60 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 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The NFL has played games on Thanksgiving Day since its founding in which year?
1920
The league scheduled no Thanksgiving games in 1941 as war loomed, and only the Lions' home game survived when play resumed in 1945.
Q 02Which team has hosted a game every Thanksgiving since 1934, apart from a wartime gap?
Detroit
The franchise had only just arrived in Detroit that year, having started life as the Portsmouth Spartans in Ohio.
Q 03Lions owner George Richards began the Thanksgiving game to sell tickets. What other asset spread it nationwide?
A radio station
He owned WJR, a big NBC Blue Network affiliate, and got NBC to carry his Thanksgiving games live across the country.
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
Shortened wartime seasons meant no Thanksgiving games at all in 1941; the Lions resumed in 1945.
Q 06In which year did the Dallas Cowboys begin hosting a Thanksgiving Day game?
1966
Team president Tex Schramm wanted the publicity of a permanent national TV slot; the Cowboys beat Cleveland 26-14 that first year.
Q 07Which Cowboys executive pushed for the team to take on Thanksgiving hosting duties in 1966?
Tex Schramm
Landry coached, Murchison owned and Brandt scouted; Schramm ran the front office and saw the marketing value.
Q 08Which team replaced Dallas as Thanksgiving host in 1975 and 1977?
St. Louis Cardinals
Dallas hosted St. Louis in 1976 in between, and since 1978 Detroit and Dallas have hosted every single year.
Q 09A third Thanksgiving game, played at night, was added to the schedule in which year?
2006
It first aired on the NFL Network, with NBC taking over in 2012; the night game has never had a fixed host team.
Q 10Whose surname was attached to the NFL's Thanksgiving Classic branding in 2022?
Madden
He had broadcast the games for two decades from 1981, on CBS and then Fox, and died in December 2021.
Q 11The Thanksgiving MVP drumstick tradition began in 1989 with which player?
Reggie White
After Madden said the Cowboys' offensive line would need more drumsticks, a Texas barbecue owner produced a six-legged turkey.
Q 12A turducken is a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck inside which larger bird?
A turkey
Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme trademarked the name in 1986; a famous broadcaster ate his first on air in December 1996 at a Saints game.
Q 13The turducken was introduced to the Thanksgiving broadcast tradition in which year?
1997
He famously sawed through one with his bare hand in the booth in November 2002 to show Al Michaels what was inside.
Q 21How many touchdown catches did rookie Randy Moss have against Dallas on Thanksgiving 1998?
Three
He also caught a two-point conversion; every one of his three receptions went for a score.
Q 22Which Steelers running back was at the centre of the botched Thanksgiving 1998 coin toss?
Jerome Bettis
Detroit-born 'The Bus' says he called tails; referee Phil Luckett heard heads, and the Lions drove for the winning field goal.
Q 23After the 1998 Bettis coin-toss controversy, the NFL ruled a captain's call must be made when?
Before the flip
The league also required at least two officials to be present for the toss.
Q 14Which unknown Cowboys backup replaced Staubach in 1974 and hit Drew Pearson to beat Washington 24-23?
Clint Longley
Nicknamed 'the Mad Bomber', he later punched Staubach in a 1976 training-camp fight and was traded to San Diego.
Q 15How many yards did O.J. Simpson rush for against the Lions on Thanksgiving 1976, then an NFL record?
273
Buffalo still lost 27-14; their quarterback Gary Marangi completed 4 of 21 passes for 29 yards.
Q 16The Lions handed a 10-0 team its only defeat of the 1962 season on Thanksgiving. What was the score?
26-14
The victims were the Green Bay Packers, the Lions' Thanksgiving opponent every year from 1951 to 1963 in a pairing nicknamed the 'Yooper Bowl'.
Q 17Which team was the Lions' Thanksgiving opponent every year from 1951 through 1963?
Green Bay Packers
The run ended in 1963; the 1962 game cost Green Bay a perfect season.
Q 18Dave Williams won the first Thanksgiving overtime game in 1980 with a 95-yard kickoff return. Which team?
Chicago Bears
Detroit lost on its home field to the shortest overtime imaginable.
Q 19In the 1989 'Bounty Bowl', the Eagles were accused of putting a bounty on which Cowboys player?
The kicker
Kicker Luis Zendejas had been cut by Philadelphia earlier that season, which is what made the allegation stick.
Q 20How did Leon Lett turn a blocked field goal into a Dolphins win in the 1993 snow game at Texas Stadium?
Touching the live ball
He slid into the ball, Miami recovered, and Pete Stoyanovich kicked the winner for a 16-14 result.
Q 24Which referee awarded the Lions the disputed 1998 Thanksgiving overtime toss on live television?
Phil Luckett
Luckett maintained Bettis had said 'heads-tails', and the league backed him even as it rewrote the procedure.
Q 25Which Green Bay guard's arm did Ndamukong Suh stomp on, earning a suspension, on Thanksgiving 2011?
Dietrich-Smith
He first pushed the player's head into the turf three times; the two-game ban cost him $165,294 in wages.
Q 26In the 2012 'Butt Fumble', Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez ran into the backside of which teammate?
Brandon Moore
Steve Gregory returned it for a touchdown as New England scored three times in 52 seconds on the way to a 49-19 win.
Q 27For how many consecutive weeks did the Butt Fumble top ESPN's worst-play voting before retirement?
40
Brandon Moore did not realise his body had caused the fumble until he saw the replay, and resented it defining his ten-year career.
Q 28In 2008, the 0-11 Lions lost 47-10 on Thanksgiving to which 10-1 team?
Tennessee Titans
Detroit went on to finish 0-16, the first winless 16-game season in NFL history.
Q 29On 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 30Roughly how many viewers watched the 2025 Chiefs-Cowboys Thanksgiving game, an NFL regular season record?
57 million
All three Thanksgiving games that year set regular season viewership records.