Ranking the Best Thanksgiving NFL Games Since 2000
For fans of both sports and food, it doesn't get much better than a Thanksgiving spent on the couch with a belly full of turkey and a television full of pigskin. And over the past two decades, the NFL has delivered some great games for this lazy holiday.
From 1960 to 2005, it was always two games played on Thanksgiving. It has been three games since 2006. And while most of the 54 games since 2000 were either blowouts, low-scoring duds or simply sloppy football played on minimal rest, there have been enough overtime affairs, wild comebacks and wall-to-wall entertaining games to keep millions of us coming back for another helping.
Both Dallas and Detroit host a Thanksgiving game every year, so it should come as no surprise that those teams are in the vast majority of these best matchups. Still, that serves as a warning to everyone who isn't accustomed to the Lions occupying a significant part of a "best NFL games" article.
Contests are ranked based on a combination of overall entertainment, individual performances and significance to the season. Something like Tony Romo and Aaron Rodgers both throwing four touchdowns in an amazing battle between undefeated teams would be the ideal scenario, but even a respectable game between 8-2 teams would be a strong candidate for our top five.
Honorable Mentions
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Dallas Cowboys 20, Miami Dolphins 19 (2011): Four times, the Dolphins got down to the Dallas 10 before settling for a short field goal. Thanks to all those points left on the board, the Cowboys won on a do-or-die 28-yard field goal in the final seconds.
Baltimore Ravens 22, Pittsburgh Steelers 20 (2013): This was a pretty standard defensive grind between these AFC North rivals. Pittsburgh scored touchdowns on three of its four possessions in the second half but failed to convert the game-tying two-point attempt. Justin Tucker drained all five of his field-goal attempts.
Chicago Bears 17, Green Bay Packers 13 (2015): Aside from the final few minutes of the first half, both teams seemed incapable of moving the ball. The Packers finally put together their only drive of 50 or more yards in the closing minutes, but Rodgers threw four straight incompletions from the Chicago 8-yard line to seal a Bears victory.
Chicago Bears 23, Detroit Lions 16 (2018):ย With the game tied at 16-16 midway through the fourth quarter, Matthew Stafford threw a pick-six to Eddie Jackson. Detroit got the ball back and marched into the red zone before Stafford threw another ball to the wrong team.
Chicago Bears 24, Detroit Lions 20 (2019):ย Lions quarterback David Blough threw touchdowns on each of the first two drives of his NFL career. However, in the only three subsequent drives of eight or more yards, Detroit settled for two short field goals and a game-ending interceptionโone possession after Chicago went 90 yards to take a four-point lead.
No. 8 (Tie): Indianapolis-Detroit in 2004; Washington-Dallas in 2012
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As we've witnessed on a quite regular basis over the past eight-plus seasons of weekly Thursday night football, the quick turnaround tends to work in the defense's favor.
That's no different on Thanksgiving. Of the 54 Turkey Day games played since 2000, the winning team has put up more than 40 points just six times, and the losing team has only eclipsed 27 points twice.
Here are two exceptions when offense ruled the roost.
In the 2004 Colts-Lions game, Peyton Manning had one of the best individual performances of his career, which is saying something for a five-time MVP and a shoo-in Hall of Famer. It was a mediocre day in the yardage department (236), but he completed 23 of 28 pass attempts for six touchdowns, connecting with Brandon Stokley on the first three and Marvin Harrison on the latter three.
Perhaps Manning would have racked up more yards if A) Detroit hadn't turned the ball over five times or B) he had taken a snap in the final 17 minutes of a 41-9 blowout. But six touchdowns in less than three full quarters of work is quite the day at the office.
The other game came during that all-too-brief window in which Robert Griffin III took the world by storm.
Heading into its 2012 clash with Dallas, Washington had lost five consecutive Thanksgiving games dating back to 1974. But this year was different. Griffin led Washington on four consecutive touchdown drives in the second quarter to take a 28-3 lead into the break.
Romo tried like mad to orchestrate a second-half comeback, finishing the day with 441 yards and three touchdowns. But Washington prevailed 38-31 for the second of what would be seven consecutive wins to close out the regular season.
