Thanksgiving Day Football
Hear it here!
Eons ago I devoted some words as to what Thanksgiving meant to me as a youngster.
It was all about turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, and the Packers and the Lions.
I told how we’d watch the annual game on Turkey Day from Briggs Stadium (later re-named Tiger Stadium) in Detroit, listened to the great tones of Van Patrick on CBS, then go out and play touch football. All this was before enjoying the big feast.
A little history. The Lions have played on Thanksgiving every year since 1934, except for a break during World War II. The Packers became the regular foe for the Lions from 1951 to 1963, when Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi brought a halt to the yearly holiday tussle. He probably soured on the annual battle, always played in Detroit, because of the game in 1962 when his undefeated Packers were upset by the Lions 26-14, thanks to a relentless defense which sacked quarterback Bart Starr 11 times.
It was the only loss for Green Bay that season. The two franchises resumed their rivalry in 2011, meeting every three years. The Thursday battle was the only game not played on Sundays. Now, it seems the NFL schedules games eight days a week.
Eventually the Dallas Cowboys hosted a Thanksgiving game, along with the Lions and now there are three games played on that day, Including one played at night.
This year, the Packers and Lions go at it again, and while it featured a lopsided matchup many, many times, this year is special. Both teams are battling for the NFC North title along with the upstart Chicago Bears.
In the old days, the Lions featured a great quarterback, Bobby Layne, and a host of renowned names at the time. They were dominant in the early to mid-fifties, until Lombardi took over in Green Bay and turned them into a dynasty. Before he did, the Packers chief hope rested on the arm of Tobin Rote, who later was a winning quarterback with the Lions of all teams.
When you’re a kid, and you love sports, what’s better than a single game played on a holiday in the same place with the same teams. Color TV was a thing of the future, but seeing color photos of both teams in magazines and on trading cards, you could almost visualize the Lions in their Honolulu blue uniforms with silver numbers, and the Packers, in gold jerseys with green numerals.
Now we fast-forward to the phenomenon that not only maintained the unique Thanksgiving Day NFL event, but brought it a new dimension.
It was the annual coverage of the game by CBS Sports, and specifically the broadcast by Pat Summerall and John Madden.
Sometimes they were in Detroit, but in those days, mostly in Dallas since they were a league power, and having America’s Team on national television on that particular day, was, well, delicious.
It was Madden who created a not-to-be-missed tradition. I now refer to the story of what’s made it special, as written in a wonderful book authored by Rich Podolsky, a former CBS Sports staffer who I worked with for a time during my years at the network and knew well all the people associated with the principals. The following comes from the book, titled Madden & Summerall, How They Revolutionized NFL Broadcasting. There is a section that describes how an article in The Wall Street Journal in 1977, dealing with a place in Louisiana that made a Thanksgiving dish that was called turducken.
A CBS Sports staffer, Janis Delson described it. “It had a top layer that was turkey, the middle layer was the duck, and the bottom layer was chicken. The dish was heavily spiced, heavily salted, and heavily oiled. It was a long way from the spa meal of white meat turkey cooked in lemon juice. Sure enough, on game day, a turducken showed up in the announce booth. John went gaga over it. It was the perfect Madden dish”.
Not only was it a running topic for the announcers during the game, with shots of the turducken shown as much as either one of the head coaches, but it served as a post-game meal, not only for the announcers and production crew but for the those members of the winning team that were named Most Valuable for the contest.
So here we had, on the post-game show, players Cowboy stars like Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin, trying to discuss the game with Pat and John while diving into a turducken provided for them on the field. It’s not easy to make sense with your mouth full.
But that’s what the modern version of Pro Football on Thanksgiving Day became.
The tradition is still going strong on the FOX telecast with Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady, thanks to producer Richie Zyontz, probably Madden’s closest friend.
It was all underscored when John Madden said these words speaking at the funeral of Pat Summerall, again, from Rich Podolsky’s book:
“The thing that I miss the most about being out of television is Thanksgiving. We had 22 straight Thanksgivings together. Most people talk about Thanksgiving and they say family. How is it being away from your family? And we said for years, and these aren’t idle words, ‘This is our family’. Twenty-two Thanksgivings. Twenty-two years of family. Pat and I are family. (John then mentioned other members of the crew) for 22 years that was our family. That’s as real as you can get. That’s not talk, those aren’t words……”
We all know, rising above things in sports, and television broadcasts, and food is the real meaning of Thanksgiving. Giving thanks.
But this week, we’ve charted what the day has meant in sports and particularly football.
A rivalry that still burns, and how the years have treated that one game on that one day.
