The NFL and Thanksgiving have gone together like turkey and mashed potatoes since the league was founded more than a century ago.
In the first pro football game played on the November holiday, Fritz Pollard — who became the first Black coach in the NFL — led Akron to a 7-0 victory over Jim Thorpe and the Canton Bulldogs in 1920.
The Chicago Bears have played 37 times on Thanksgiving. Twelve of those games were in consecutive years against their oldest rival — the Chicago Cardinals.
In 1925, Red Grange and the Bears played the Cardinals to a scoreless tie in front of 36,000 fans at Wrigley Field, the largest crowd in pro football history at the time. In 1929, six touchdowns by Ernie Nevers led the Cardinals to a 40-6 rout of the Bears in Comiskey Park.
The Bears and Detroit Lions met on Thanksgiving for the first time in 1934, and this week marks their 20th matchup on the holiday.
Here’s a look back at some highlights in this series.
Chicago history headlines
- Nov. 28, 1895: A motorcycle won the first organized automobile race in the United States, which started in Jackson Park and ended in Evanston.
- Nov. 28, 1920: The NFL’s oldest rivalry began. The Bears, then known as the Decatur Staleys, faced the Racine Cardinals — named after Racine Avenue where their home venue was Normal Park and not for the city in Wisconsin — for the first time. Paddy Driscoll kicked the deciding extra point in the Cardinals’ win and kept the Bears in poor field position all afternoon with his precision punts.
- Nov. 28, 1964: With the No. 3 and 4 picks, the Bears chose Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in the first round of the 1965 NFL draft.
- Nov. 28, 1937: The largest crowd to see a football game in the U.S. at the time — 120,000 people — watched Austin High beat Leo 26-0 at Soldier Field in the annual playoff between the city’s Public League and Catholic League champions.
- Nov. 28, 1984: Phil Donahue recorded the last episode of his show in Chicago. Production moved to New York City.
Nov. 29, 1934
Detroit started its annual series the same year the Lions moved from Portsmouth, Ohio, and were having trouble gaining a foothold in a city dominated by baseball’s Tigers. Their largest crowd was just 15,000, but when George Halas brought his undefeated defending world-champion Bears and Bronko Nagurski to town, 26,000 fans packed University of Detroit stadium.
The NBC radio network carried the game coast-to-coast on 94 stations, the first NFL game broadcast nationally.
The Bears won 19-16, and a tradition was born in Detroit.
Nov. 26, 1964
The Bears‘ all-time leading receiver Johnny Morris set the NFL single-season receptions record during the 1964 season with 93. He surpassed the previous mark of 84, set by the Rams’ Tom Fears in 1950 on Thanksgiving in a 27-24 win over the Lions.
After the flanker’s 12-yard reception, the game was halted, and Morris was presented with the ball. Morris benefited from the Bears’ league-leading 494 pass attempts. The record stood until 1984, when the Redskins’ Art Monk caught 106. Morris’ 1,200 receiving yards and 10 touchdown catches in 1964 were monumental in an era dominated by rushing attacks. Morris’ franchise record of 5,059 career receiving yards is the lowest of any of the 32 NFL teams’.
Nov. 27, 1980
Dave Williams’ 97-yard kickoff return for a touchdown — on the first play of overtime — gave the Bears a 23-17 Thanksgiving Day win over Detroit at the Pontiac Silverdome.
“We needed it bad. We were due for a win,” Williams said, as the Bears had lost four of their previous five games. “Just had a good break on the return. We knew we had to win it somehow. In the past we have been down and everything has been going against us. We finally got the break we needed.”
It was a thrilling comeback as the Bears trailed 17-3. Williams’ return was a highlight in a roller-coaster season that finished 7-9 with a 61-7 rout of the Green Bay Packers the next week at Soldier Field.
Nov. 22, 2018
Playing their third NFC North game in a grueling 12-day stretch — including their second in roughly 86 hours — the Bears defeated the Lions 23-16 in Detroit.
With the game tied at 16 in the fourth quarter, safety Eddie Jackson picked off a Matthew Stafford pass and returned it 41 yards for a decisive touchdown. Jackson went untouched after the pick, high-stepping from the 20 before turning at the 2 and walking into the end zone backward. The pick-six was Jackson’s fifth touchdown in 27 NFL games and sealed the Bears’ fifth consecutive victory. He gathered his teammates behind the end zone for a celebration featuring Jackson as a coach, directing his players through a series of up-downs.
In the postgame locker-room celebration — in what came to be known as Club Dub — coach Matt Nagy addressed his team: “That’s what good teams do right there. They bond together, and ba-boom!” he said while throwing his hand down.
Nov. 25, 2021
Two days prior, Nagy faced questions about his job security. A published report by Patch.com stated Nagy had been informed the game versus the Lions on Thanksgiving would be his last.
After nearly three hours of silence from his Bears bosses, Nagy entered the Halas Hall media room at 12:01 p.m., Nov. 23, 2021, and disputed the report during a 10-minute news conference.
A 16-14 win over the winless Lions wasn’t impressive, but it ended the team’s 45-day stretch without a victory (and allowed the coach some much-needed relief over a long weekend).
Still, the win and denials didn’t stop “Fire Nagy!” chants from breaking out all over the city at various sporting events.
Nagy and Bears General Manager Ryan Pace were fired in January 2022.
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