No. 7: Houston Texans 34, Detroit Lions 31 (OT) (2012)
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Here's the other game in which both teams scored more than 27 points.
2012 was (and still is) the best season in franchise history for the Houston Texans. Matt Schaub threw for more than 4,000 yards. Arian Foster had his third consecutive great year, rushing for more than 1,400 yards and leading the league with 17 all-purpose touchdowns. They went 12-4 before they ran into Mission Impossible: a divisional-round playoff game in New England.
And Detroit was, well, Detroit. After going 10-6 in 2011 and making the playoffs for the first time in more than a decade, the Lions had settled back into their usual sub-.500 role. Even though Detroit had home-field advantage for this 9-1 vs. 4-6 matchup, most expected the Lions to get blown out.
But that didn't happen. In fact, the Lions never trailed until the final whistle.
They went 80 yards for a touchdown on their opening drive before the Texans tied the game at 7-7. Then they went 83 yards just for Houston to make it 14-14 a few minutes later. The two sides were also tied at 24-24 and went into overtime knotted up at 31-31 after Houston's 15-play, 97-yard touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter.
Then overtime was a comedy of errors.
Detroit took the first possession and immediately gained 40 yards to get into Houston territory, but it fumbled the ball away. The Texans then got inside the Detroit 30 before a false start and two negative rushes left Shayne Graham with a 51-yard field-goal attempt that he missed. After a Detroit punt from the Houston 45 (!), Schaub threw an interception. And then it was Detroit's turn to get into field-goal range, take a three-yard loss and then miss a 47-yard field goal.
At long last, Houston marched down the field for a game-winning attempt that actually went in.
Under the current overtime format (10 minutes instead of 15 minutes), it seems the game would have ended in a tie, since Graham made that field goal with 2:25 remaining.
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No. 6: Green Bay Packers 29, Detroit Lions 27 (2001)
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Oh look, another Thanksgiving game that Detroit lost. I promise we'll get to a Lions win shortly, but 26 percent (14 of 54) of the Thanksgiving games played since 2000 were Detroit losses. It's kind of hard to avoid them.
This one in 2001 was particularly brutal for Lions fans. Detroit entered with an 0-9 record, but it couldn't even tank for the No. 1 pick in the 2002 draft, which had already been awarded to the expansion team in Houston. All they wanted was to win this game and maybe throw a wrench into the playoff plans of those loathed Green Bay Packers and their golden boy, Brett Favre.
On Detroit's first snap, Charlie Batch connected with Johnnie Morton for a huge gain, but the receiver fumbled into the end zone for a Green Bay touchback. The Packers scored a touchdown five plays later. Hardly a promising start.ย
The Lions kept things interesting for a while, though, including a fumble recovery for a touchdown to take a 13-10 lead late in the second quarter. By midway through the fourth quarter, Green Bay had opened up a 29-13 lead, but Detroit didn't give up.
Rookie Mike McMahon replaced Batch at quarterback and led the Lions on an 18-play touchdown drive that included conversions on 4th-and-4, 4th-and-7 and 4th-and-10. McMahon then ran in the two-point try to cut Green Bay's lead to eight with 80 seconds remaining.
The Lions lined up for an onside kick attempt, but instead of dribbling the ball toward the hands team, Jason Hanson kicked the ball with his opposite foot about 30 yards down the other side of the field, and Detroit came up with it at the Green Bay 31.
Four plays later, another successful fourth-down attempt resulted in a 29-yard touchdown. But on the game-tying two-point attempt, McMahon ran around for a while before lofting the ball just out of the reach of an open receiver.
For Detroit, this type of heartbreak was all too familiar. And we're not even talking about franchise history or anything like that. Just in that season, it was the seventh of nine consecutive losses by a margin of eight points or fewer. "Close but no cigar" was basically the team motto that year.
No. 5: New Orleans Saints 30, Dallas Cowboys 27 (2010)
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Part of what made this 2010 game so entertaining was how unexpected the action was.
New Orleans was 7-3 and had one of the league's best defenses. Dallas was 3-7 and was so bad on defense it often felt like the Cowboys were playing down a man.
