Thanksgiving Football Trivia
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58 free Thanksgiving Football trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
52 free Thanksgiving Football trivia questions with answers. Thanksgiving is the biggest sports day on the American calendar, and this Thanksgiving sports trivia quiz covers all of it. The football half runs from Yale and Princeton in 1876 to the Lions' first holiday game in 1934, the Cowboys joining in 1966, Clint Longley, Leon Lett in the snow, the Bettis coin toss, the Butt Fumble, the turducken drumstick and the record-setting 2025 Chiefs-Cowboys audience, plus the college rivalries like the Egg Bowl and Texas versus Texas A&M. The rest of the day gets its due too: the 1896 Buffalo Turkey Trot and the million-plus people who run one every year, the Skins Game golf that filled Thanksgiving weekend for 25 years, the Turkey Night Grand Prix midget race in Southern California, and the college basketball tournaments in Maui and the Bahamas. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia and league records, and each question shows its source once you answer, so you can settle the argument at the table.
30 of 58 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The NFL has played games on Thanksgiving Day since its founding in which year?
1920
1920: the league, founded that September as the American Professional Football Association, staged several games on its first Thanksgiving, 25 November 1920; it took the name National Football League in 1922.
Q 02Which team has hosted a game every Thanksgiving since 1934, apart from a wartime gap?
Detroit
Detroit has hosted every Thanksgiving since 1934, bar 1939 to 1944; owner George A. Richards moved the franchise to the city from Ohio that year and used the holiday game to draw fans away from the baseball Tigers.
Q 03Which asset of Lions owner George Richards spread the 1934 Thanksgiving game nationwide?
A radio station
A radio station: Richards owned WJR, a powerful NBC affiliate, and persuaded NBC to carry the 1934 Thanksgiving game on a national hookup of some 94 stations, which made the Lions a holiday fixture.
Q 04Whom did the Lions host in their first Thanksgiving game in 1934?
Chicago Bears
George Halas's team won 19-16 in front of 26,000; the tradition then paused from 1939 to 1944.
Q 05The Lions' Thanksgiving tradition was interrupted from 1939 to 1944 because of what?
World War II
World War II is the reason usually given: the Lions' holiday game lapsed after 1938, the league's wartime seasons ran with depleted rosters, and the tradition returned in 1945 against the Cleveland Rams.
Q 06In which year did the Dallas Cowboys begin hosting a Thanksgiving Day game?
1966
1966: the Cowboys took the second Thanksgiving slot that year, beating the Cleveland Browns before a then-record Cotton Bowl crowd of more than 80,000, and have hosted every year since except 1975 and 1977.
Q 07Which Cowboys executive pushed for the team to take on Thanksgiving hosting duties?
Tex Schramm
Tex Schramm, the general manager who ran the front office, asked the league for the second Thanksgiving game and reportedly secured a promise that Dallas could keep it; Landry coached, Murchison owned and Brandt scouted.
Q 08Which team replaced Dallas as Thanksgiving host in 1975 and 1977?
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals hosted in 1975 and 1977, when the league tried rotating the second game, and lost both, the 1977 game 55-14 to Miami; the Cowboys hosted the Cardinals in 1976 and from 1978 were hosts again.
Q 09A third Thanksgiving game, played at night, was added to the schedule in which year?
2006
2006 brought the first Thanksgiving night game, Kansas City at Denver, after the league expanded the holiday from its two afternoon fixtures to a third game; the night game rotates among teams rather than having a fixed host.
Q 10The Thanksgiving MVP drumstick tradition began in 1989 with which player?
Reggie White
Reggie White, the Eagles' defensive end, received the first turkey leg after Philadelphia's 27-0 win at Dallas in 1989; the award later grew into a six-legged turkey so that a whole offensive line could share.
Q 11Which Cajun chef trademarked the name of the turducken that became a broadcast-booth staple?
Paul Prudhomme
Paul Prudhomme, the New Orleans chef behind K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen, trademarked the name turducken in 1986; the dish became a broadcast-booth staple after Louisiana fans sent one up to the announcers at a Saints game.
Q 12Which unknown Cowboys backup replaced Staubach in 1974 and hit Drew Pearson to beat Washington 24-23?
Clint Longley
Clint Longley came on when Staubach was knocked out of the game and threw a 50-yard touchdown to Pearson with 28 seconds left; 'the Mad Bomber' later punched Staubach in training camp and was traded to San Diego.
Q 13How many yards did O.J. Simpson rush for against the Lions on Thanksgiving 1976, then an NFL record?
273
Q 21After the 1998 Thanksgiving coin-toss controversy, when did the NFL rule a captain must call?
Before the flip
Before the flip: from the following week the captain had to announce heads or tails before the coin went up rather than while it was in the air, so that the call could not be disputed afterwards.
Q 22Which referee awarded the Lions the disputed 1998 Thanksgiving overtime toss on live television?
