Overview
- The 2025 Thanksgiving matchup featured Detroit against Green Bay, with the Packers winning 31–24, underscoring the tradition’s continued place on the NFL calendar.
- Detroit’s holiday role began in 1934 when owner George A. Richards leveraged NBC radio access to air the game on 94 stations and sold out a 26,000-seat stadium.
- The Lions have played on Thanksgiving every year since 1934 except during World War II, making them the holiday’s longest-running NFL fixture.
- Television expanded the audience with the first broadcast in 1953 (Packers-Lions), and the Cowboys joined in 1966 before securing a permanent Thanksgiving slot by 1978 after a brief Cardinals experiment.
- The modern slate—early Lions game, mid-afternoon Cowboys game, and a rotating prime-time game added in 2006—now carries broadcast-era traditions popularized by John Madden, while Detroit’s all-time Thanksgiving record stands at 38–45–2.