The first 10 minutes of this game provided a swift reminder of all that. While New Orleans went TD-FG-TD on its first three possessions, Jon Kitna threw an interception to end Dallas' first drive and took a 17-yard loss on a botched snap to end the second one. When the Saints took a 17-0 lead, Dallas had three yards of total offense.
And then Dallas stormed all the way back.
Miles Austin took an end around 60 yards for a touchdown early in the third quarter to help bring the Cowboys within a 20-13 margin. After a Saints field goal, Reggie Bush fumbled a punt return to put the Cowboys in the red zone for another touchdown. And after a Drew Brees interception set up Dallas in plus-territory once again, Tashard Choice finished off a 39-yard drive with the go-ahead touchdown.
What initially looked like it would be a Saints blowout win was suddenly a 27-23 Cowboys lead with time running out.
Dallas was moving in for the kill with under four minutes remaining. Kitna hit Roy Williams for a huge third-down gain (aided by Patrick Robinson's lost footing), but Malcolm Jenkins caught Williams from behind and stripped the ball from him at the New Orleans 11. Five plays later, Brees had led the Saints 89 yards to take a 30-27 lead with 1:55 remaining.
The Cowboys got the ball back into New Orleans territory and tried a long game-tying field goal, but David Buehler's 59-yard attempt sailed slightly wide left.
No. 4: Detroit Lions 16, Minnesota Vikings 13 (2016)
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Even though it wasn't an aesthetically pleasing game, there are a lot of elements in play here that made this one from 2016 rank so highly.
For starters, Detroit and Minnesota were tied for first place in the NFC North with matching 6-4 records. It was hard enough to find instances over the past two decades in which Detroit still had a playoff pulse by Thanksgiving, let alone a game that it was also facing a division rival in the postseason conversation. Because Thursday's early-afternoon game actually mattered for a change, this one felt like a much bigger deal.
Second, the contest started strong. Each team put together a 12-play touchdown drive on its opening possession. There wasn't another touchdown scored the entire afternoon, but it at least looked for one quarter like we would be treated to fun back-and-forth affair.
And while the subsequent 40 minutes of game time were uneventful, the final five minutes were wild.
Minnesota held a 13-10 lead when Jeff Locke crushed the perfect coffin-corner punt to pin Detroit at its own 2. At that point, the Lions had 24 yards of total offense in the second half, so a long scoring drive seemed unlikely. Matthew Stafford and Co. suddenly woke up, though, moving 68 yards in nine plays to set up the game-tying field goal with less than two minutes remaining.
After a touchback, Minnesota needed to go about 45 yards to get into realistic field-goal range for Kai Forbath. But after a few short plays did nothing but burn clock, Sam Bradford threw an unforgivable interception to Darius Slay to hand Detroit the ball back at the Minnesota 20 with 30 seconds to go. Matt Prater drained the game-winning kick as time expired on a Lions victory.
Here's one final reason this game landed at No. 4 on our list: Detroit earned the No. 6 seed in the NFC with a 9-7 record, while Minnesota was left out at 8-8. Though it wasn't the final week of the regular season, one could argue that this gameโand that ill-advised interceptionโwas the deciding playoff-berth factor here.ย
No. 3: Baltimore Ravens 16, San Francisco 49ers 6 (2011)
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As a stark reminder that the "best" games aren't always the highest-scoring affairs, this incredible family feud only featured one touchdown.
Jim Harbaugh's 49ers entered Thanksgiving in 2011 with a 9-1 record and hopes of eventually securing the NFC's No. 1 seed. John Harbaugh's Ravens were 7-3, which put them in a four-way tie for the best record in the AFC. Win this Turkey Day tussle and they, too, had a realistic path to home-field advantage.
For both squads, defense was the name of the game. The 49ers were leading the NFL at just 14.5 points allowed per contest. The Ravens checked in at No. 3 on that list at 17.6.
What ensued was 60 grueling minutes of battling for field position.
The teams combined for just 12 points on their first 12 possessions. There was only one change of possession in the entire third quarter, as San Francisco opened the second half with a 13-play, seven-minute, 30-second field-goal drive, followed by Baltimore needing 16 plays and 7:34 to score the game's only touchdown, which came at the beginning of the fourth quarter. The Ravens had to convert four times on 3rd-and-6 or longer to finally reach paydirt.