Phil Luckett
Phil Luckett said the captain began 'hea-' before switching to 'tails', so he took the first word and gave the Lions the overtime ball; the league backed his account but changed the procedure the next week.
Q 23Which Green Bay guard's arm did Ndamukong Suh stomp on, earning a suspension, on Thanksgiving 2011?
273 yards on 29 carries, with two touchdowns, set the single-game record that Walter Payton broke with 275 the following season; the Bills lost 27-14 all the same.
Q 14What was the score when the Lions beat a 10-0 team on Thanksgiving 1962?
26-14
26-14: the Lions' defensive line spent the first half in the visitors' backfield and built a 26-0 lead before two late touchdowns, handing the eventual champions their only loss of the 1962 season.
Q 15Which team was the Lions' Thanksgiving opponent every year from 1951 through 1963?
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers visited the Lions on Thanksgiving for thirteen straight years from 1951 to 1963, a series that ended when Vince Lombardi tired of always being the visitor; their 1962 loss there spoiled a perfect season.
Q 16Whose illegal challenge flag let Justin Forsett's 81-yard touchdown run stand on Thanksgiving 2012?
Jim Schwartz
Jim Schwartz, the Lions' head coach, threw his challenge flag even though scoring plays were reviewed automatically; the penalty cancelled the review, so Forsett's run, on which he was clearly down, stood, and Houston won 34-31 in overtime.
Q 17In the 1989 'Bounty Bowl', the Eagles were accused of putting a bounty on which Cowboys player?
The kicker
The kicker, Luis Zendejas, had been cut by Philadelphia weeks earlier; Jimmy Johnson claimed Buddy Ryan's Eagles put a bounty on him after he was flattened on a kickoff, and Ryan mocked the charge as Dallas lost 27-0.
Q 18How did Leon Lett turn a blocked field goal into a Dolphins win in the 1993 snow game at Texas Stadium?
Touching the live ball
Touching the live ball was the blunder: after Jimmie Jones blocked Pete Stoyanovich's kick, the ball lay dead until Leon Lett slid into it, Miami recovered at the 1-yard line, and Stoyanovich kicked the 19-yard winner for 16-14.
Q 19How many touchdown catches did rookie Randy Moss have against Dallas on Thanksgiving 1998?
Three
Three: Moss caught just three passes from Randall Cunningham for 163 yards, and every one was a touchdown in a 46-36 Vikings win; he later called the game payback for Dallas passing on him in the draft.
Q 20Which Steelers running back was at the centre of the botched Thanksgiving 1998 coin toss?
Jerome Bettis
Jerome Bettis, 'The Bus', insisted he called tails, but the referee announced heads; the Lions took the ball, drove into range, and Jason Hanson's field goal won it 19-16.
Dietrich-Smith
Dietrich-Smith, the Packers guard Evan Dietrich-Smith, had his helmet shoved into the turf by Suh, who then stamped on his arm; Suh was ejected from the game and suspended without pay for two games.
Q 24In the 2012 'Butt Fumble', Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez ran into the backside of which teammate?
Brandon Moore
Brandon Moore, the Jets' right guard, was the backside Sanchez ran into after a botched handoff; Steve Gregory returned the fumble for a touchdown as New England scored 21 points in 52 seconds on the way to a 49-19 win.
Q 25For how many consecutive weeks did the Butt Fumble top ESPN's worst-play voting before retirement?
40
40 straight weeks: the play won SportsCenter's 'Worst of the Worst' fan vote every week until ESPN retired it in 2013, by which time it had become the defining lowlight of Mark Sanchez's Jets career.
Q 26In 2008, the 0-11 Lions lost 47-10 on Thanksgiving to which 10-1 team?
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans, at 10-1 the league's best team, rolled up 47 points, and the Lions went on to finish 0-16, the first winless 16-game season in NFL history.
Q 27On which day of the week was the COVID-postponed 2020 Thanksgiving Ravens–Steelers game eventually played?
Wednesday
It moved to Wednesday 2 December, one of several reschedulings that season.
Q 28Roughly how many viewers watched the 2025 Chiefs-Cowboys Thanksgiving game, then a regular-season record?
57 million
57 million is the rounded figure: CBS reported 57.2 million viewers for the Cowboys' win over the Chiefs, the most-watched regular-season game in NFL history up to that point.
Q 29Which channel first carried the Thanksgiving prime-time game when it was introduced?
NFL Network
NFL Network, the league's own channel, launched the Thanksgiving night game and carried it for six seasons before a broadcast network took it over in 2012, the night of the Butt Fumble.
Q 30Thanksgiving Day football dates to 1876, when which two colleges began playing on the holiday?
Yale and Princeton
Yale and Princeton met in Hoboken, New Jersey, on Thanksgiving 1876, the first holiday game; by the 1890s their championship clash at Manhattan's Polo Grounds drew tens of thousands and made Thanksgiving football a national habit.