The Cowboys won yesterday. That’s the good news for you, citizens of Dallas. The bad news is that, once again, the people of America were subjected to a miserable day of NFL football on what should have been one of the most enjoyable football days of the year. Every game sucked. The Lions were crushed by Green Bay. The Cowboys handled Oakland with ease. And the Giants wilted against Denver. There wasn’t a single moment of tension or excitement in any of these games if you were a neutral observer. Worst of all, with the scores decisive by the half, I had no excuse to NOT talk to my family. Annoying. The best football game of the day – by far – was the Texas-Texas A&M shootout.
This has been a consistent problem for a while now. Last year’s Thanksgiving results were as follows:
Titans 47, Lions 10
Cowboys 34, Seahawks 9
Eagles 48, Cardinals 20
And from 2007:
Packers 37, Lions 26
Cowboys 34, Jets 3
Colts 31, Falcons 13
And from 2006:
Dolphins 27, Lions 10
Cowboys 38, Bucs 10
Chiefs 19, Broncos 10
That’s four years in a row of horrid football games, none of which ended with a margin of victory less than nine points. I saw footage of the Leon Lett Turkey Day game yesterday, and I think that might be the last memorable NFL game I’ve seen on Thanksgiving.
This needs to be fixed. Problem 1: The Lions have sucked forever, which automatically makes one portion of the Thanksgiving schedule eminently skippable. Problem 2: The league seems determined to give Dallas the least inspiring opponent as possible on Thanksgiving. Problem 3: Detroit and Dallas are both NFC teams, which means one of them has to play an AFC team every year to make the TV schedule work, and often the scheduling works out where that AFC opponent stinks.
Ideally, the NFL would just strip the Lions and Cowboys of their Turkey Day traditions and schedule any three games they pleased on that day. But that, naturally, won’t fly the Double J or the Ford family. So here’s what I suggest: Rotate them. Let the Lions and Cowboys play every OTHER Thanksgiving, taking turns with one another. That way, we only get the Lions once every two years. And then the second Thanksgiving game of the day can be a rotating matchup of any two AFC teams for CBS, the best combo the league can find.
Something has to be done, because the quality of the NFL product on Thanksgiving is garbage.
