Cippin on Sports

This Thanksgiving, the NFL proved itself to be an organization with high family values. They did there part to make sure Americans across the nation spent this holiday paying attention to their loved ones and not distracted by competitive football on their televisions.

They were able to accomplish this feat by, once again, making sure Thanksgiving was filled with awful football.

In what has become a yawn-building trend, the “prime-time” match-ups selected by the NFL to take place on Thanksgiving were incredibly atrocious. What makes this trend even more upsetting is that at no point did any of these match-ups appear to have any chance of being competitive.

The first game of the afternoon pitted the Detroit Lions against divisional foe Green Bay. The NFL proved this year that they will never, despite the pleas of football watchers everywhere, remove the Detroit Lions from the Thanksgiving Day games. If the only team in the history of the NFL to go winless does not get themselves banned from all prime-time games the following season, then it is safe to assume no future Lions team will be woeful enough to merit such a change.

The game, as has become a Lions Thanksgiving tradition, was a blowout. Despite taking an early 7 to 0 lead, the Lions eventually fell 34 to 12, in a game that never really felt close.

Detroit has now lost their past six Thanksgiving Day games by an average deficit of over 23 points per game. They have been one of the NFLs worst teams for over a decade. While young players like Mathew Stafford and Calvin Johnson give this franchise hope for the future, that future is not now, and their continued attendance on Thanksgiving Day continues to guarantee that at least one game will be uncompetitive.

The next game featured the Dallas Cowboys being visited by the Oakland Raiders. Dallas, Detroit’s partner in Thanksgiving Day appearances, has at least been competitive in recent seasons, despite the fact that they haven’t won a playoff game since the 90’s.

The Raiders, however, have not been. They have been in a tail-spin ever since their Super Bowl loss to Tampa Bay in 2002. If there is one team in the NFL this decade that seems LESS deserving of being on at prime time than Detroit, it’s the Oakland Raiders. At no point during the 2009 NFL season did any fan with an ounce of common sense suggest a Dallas-Oakland match-up would be enjoyable for anyone to watch.

Oakland found themselves playing anyway, in what has become a trend of giving Dallas a weak Thanksgiving opponent. Last year, it was Seattle. The year before that, the New York Jets. Before that, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Since 2006, the Cowboys have won on Thanksgiving Day by an average of nearly 25 points per game. Their games have been less competitive than the Lions.

In the Thanksgiving Day finale, The New York Giants found themselves being embarrassed by the Broncos in Denver. This game was the only one of the day with any chance of being competitive. However, a strong first half by the home team put New York in a sixteen point hole, and the Broncos never looked back, winning 26 to 6. While it could be argued that this game had a chance to be entertaining, the fact that it featured two non-conference opponents meant the playoff implications of this game were extremely limited and the games overall importance was rather low.

Overall, the NFL’s Thanksgiving Day serving was more likely to put you to sleep than Tryptophan. Three games, three blowouts, with little to nothing to discuss afterwards accept your strategy for Black Friday.

It is true the NFL schedule makers have no control over how well these teams play on any given day. However, it was fairly obvious that any game featuring the Detroit Lions or the Oakland Raiders was not going to garner much intrigue. On top of that, a Denver-New York game brought little excitement to viewers.

If the NFL wants to continue to be a part of the Thanksgiving holiday, they will have to start being more selective with which match-ups they present. Otherwise, they may soon find themselves uninvited.

Eric Marmon wrote this for SportEvents.com, which helps real NFL fans find NFL game tickets and tickets to the Super Bowl.