The game's lone turnover was a backbreaker for San Francisco. It had the ball at the Baltimore 35 with less than 20 seconds remaining in the first half. David Akers had already made five field goals from at least 50 yards out that season, so they were within range of three points. But rather than running a couple of quick outs to improve the odds of making the kick, Alex Smith launched a pass into the end zoneโwith two timeouts remaining!โthat got picked off by Lardarius Webb.
In the entire game, neither team had a single gain of more than 22 yards. But it was an awesome three-hour-long tug of war.
No. 2: New Orleans Saints 26, Atlanta Falcons 18 (2019)
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Less than three weeks before this 2019 game, Atlanta (then 1-7) went on the road and soundly defeated New Orleans (then 7-1) 26-9โmuch to the chagrin of a lot of people in survivor pools.
Late in this Thanksgiving affair, it looked like New Orleans would perfectly repay the favor. A Will Lutz field goal put the Saints ahead 26-9 with 6:29 remaining in the fourth quarter. Taysom Hill had both a rushing and receiving touchdown in the first half, and Atlanta couldn't keep pace.
If you either intentionally turned the game off or accidentally fell asleep on the couch when the Saints went up by 17 points with minimal time remaining, it's hard to blame you. After all, it was the 8:20 p.m. ET kickoff on a day filled with mashed potatoes, stuffing and tryptophan, and it was going to take a miracle for the Falcons to make the comebackโparticularly considering Atlanta had committed a turnover on each of its previous three possessions.
Lo and behold, the Falcons almost did it.
Matt Ryan first led them 75 yards for a touchdown against the doesn't-actually-prevent-anything defense. Atlanta went for two for no apparent reason and failed, making the score 26-15 with 3:26 remaining.
The Falcons had no choice but to attempt an onside kick, which they recovered. It was still very much an uphill journey, but at least they had a prayer. They got down to the New Orleans 25 and kicked a field goal on the first snap after the two-minute warning, making it 26-18.
Atlanta still had all three timeouts remaining, but rather than kick it away and hope the defense could force a three-and-out, the Falcons went for another onside kick and got it. Only 6 percent of onside kicks were recovered by the kicking team in the entire 2018 season. At that rate, the odds of getting two back-to-back are significantly less than 1 percent.
Out of nowhere, Atlanta was 53 yards and a two-point conversion away from forcing overtime. But its luck ran out as Ryan took three sacks on that final possession, including one on fourth down to seal it.
No. 1: Denver Broncos 24, Dallas Cowboys 21 (OT) (2005)
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Hard to argue with an overtime game between division leaders, right?
The Denver Broncos entered 2005's Thanksgiving weekend in sole possession of first place in the AFC West with an 8-2 record, while the Dallas Cowboys were tied with the New York Giants atop the NFC East at 7-3. It didn't quite feel like a Super Bowl preview with Indianapolis sitting at 10-0 and looking like a heavy favorite in the AFC, but it was a colossal game with playoff seeding beginning to take shape.
Denver's Champ Bailey got the scoring started in the first quarter by picking off a Drew Bledsoe pass and taking it 65 yards to the house. Bledsoe would later make up for it with two passing touchdowns and a rushing touchdown. He also got the Cowboys into what should have been game-winning field-goal position midway through the fourth quarter, but Billy Cundiff missed a 34-yarder to pave the way for overtime.
Denver leaned heavily on its one-two backfield punch of Mike Anderson and Tatum Bell that season. The duo combined for 20 rushing touchdowns and just under 2,000 yards. However, Bell was unavailable for this game, forcing Ron Dayne into the line of duty for a huge day.
Dayne had a 16-yard rushing touchdown in the third quarter, but his biggest contribution was the 55-yard gain on the second play of overtimeโthe second-longest rush of his entire career. That got Denver down to the Dallas 6, and he probably would've been given a few more chances to punch in the game-winning score had it been necessary. In 2005, though, the first team to possess the ball in overtime could end the game with a field goal, and the Broncos did just that on 1st-and-goal.
Denver ended up with the No. 2 seed in the AFC, but this was the beginning of Dallas' demise. The Cowboys lost four of their final six games to drop out of the playoff picture.
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