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In recent years, since the two
"traditional" Thanksgiving Day pro football games are in Dallas
and Detroit, both Fox and CBS must get their pound of
flesh, and the Fox game pairs two NFC teams, while CBS
USED TO show an AFC team, which always played "away", at either Dallas or
Detroit.
But the
American Football League
played Thanksgiving Day games in each of its ten years of existence,
1960 - 1969. From 1960 through 1966, one AFL game was played
every Thanksgiving. In 1967, 1968 and 1969, each Turkey Day
had two AFL games. This was another AFL "fan favorite" that was lost
in the "merger", along with the AFL's name and logo.
The team with the best record in AFL Thanksgiving Day games?
The lowly
New York Titans
played in the first three, and were 3 - 0. The
Oakland Raiders
were second best, with a 3 - 1 record.
Perhaps someday, the deep thinkers at
the NFL will come up with a schedule of THREE games on Thanksgiving: an NFC-NFC game on
Fox, an AFC-NFC game on ABC or another network, and an AFL-AFL
game on CBS!
***Note: They didn't do it exactly as I suggested, but
at least the NFL channel had an all-AFL game on for their "first"
Thanksgiving Day game in 2006!
Alas, in 2015, the NFL deep thinkers
scheduled the following for the Thanksgiving games: Bears &
Packers, Lions & Eagles, and Panthers & Cowboys. Boooo!! |
