Thanksgiving TV Traditions are Not Turkeys

Before the complaints begin and grow a bit louder on Thanksgiving Day, consider this a happy, proactive pitch for tradition.

Football fans will find three NFL games on TV Thursday:
-- New England at Detroit (12:30 p.m., CBS);
-- New Orleans at Dallas (4:15 p.m., Fox); and
-- Cincinnati at the New York Jets (8:20 p.m., NFL Network).

With the 2-8 Lions again mired in a dismal season, some ill-informed and highly opinionated types will no doubt complain about the fact that they always host a Thanksgiving Day game. They'll argue that the game should be rotated among any NFL teams that have an interest.

They're wrong. Even if the visiting Patriots, who are 8-2 and might be as good as the Lions are bad, blow out the Lions (and that's likely), the critics are wrong.

Games in Detroit and Dallas remain NFL traditions, TV staples to go with the turkey and then the first wave of leftovers.

Changing teams would not change the ratings that much, either. People will watch. Even the Lions.

They watch with family and friends. Or they watch because they love the NFL. Plus, there's no need to waste A-list teams to try to salvage TV interest or ratings on Thanksgiving Day.

To its credit, the NFL has done a little bit to help -- as evidenced by the visiting teams this year. With New England, the early game has one of the best teams in the league with personalities (especially Patriots QB Tom Brady) who generate a great deal of interest among both casual and hard-core fans. Additionally, at the start of the season the Saints-Cowboys game probably looked like a playoff preview -- that the Cowboys (3-7) have underachieved could not have been expected.

That's the real reason for not altering Thanksgiving Day schedules. The NFL has proven to be so unpredictable (OK, other than Detroit's consistent troubles) that altering things on Thanksgiving Day just to involve other teams or reach for ratings seems silly.

Plus, the NFL does no need to reach. It's going to get ratings no matter what. This season the average viewership for games, all games in TV windows, has been more than 10 million people per game.

Finally, not all other owners and/or fan bases want the games at home. So moving things around might cause as much trouble as it solves. For those who want change, the NFL Network has the best possible thing -- a night game that has existed the past couple years, at varying locations, to complete the NFL's monopoly on the day and provide some inventory for the league's TV network.

That's enough change for me. Other than that, let's stick with the traditional turkey day sites.