McLean‘s Hometown News Site

The National Football League has been playing games on Thanksgiving Day since its inception in 1920. The NFL’s Thanksgiving Day games have traditionally included one game hosted by the Detroit Lions since 1934, one game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys since 1966, and a third prime-time game has been played since 2006. This prime-time game has no fixed host and features different teams every year, mainly consisting of division rivals ever since 2012. This year the Lions host the Bears, the Cowboys host the Raiders, and the primetime game will be the Bills against the Saints in New Orleans. Since the NFL has been playing games on Thanksgiving Day, there has only been one team to not play on the holiday, the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

The National Football League has been playing games on Thanksgiving Day since its inception in 1920. The NFL’s Thanksgiving Day games have traditionally included one game hosted by the Detroit Lions since 1934, one game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys since 1966, and a third prime-time game has been played since 2006. This prime-time game has no fixed host and features different teams every year, mainly consisting of division rivals ever since 2012. This year the Lions host the Bears, the Cowboys host the Raiders, and the primetime game will be the Bills against the Saints in New Orleans. Since the NFL has been playing games on Thanksgiving Day, there has only been one team to not play on the holiday, the Jacksonville Jaguars. 

Last Sunday, in Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers rolled the Chicago Bears 38-3, and improved their record to 6-1. The Bucs have been having a great start to their season, with some impressive wins and their only loss coming to a very strong Los Angeles Rams team. Tom Brady has definitely made his impact on the Buccaneers, already winning them their second Super Bowl in franchise history last season, in only his first season with the team. Already this season with the Bucs, Brady has made history in the recordbooks with two incredible passing records. In week four, the Buccaneers traveled to Brady’s home for his first twenty years in the NFL, New England. Going into the game against the Patriots, Brady needed only 68 passing yards to surpass Drew Brees’ all time career passing yards record of 80,358 yards. It didn’t take long for Brady to set the record, as he completed a 28 yard pass to Mike Evans in the first quarter. The Buccaneers would also end up beating the Patriots in what could have been Brady’s final game in New England. Brady also joined a group of only three other quarterbacks, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Brett Favre as the only quarterbacks that have beaten every team in the NFL. It was quite the historic night for Tom Brady in his homecoming game against the Patriots. 

The Chicago Bears are coming off of a big time bounce back win against the Lions last week to move their record to 2-2 going into week five. The Bears will travel to Las Vegas this week to play the Raiders with rookie quarterback, Justin Fields, officially being named the starting quarterback by head coach Matt Nagy. After Fields’ first start against the Cleveland Browns in week three, there were many questions facing the Bears and their offense after only gaining 47 total net yards on an average of 1.1 yard per play. The Bears total of 47 yards was their worst offensive performance in 40 years. In his first start, Fields was hit 15 times and sacked 9 times, losing 67 yards on those 9 sacks. With only 68 total passing yards, Fields’ net passing yards for the game was only 1 yard. After this brutal performance from Chicago’s offense, they desperately needed a bounce back game against the Lions in week four. During the week between the loss to the Browns and the upcoming game against the Lions, the starting quarterback for the game against Detroit was not determined until the Thursday before the game. Justin Fields was once again named the starter for the second consecutive week over Andy Dalton and Nick Foles. Although his first NFL start was a complete disaster, Bears fans had faith in Fields and were excited to see how the rookie quarterback would come back from the loss against the Browns. 

With the NFL season just getting underway with week one starting last Thursday and many more games being played on Sunday, NFL fans are more excited than ever for football to be back. After a 2020 season with no fans in the stands, there was a ton of excitement in the stadiums during week one. With this excitement and having fans back in the stadiums, the NFL is calling this season the “biggest season ever” and have used that quote on many commercials already. Football is a sport that is continuing to grow and gain more and more popularity. One of the biggest beneficiaries of the continuing growth of the NFL has been fantasy football. 

The Chicago Bears ended the 2020 season with an 8-8 record and managed to just barely sneak into the last Wild Card spot over the Arizona Cardinals. The Bears would go on to get beat 21-9 in their Wild Card game against the New Orleans Saints. After this game, a couple major changes took place in Chicago. Starting out bold, the Bears decided to not exercise Mitch Trubisky’s fifth year option, making their second overall pick from just four years prior a free agent. Going into free agency, the Bears’ General Manager Ryan Pace and Head Coach Matt Nagy were on the hot seat. Fans speculated that this offseason could have been the beginning of the Bears turning things around or it could have been the continuation of what had seemed like a steady decline. After a free agency period that brought back Allen Robinson and addressed a lot of depth needs, Nagy and Pace seemed to be on the right track. When the Bears missed out on a couple big name quarterbacks in free agency, they ended up signing former Cowboy backup, Andy Dalton, towards the end of free agency. This move was a bit of a head scratcher for most fans, but fans were generally pleased about the free agency period as a whole.

Former Chicago Bears quarterback and second overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, Mitchell Trubisky has had an underwhelming start to his career. In the spring of 2020, the Chicago Bears decided against exercising the fifth-year option on the original contract they agreed on with Trubisky, after they drafted him. When that happened, Trubisky tested free agency this past off-season and agreed on a contract with the Buffalo Bills. Although Mitch Trubisky’s time with the Bears was not great, many Bears fans were still sad to see him go.