The NFL’s Thanksgiving scheduling is so dumb

The complete NFL schedule will be announced on Thursday evening with all the pointless pomp and circumstance the league can muster, but we already know what’s going down on the biggest football holiday of the year. The Thanksgiving games have been formally released, and it’s an abomination.

We don’t even need to mention that the NFL invented “Thanksgiving Eve” as a way to throw another game on the slate without recognizing that what they’re doing on Turkey Day itself is an affront. Things kick off at 12:30 p.m. with Bears vs. Lions, then at 4:30 p.m. it’s Eagles vs. Cowboys, and into the evening at 8:30 with Bills vs. Chiefs p.m.

This might all seem fine, but there’s one colossal issue: We have two divisional games on Thanksgiving Day itself. In what’s become a pseudo tradition, the NFL is insistent on stacking important, meaningful games on the holiday, which is problematic for competitive balance when it comes to making teams play important games on short rest, but moreover, it’s a terrible experience for fans.

If anything, the scheduling goes to show that there is a fundamental disconnect between what football fans want from the NFL, and what the league gives them. Thanksgiving football should fundamentally be background noise, passive watching — even to the most die-hard fan. If there’s a single day on the calendar to throw some softball gimme’s, it’s Turkey Day, and yet fans in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Detroit will need to seriously pay attention to the TV in critical divisional matchups that could determine playoff spots, rather than focus on food and family.

Lions fans are particularly hard done by this ongoing shift to divisional Thanksgiving matchups. This year marks the fourth year in a row Detroit has hosted a divisional opponent on the holiday. In 2025 they played the Packers, in 2024 it was the Bears, and in 2023 it was the Packers once more. If you are a dedicated fan of the Lions then it’s become almost second nature to have your holiday destroyed by a football game lasting a majority of the afternoon that can’t be ignored.

The NFL is intentionally marketing these games to maximize ad revenue. They’re being billed and sold as “premier matchups” to broadcasters, which is fine — except for the part that it hurts fans. Under no circumstances are Thanksgiving games a good viewing experience for the vast majority of fans. It’s likely that people will be away from home visiting family on Thanksgiving, and with that comes inconsistent TV quality, while also being a day that’s typically full of other distractions — as it should be. Thanksgiving is about food and family, with football being sprinkled in as an extra side dish.

Football is part of the fabric of the holiday, sure — but at no point should fans be pressured into choosing between watching their favorite team play in a critical game with playoff implications, and getting a chance to spend quality time with their loved ones. Nobody should be put in a position where they are forced to miss a critical drive or game-winning play because it’s time to carve the Turkey.

This is a huge issue the NFL has with its holiday broadcasting, and why the Christmas Day NBA slate remains the best. Basketball games in December are largely meaningless. They exist as window dressing to be casually enjoyed, drop in and out of, without a lot of emotional investment. The same should be the case for Thanksgiving. People would still tune in. It’s not like the Cowboys, Eagles, Bears or Lions won’t draw viewers anyway — but they just didn’t need to play each other.

Divisional football should be held for when football is the centerpiece of the day, which is almost every Sunday in the fall. They shouldn’t be shoehorned onto short rest weeks during holidays, where the NFL competes for attention with everything else in our lives.