Different fans of different teams spanning different generations have seen their favorites play on Thanksgiving.
From Randy Moss and Leon Lett to the Butt Fumble and Tomlin’s Trip, there have been many anNFL Thanksgiving moment that we will remember forever.
What tops your Turkey Day NFL memories?
for some reason the first game that comes to mind is the 2002 Redskins vs Cowboys game where the Spurrier Redskins wore the “FSU style” Washington throwbacks, with former Gator Danny Wuerffel at QB
I remember feeling like it was a game out of another dimension
Randy Moss 3 catches, 163 yards, 3 touchdowns vs the Cowboys
Tomorrow when I wake up and my team is 8-2 and the city is invigorated with Lions energy
I’m just thankful the Bills aren’t playing this year. Stupid Thanksgiving injuries suck worse than dry turkey.
Ezekiel Elliott hopping into the Salvation Army bucket after a TD
That wasn’t on Thanksgiving it was in December
Leon Lett has two of the most infamous/hilarious moments in NFL history. Talk about a real turkey, amirite?
The fact that this doesn’t have 5x more updoots than anything else makes me feel old.
The Butt Fumble may be my favorite NFL moment
I legitimately don’t understand why people reference this so much as a memorable moment. It wasn’t particularly unique or interesting. Shit like this has happened before and has happened since. It would make it into a random bloopers youtube video, but it’s not some all time moment.
As someone who watched it, a big reason is because of the timing. The Patriots went from 7-0 to 28-0 within a span of a minute, got a touchdown early, Jets fumble right at the three yard line, two plays later Mark Sanchez runs into his own lineman’s ass and then the very next kickoff is another fumble that gets returned for a touchdown.
Sanchez had always gotten criticism (because he was Bad) but could shield it by saying he won in the playoffs. That game essentially signalled the end of an era of hope for the Jets with their strong defense as Sanchez became too much of a liability to actually win despite their amazing defense and then went on to only have one winning season and 0 playoff appearances since then.
Combine that with the fact that a player running into his own offensive lineman’s ass and fumbling is funny and you get something that both serves as a representation of a moment in time, when the Jets lost all hope, and as an inherently funny play.
This context makes the cultish following of this play make more sense, thank you. I’ll say it’s still held in too high a regard since you need all that context to really understand why it’s significant. It’s also significant as a point in time for a mediocre team becoming bad, which isn’t particularly noteworthy in the grand history of the NFL. I’m still gonna hate on it, but maybe not as much as I used to.
It’s worth noting that at the time, they weren’t seen as a mediocre team per se. They had been one game from the Super Bowl 2 out of the last 3 years and a lot of people felt if their offense could just get together they might push over the edge. The defense fell down in 2011 but it seemed like a one year blip. So it felt more like the bottom falling out on a true “what if” team, since despite having guys like Mark Sanchez at QB they were one score from the Super Bowl. Rex Ryan was a hot commodity with a fiery personality who talked trash and beat Brady + Bill in the playoffs (which also made the butt fumble game some sweet revenge for some people). Stuff like that.
Not only the butt fumble but that whole game was just a shellacking
The nobody QB Clint Longley who lead the Cowboys’ comeback against the Commies by throwing bombs.
Getting thanksgiving nachos at the stadium when my dad and I used to go to the game in the 90’s.
When Phil Luckett fucked up the coin toss, Steelers vs Lions, Thanksgiving 1998.
Oh. You said favorite.
Jason Garrett throws for 300 yards against the Packers, 1994
Watching the Panthers beat the brakes off of Dallas in 2015. We were undefeated, at home, and were underdogs
John Madden marveling at turduckens was always a blessing
Creed
Ravens beating the Steelers even though Mike Tomlin decided to be a blatant, dirty cheater and the refs didn’t penalize it as a palpably unfair act.