Thanksgiving Football Since 1966: Every Game, Every Host, and the One Franchise That's Never Played

Thirty-one of the NFL's 32 franchises have played on Thanksgiving since 1966. The one that hasn't is Jacksonville — thirty-one seasons in the league, zero turkey-day kickoffs. Carolina and Tampa Bay have managed exactly one apiece. And the two franchises that host the holiday every year, Detroit and Dallas, have somehow never once been assigned to play each other on it.

Those are the edges of a 146-game history (149 counting the announced 2026 tripleheader) that this article walks through host by host. A scope note first: Detroit's Thanksgiving tradition reaches back to 1934, and you'll see all-time counts in league coverage — the Lions' 2026 game is billed as their 86th. Everything below runs 1966 forward, the span our schedule data covers. For Dallas the distinction doesn't matter: the Cowboys began hosting in 1966, so their complete Thanksgiving history sits inside the window.

The hosts nobody remembers

Detroit and Dallas have hosted 118 of the 146 games. The other 28 belong to a stranger list. In the merger-adjacent years of 1967 through 1969, Thanksgiving had four games — the NFL's traditional pair plus an AFL doubleheader — with Kansas City, Oakland, San Diego, and Houston taking hosting turns. Kansas City's four Thanksgiving home games are still the most by anyone other than the two permanent hosts. Dallas itself sat out twice, in 1975 and 1977, with St. Louis hosting in its place — the only interruptions in either franchise's run.

The modern third game arrived in 2006 and has rotated hosts ever since: Kansas City again, then Atlanta, Philadelphia, Denver, the Jets, Baltimore, and onward. Every season from 2006 through 2025 featured three Thanksgiving games with one exception — 2020, when the nightcap was moved off the holiday and only two were played.

Two very different records

Hosting every year is not the same as winning every year. Since 1966, Dallas is 35-22-1 on Thanksgiving; Detroit is 25-35-0. The extremes are further apart than the records suggest. Dallas won six straight Thanksgiving games starting in 1980. Detroit lost nine straight starting in 2004 — nine straight holiday losses — and owns five of the era's eight Thanksgiving shutout losses, including the lowest-scoring game of the span, a 12-0 blanking by Philadelphia in 1968.

The superlatives cluster around the hosts too. The biggest blowout is Dallas 51, Seattle 7 in 1980. The highest-scoring game is Green Bay 44, Detroit 40 in 1986. The only tie is San Francisco 24, Dallas 24 in 1969, before regular-season overtime existed. And the last shutout of any kind was Dallas 20, Miami 0 in 1999 — twenty-six Thanksgivings ago and counting.

Appearances since 1966

Franchise	Games	Franchise	Games
Lions	60	Eagles	5
Cowboys	58	Jets	5
Bears	15	Seahawks	5
Packers	14	Steelers	5
Commanders	13	Falcons	4
Chiefs	10	Saints	4
Broncos	9	Browns	3
Vikings	9	Rams	3
Bills	8	Chargers	3
Dolphins	8	Colts	3
Raiders	7	Ravens	3
Cardinals	7	Bengals	2
Titans	7	Texans	2
49ers	6	Buccaneers	1
Giants	6	Panthers	1
Patriots	6	Jaguars	0

2026: a first for Buffalo

The announced 2026 slate is Chicago at Detroit, Philadelphia at Dallas — the Eagles' first Thanksgiving appearance since 2015 — and Kansas City at Buffalo in prime time. That last one is quietly historic within this span: it's Buffalo's first Thanksgiving home game anywhere in the sixty seasons our data covers. The league is also stretching the holiday sideways in 2026, adding a Wednesday-night game before Thanksgiving and keeping the Black Friday slot after it, but the Day itself remains what it's been since 2006: a tripleheader, anchored as always by the two teams that never leave home.

How many of the 31 can you name? The Thanksgiving Opponents quiz covers every team Detroit and Dallas have faced on the holiday — one guess checks both boards.