Can’t gobble these games down
Bad schedule won’t make NFL alter tradition
HOUSTON — If you want to watch good football this weekend, you may have to wait until Sunday.
Just don’t wait until Monday night when the weekend concludes with Seattle playing at Washington.
Watching the annual troika of Thanksgiving Day games could make you lose your appetite. All six teams are coming off losses. Only Dallas is in first place. The Cowboys and Bills are the only teams with winning records.
This unappetizing slate of games has NFL fans bummed out, and who can blame them?
We want excitement on Thanksgiving — O.J. Simpson, Clint Longley, a.ka. “The Mad Bomber,” Leon Lett, Randy Moss, Phil Luckett, the “Butt Fumble” and the “Bounty Bowl” — to name some of the most memorable moments.
Will memories be made this season? Maybe some bad ones.
Watching Chicago-detroit, Las Vegas-dallas and Buffalo-new Orleans doesn’t get the adrenalin pumping unless you’re a die-hard fan of those teams. And that still might not be enough.
Because the Bears (3-7) play the Lions (0-9-1) in the first game that’s about as appealing as dry turkey, there’s been some ruckus raised — again — about the common sense of having the perennially poor Lions hosting the first game on such a football-crazy day.
If the NFL can move the draft and combine, why can’t it move the early game on Thanksgiving? It could but won’t.
The Detroit tradition that began in 1934 is important to the “Motor City.” Turkey and football go together like Berry Gordy and Motown and Gordie Howe and hockey.
Loyal fans continue to support the Lions on Thanksgiving whether they play at Tiger Stadium, the Pontiac Silverdome or Ford Field on the city’s most festive football day of the season.
Winning a playoff game might be bigger, but it’s happened only once since the Lions won their last championship in 1957. And you Texans fans think you’ve got it rough with back-to-back losing seasons.
There have been efforts to get the early Thanksgiving game out of Detroit. The most recent was when the late Kansas City owner, Lamar Hunt, lobbied his partners to rotate the Thanksgiving Day games.
Hunt’s pleas didn’t fall on deaf ears. The owners refused to move Detroit and Dallas from hosting games every Thanksgiving, but to appease Hunt, they did create the prime-time game in 2006.
If the owners wanted to provide Detroit with some help, the league could schedule the Lions against the Packers every year as the owners did from 195163. By the time they finally figure that out, rather than watching Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers every Thanksgiving, we’ll probably get Jordan Love.
Somebody named Tim Boyle is the Lions’ starting quarterback.
He’s replacing the injured Jared Goff, not that it makes a difference. Neither is going to make longsuffering Detroit fans forget Eric Hipple.
We’re being deprived of seeing the Bears’ highly touted rookie, Justin Fields, who’s injured and being replaced by Andy Dalton.
There are a couple of interesting things about the Chicago-detroit game. Will Matt Nagy be fired after the game, as was reported this week in Chicago? Will the Lions be able to earn their first victory?
Other that than — snooze!
OK, say you actually make it through the Bears and Lions without throwing up and then you have the Raiders playing the Cowboys. Las Vegas has a three-game losing streak. Dallas has lost two of three.
If you’re still awake for the last game of the day, the Bills tangle with the Saints. Buffalo has lost two of three to Jacksonville and Indianapolis. New Orleans has a three-game losing streak. How’s that for excitement?
The Houston Texans have provided a lot of excitement in their two games on Thanksgiving, defeating the Lions 34-31 in overtime in 2012 and 41-25 last season.
In that overtime game,
Matt Schaub threw for 315 yards and a touchdown. Andre Johnson caught nine passes for 188 yards. Arian Foster ran for 102 yards. Justin Forsett ran for an 81-yard touchdown that should not have counted.
J.J. Watt recorded three sacks and five tackles for losses, but Detroit defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh made the hardest hit. He kicked Schaub in the groin, and he — Schaub, not Suh — was never the same player.
The Texans and Lions combined for 1,026 yards. Matthew Stafford threw for 441. Calvin Johnson caught eight for 140.
Speaking of Stafford, he squared off against Deshaun Watson last year. The Lions and Texans were bad, but Watson was outstanding. He threw for 318 yards and four touchdowns, compiling a 150.4 rating in the victory. Stafford threw for 295.
Houston Oilers fans remember one of the most memorable Thanksgiving games in history, one that meant so much to the franchise locally and nationally.
In 1979 — at the height of the “Luv Ya Blue” era — Bum Phillips took the Oilers to Texas Stadium on Thanksgiving. The Cowboys were favored.
Tom Landry’s defense had no answer for secondyear running back Earl Campbell. He carried 33 times for 195 yards and two touchdowns.
Roger Staubach threw two touchdown passes and two interceptions. Dan Pastorini also threw two touchdown passes, including the game-winning, 32-yarder to Kenny Burrough in the fourth quarter of the 30-24 victory.
Coming from behind the defeat the Cowboys on Thanksgiving was a source of pride for Oilers fans and one of the many reasons that era became the most popular in Houston football history.