Updated November 2026 with last season’s results and this year’s schedule.

A few years back, we realized there weren’t any great applications for Thanksgiving football stats, so…we built one! It was a fun little project that combined our app development expertise with our love of football. This year we gave it a major upgrade: More stats, a new look, a page for every game since 1920, and a ten-question trivia quiz. You’ll find things like:

• A page for every current team with its Thanksgiving record, streaks, best win and worst loss.
• Head-to-head records for any two teams.
• All-time standings, a record book, and the MVP of every game since 1989.
• A page for every game since 1920, with a recap, the key players and the sources for that recap.

I think it turned out pretty nice. Check it out here: Thanksgiving Football Stats.

Thanksgiving football fun facts

While we were building the applications, we ran across some great facts about the Thanksgiving Day football games. So, we’ve pulled some of the more interesting “fun facts” and listed them below. Enjoy!

The basics

1. When was the first NFL game played on Thanksgiving?
November 25, 1920, in the first season of the league that became the NFL. Six games were played that day. In one of them, the Akron Pros beat the Canton Bulldogs 7-0.

2. Which teams host a game every Thanksgiving?
The Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys. Detroit has played on every Thanksgiving since 1945. Dallas has hosted every year since 1966 except 1975 and 1977, when the St. Louis Cardinals hosted instead. Since 2006 there has also been a night game, and its teams change every year.

3. How many times have the Lions and Cowboys played each other on Thanksgiving?
Never. Both teams always host, so they can’t meet on the holiday.

4. Who did the Lions play in their first Thanksgiving game?
The Chicago Bears, in 1934. The Bears won 19-16. Lions owner George A. Richards set up the game to sell tickets in a city that cared more about the Tigers.

5. Which year had the most Thanksgiving games?
1926, with eight.

Teams and records

6. Which team has played the most Thanksgiving games?
The Lions, with 86. Their record is 38-46-2, which also gives them the most Thanksgiving losses of any team. See every Lions Thanksgiving game.

7. What is the Cowboys’ Thanksgiving record?
35-22-1 in 58 games, every one of them at home. See every Cowboys Thanksgiving game.

8. Which current NFL team has never played on Thanksgiving?
The Jacksonville Jaguars.

9. Which current teams have never lost on Thanksgiving?
The Houston Texans (2-0) and the Carolina Panthers (1-0). The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the only current team that has played and never won. They’re 0-1.

10. What is the most common Thanksgiving matchup?
Packers and Lions, with 23 meetings. They played on 13 straight Thanksgivings, from 1951 to 1963. The Lions lead the series 12-10-1.

11. What is the longest Thanksgiving losing streak?
Nine games, by the Lions, from 2004 to 2012.

12. What was the biggest blowout?
Cowboys 51, Seahawks 7, in 1980. That 44-point margin is still the record.

13. Which Thanksgiving game had the most points?
The New York Titans beat the Denver Broncos 46-45 in 1962, an AFL game with 91 points in all. The Titans became the Jets the next year.

14. When was the last tie on Thanksgiving?
1969, when the 49ers and Cowboys played to a 24-24 tie. There have been 13 ties in all. Six of them ended 0-0, all in the 1920s.

15. Have home teams or visitors won more Thanksgiving games?
Neither. Each side has won 120, and the other 13 games were ties.

Players and awards

16. Who holds the Thanksgiving record for rushing yards in one game?
O.J. Simpson, with 273 yards for Buffalo at Detroit in 1976. The Bills still lost, 27-14.

17. Who holds the Thanksgiving record for passing yards in one game?
Troy Aikman, with 455 yards against the Vikings in 1998. Dallas lost anyway, 46-36. Rookie Randy Moss caught three passes that day, and all three went for touchdowns.

18. In 1929 one player scored all 40 of his team’s points on Thanksgiving. Who?
Ernie Nevers of the Chicago Cardinals. He scored six touchdowns and kicked four extra points in a 40-6 win over the Bears. No NFL player has scored more points in a single game.

19. Who has won the most Thanksgiving MVP awards?
Emmitt Smith, with five. Tony Romo and Dak Prescott have four each.

20. Who won John Madden’s first Turkey Leg award?
Reggie White, after the Eagles beat the Cowboys 27-0 in 1989.

21. Which Hall of Famer played his first NFL game on Thanksgiving 1925?
Red Grange, for the Bears against the Chicago Cardinals. The game ended in a 0-0 tie.

Famous moments

22. In the snow in 1993, which Cowboys lineman touched a blocked field goal and gave Miami a second chance?
Leon Lett. Miami recovered the ball, kicked the winning field goal on its second try and won 16-14.

23. After a disputed overtime coin toss on Thanksgiving 1998, the NFL changed its rule. Which team lost the toss?
The Pittsburgh Steelers. The confusion was over what Jerome Bettis called. Detroit won the toss and the game, 19-16, and the league changed how the overtime coin toss works.

24. In the 2012 “Butt Fumble,” what did Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez run into?
The rear end of his own guard, Brandon Moore. Sanchez fumbled, and the Patriots won 49-19.

25. Which game set the record for the most-watched NFL regular-season game?
The Cowboys’ 31-28 win over the Chiefs on Thanksgiving 2025. The CBS broadcast averaged about 57.2 million viewers.

How we built it

We’re mrc, and we make m-Power, a low-code development platform for building web applications over your own database. Every year this app is our excuse to build something fun with it.

If your company keeps its data in a database and people keep asking IT for ways to see it, that’s the same job. Take a look at database front-ends and dashboards built over the data you already have. Or request a demo and tell us what your users keep asking for.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at mrc. Enjoy the app.