Why the NFL made a Thanksgiving scheduling change that broke 42 years of tradition for the Lions

If you're making plans to watch football on Thanksgiving, you're going to have some extra time to burn this year before the first game kicks off. 

For the first time in 43 years, the early Thanksgiving game won't be kicking off at 12:30 p.m. ET. Instead, it's being pushed back 30 minutes. When the NFL schedule came out in May, one of the most notable changes came with the league's decision to push the early game to 1 p.m. ET and that's when Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers will be kicking off Thursday on Fox. 

The Lions have hosted the early game for decades and the last time it didn't kick off at 12:30 p.m. ET came all the way back in 1982. During a strike-shortened season that saw each team play just nine games, the Lions hosted the Giants in a game that kicked off at 12 p.m. ET. In 1983, the game was moved to the 12:30 p.m. ET window and that's where it's been ever since. 

If you're wondering why the league decided to change a tradition that had stood for 42 years, Roger Goodell gave an explanation for that just before the schedule came out. 

"We're probably going to move from a 12:30 p.m. ET start to 1," Goodell said. "We'll go back to the traditional windows."

Basically, the NFL wanted to align the Thanksgiving kickoff windows with the "traditional" kickoff windows that the league uses on Sundays. NFL fans in the pacific time zone are probably thrilled with the move since that means the game will now kickoff at 10 a.m. PT on Thursday instead of 9:30 a.m. like it did in the past. 

This is the first big change the NFL has made to the Thanksgiving schedule in 19 years. The last major change came in 2006 when the league decided to give us a Turkey Day tripleheader by adding a prime time game that kicks off at 8:20 p.m. ET. This year, the prime time game will feature Joe Burrow making his return to the field for the Bengals in a game against the Ravens. 

Before the late game was added, the league only played a doubleheader on Thanksgiving with the Lions always hosting the early game and the Dallas Cowboys hosting the late afternoon game. The Cowboys, of course, will once again be hosting this year in a showdown with the Kansas City Chiefs that kicks off at 4:30 p.m. ET on CBS. 

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Douglas Clawson

As for the Lions, they've been playing on Thanksgiving since 1934, but the tradition of a Lions-Cowboys doubleheader didn't start until 1966. After that, it took 40 years before the NFL added a primetime game and 19 more years before the league made any other changes, so as you can tell, the NFL doesn't like to mess with its Thanksgiving traditions. 

The NFL loves playing on Thanksgiving and that's mostly because everyone in the country always seems to be watching. 

The Thanksgiving games usually end up being the highest rated regular season games of the year. As a matter of fact, the most-watched regular season game in NFL history came on Thanksgiving in 2022 when 42.1 million people watched the Cowboys beat the Giants, 28-20. There's a very real chance that record could fall on Thursday with the Cowboys hosting Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. 

The most watched early game came last year when 37.5 million people watched the Lions beat the Bears 23-20 in a game on CBS. With the Lions kicking off 30 minutes later this year, that record could also end up falling on Thursday.