Back in 1934, Detroit radio station owner George A Richards had just bought the then-Portsmouth Spartans – founded five years earlier – before deciding to relocate the team to Detroit.

But crowds did not initially flock to watch following the move. College football and baseball tended to dominate the sporting landscape of the time, and the Lions were left playing catch up to the Tigers, who had just won the 1934 American League pennant.

The Lions’ largest crowd early in that season peaked at around 15,000, prompting Richards to stage a game on Thanksgiving in a bid to boost local and national recognition for his team.

The undefeated Bears duly obliged to play out the biggest game of the season in front of a sell-out 26,000 strong crowd – with many more having to be turned away at the gates. The Lions would lose 19-16, a tradition they have, on the whole, stayed loyal to while playing on Thanksgiving ever since.

The Super Bowl-less franchise have won just six of 24 Thanksgiving match-ups since the turn of the century, including seven straight defeats since 2016, leading to questions in recent years over whether the NFL’s most prominent prime-time window should still belong to them. Such questions have disappeared such is Detroit’s new-found Super Bowl contention as one of the league’s most talented and entertaining teams.

Dallas, famously nicknamed ‘America’s Team’, meanwhile, return to their familiar Thanksgiving slot as one of the most valuable sporting franchises on the planet despite another disappointing season that sees them sit 4-7 and staring at the prospect of missing out on the playoffs.

They have held a stake of Thanksgiving since 1966, with two exceptions in 1975 and 1977 when, at the behest of then-commissioner Pete Rozelle, the St Louis Cardinals replaced Dallas as a host team. But a series of ugly losses, and underwhelming attendances, combined to see the Cowboys back centre stage on the holiday ever since.

Why Black Friday?

The NFL sought to capitalise on the biggest shopping day of the year in 2023 when it staged its first Black Friday game, with the Miami Dolphins beating the New York Jets 34-13 following Jevon Holland’s 99-yard pick-six from Tim Boyle’s Hail Mary attempt at the end of the first half.

Before then, the last time the NFL had previously hosted a game on a Friday that was not in December – during which the league has previously played on a Friday around Christmas – was when the Los Angeles Rams faced the St Louis Cardinals on September 18, 1970. The league had not played on a Friday that was not a holiday day since 1986.

What are some standout Thanksgiving moments?

It has not always been bad news for the Lions on Thanksgiving. Take 1962, for example, when the Lions stunned Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers 26-14 in what would be the only defeat of the season for the eventual NFL champions.

The most famous comeback in Thanksgiving Day history belongs to Clint Longley, the rookie Cowboys back-up quarterback who replaced a concussed Roger Staubach in the second half of Dallas’ 1974 game against Washington. Trailing 16-3 in the third quarter, Longley’s 35-yard touchdown pass to Billy Joe Dupree first gave the Cowboys life before, still behind by six with under a minute left, his 28-yard scoring strike to Drew Pearson earned them an improbable 24-23 win.

The Lions were involved in the first Thanksgiving game to go to overtime in 1980 when they found themselves tied 17-17 with the Bears at the end of regulation, before Chicago’s Dave Williams returned the subsequent kick-off 95 yards for the game-winning touchdown within 21 seconds.

Eighteen years later, they would be involved in another memorable overtime game – but for all the wrong reasons. Steelers running back Jerome Bettis, a Detroit native, claimed he had correctly called ‘tails’ at the coin toss but referee Phil Luckett deemed he had said ‘heads’, handing the Lions the football… and they proceeded to win with a 42-yard field goal on that opening possession. Pittsburgh, after a 7-4 start, would not win again during the 1998 season.

That same year, Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss’ Thanksgiving Day stat line for the Vikings against the Cowboys read three catches, 163 yards and three touchdowns – on his way to an NFL rookie record 17 touchdown grabs that season – as Minnesota romped to a 46-36 victory.

Although Thanksgiving holds mixed memories for Lions fans, its association with Detroit does also deliver a welcome annual reminder of Barry Sanders’ greatness. The Hall of Fame running back graced the 1997 game with 167 rushing yards for three touchdowns from 19 carries in a 55-20 win over the Bears.

Two years prior Sanders had also rushed for 138 yards and a 50-yard touchdown in a thrilling 44-38 victory over the Minnesota Vikings, during which respective quarterbacks Scott Mitchell and Warren Moon threw for a combined 794 yards and seven touchdowns.

And we simply cannot reel off the greatest moments in NFL Thanksgiving history without a word for the ‘Butt Fumble’. Back in 2012, then New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez went down in infamy for a play in which he attempted to scramble away from pressure only to face plant into the backside of one of his offensive linemen, fumbling the football in the process – with Steve Gregory then scooping up the ball for a 32-yard touchdown in a massive 49-19 win for New England.

Tune into Sky Sports NFL from 5pm on Thursday ahead of the Detroit Lions against the Chicago Bears at 5.30pm, followed by the Dallas Cowboys against the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins’ match-up with the Green Bay Packers