Turkey, Football, and the Dallas Cowboys (Nov 24, 2024)

by Scott Sosebee

I think that Thanksgiving is our most perfect holiday. It is ideal because it is only one day, there is not a massive amount of time related to “promotion and buildup” (the Christmas “season” is unrelenting, Halloween has become almost the same, and other holidays have multiple days of celebration), and it involves two things I love to do—eat and watch football. How much better could a single day be? In other columns about Thanksgiving, I have discussed some obscure Turkey Day traditions and also implored all readers that the only acceptable kind of dressing—a customary accompaniment to turkey—is southern cornbread dressing. In other words, please keep your white bread “stuffing” and anything that includes fruit and shellfish out of dressing. It is a serious culinary faux pas. For this year, I thought that the Thanksgiving wisdom I will dispense is to perhaps give some background to one of the best Thanksgiving traditions: The Dallas Cowboys playing on the day we celebrate.

The Cowboys have played at home on every Thanksgiving Day since 1966, except for 1975 and 1977, two years when the NFL’s television contract was in negotiation and the St. Louis (Now Arizona) Cardinals hosted games. The NFL was founded in 1920—in the showroom of a car dealership in Canton, Ohio—and has been playing games on Thanksgiving continuously since that year. During the first eighteen years of the NFL’s existence, a number of teams played on Turkey Day; The Chicago Bears and Chicago Cardinals (they were in Chicago before they moved to St. Louis and then to Phoenix) played from 1922-1933, the Bears and Lions played each other from 1934 to 1938. In fact, Lions’ owner George Richard so enjoyed his team playing on Thanksgiving that he was able to get the NFL to agree that his Lions would play every year on the holiday, and that they would do so at home. It became a tradition, and the Lions drew huge crowds—no matter the team’s record—to first Tiger Stadium, then to the “Silverdome” in the suburb of Pontiac, and they continue to draw hordes to their annual game in Ford Field in downtown Detroit.

The Lions had NFL games on Thanksgiving exclusively to themselves until 1966, which was the year the Cowboys invaded their exclusivity. When the Dallas Cowboys were founded in 1960, owner Clint Murchison, Jr.—on the recommendation of new NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle—hired Texas “Tex” Schramm to be his General Manager. Schramm, who had once worked for CBS television and at the time of his hiring was the PR Director for the Los Angeles Rams, understood perhaps better than anyone in the NFL that the medium of television was the future of the league and that it would be television—more so than in-person attendance, what city a team played in, and even winning championships—that would determine a team’s popularity. Dallas’ first half decade was rough as the team had losing records in its first five seasons. However, Schramm and Head Coach Tom Landry, with a big assist from chief scout Gil Brandt, had begun to build a competitive team. They had broken through and achieved a .500 record in 1965 and both believed that the Cowboys were a team ready to become one of the NFL’s top franchises.

Schramm wanted to capitalize on that by building the team’s popularity nationally, and that meant exposure. The NFL’s television contract with major networks in the 1960s was much different than it is today. CBS carried the league’s games, but they did so entirely on a regional basis with games only being shown within the competing teams’ “home markets.” Schramm had pulled off a shrewd move when Dallas entered the league by insisting that the Cowboys be placed in the same division as the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and the Washington franchise (now Commanders). Schramm correctly reasoned that because Dallas competed against those clubs they would get exposure among the nation’s most populated media markets. However, the only times a team’s games were ever viewed by the whole national market was during the playoffs and at one other date on the calendar, Thanksgiving Day, and that was always the Detroit Lions and whoever they played, which was usually Green Bay or Chicago. Schramm wanted such exposure for his Cowboys. It just so happened that the NFL was also in search of a second game on Thanksgiving to play after the Lions finished their traditional noon game. Schramm wanted that team to be the Cowboys.

Schramm may have liked the idea of playing on Thanksgiving Day since that would mean more people watching the Dallas Cowboys play football, but his head coach, Tom Landry, hated the idea, as did his peers in the NFL. For coaches, playing a game on a Thursday disrupted the natural rhythm of the team. Landry balked when Schramm approached him about petitioning the league to allow the Cowboys to become permanent on the Thanksgiving viewing schedule. Landry gave in when Schramm sold him on the idea that playing on Thursday would give Dallas ten days to prepare for the next game and that it would become a distinct advantage for the Cowboys as they would always play at home, and the team would become used to the Thursday routine. Perhaps Schramm was on to something. The Cowboys record on Thanksgiving Day is 33-22-1, but through the first twenty years of Thanksgiving games, the Cowboys were 15-4-1. Certainly, part of that record was fielding very good teams, but even Landry would have been the first to tell you that Dallas had an advantage on Thanksgiving Day.

NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was more than pleased when Schramm told him that Dallas would be willing to permanently host a Thanksgiving Day game. Rozelle had approached a number of teams, such as the Chicago Bears, the New York Giants, and the Los Angeles Rams, about playing a home game every Thanksgiving, and all had turned him down, so he readily accepted Schramm’s offer. The Cowboys opened their Thanksgiving schedule in 1966 and defeated the Cleveland Browns 26-14. In fact, Dallas opened their Turkey Day results with a 5-0-1 record before the San Francisco 49ers defeated them in 1972. The TV networks also broadcast the games nationally as it was the only game on in its time slot. Thus, the Cowboys would be seen by viewers all over the nation. That became a huge factor in Dallas, by the mid-1970s, becoming the most popular team in the entire country, which was a reason why, in the NFL’s promotional productions for 1978, the title of the Dallas Cowboys’ entry was “America’s Team,” a moniker that has stuck.

So, go ahead and have that extra helping of turkey and dressing, and don’t worry about eating that pumpkin pie because calories don’t count on Thanksgiving. Just make sure you are in your chair in front of the TV by 3:25 as that is what time kickoff is.

The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.