The long-suffering Detroit Lions fans have been disappointed by this season so far, but they may still have plenty to be thankful for yet.
Today the Detroit Lions will take the field for their annual Thanksgiving day game and all hopes of making a miraculous run into the playoff picture will ride on the outcome.
Yes, it’s pretty much do or die for the Lions playoff hopes.
And if they win, then the same will be true when they host the Los Angeles Rams in a week and a half. That’s right, this team is precariously walking a tight-rope of hope. One more misstep and we can pretty much call it a season.
Yet hope is part of what Thanksgiving is about. Even when it’s given the cold shoulder.
Every year when the last of the trick or the treaters have hurried home with their bag of goodies, America starts the countdown to Christmas. Some radio stations literally start playing Christmas music on November 1st. The holiday season is in full swing and Thanksgiving is sort of ignored.
But Thanksgiving could possibly be called Detroit’s holiday more than any other city in America. Despite the pageantry of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York and the higher profile of the Dallas Cowboys, who also annually play on Thanksgiving.
The Lions hosted these same Chicago Bears in the first ever Thanksgiving day match-up in NFL history on November 29, 1934. Unfortunately, the Bears came out victorious that day, but a tradition was born.
Detroit and the Lions have hosted games on Thanksgiving day every year since with the exception of six seasons during World War II. Plus America’s Thanksgiving Parade, held in downtown Detroit, started in 1924, the same year as Macy’s, and is only surpassed in age by Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day parade which started in 1920.
So Detroit has as much, if not more, Thanksgiving tradition as any other city in America.
That, of course, doesn’t guarantee a Lions victory, but over the years we’ve seen the Lions win many games we didn’t expect them to on this holiday.
We’ve also seen them lose plenty of times as well, including a come-from-behind effort by these same Bears in 1980, who scored at the end of regulation to tie the game, then returned the overtime kick-off to win it giving the whole city of Detroit heartburn in the process.
Yet, win or lose today, is it possible that there just may still be plenty for Lions fans to be thankful about?