Here’s Why Teams Are Wearing a Special Honorary Patch for Thanksgiving Day NFL Games

For a second year in a row, the NFL will honor the legendary, late John Madden with their uniforms on Thanksgiving Day.

Madden, who became synonymous with NFL Thanksgiving not only for his call of the game but also his enjoying of a Turducken, passed away in 2021. The league has done its best to honor him ever since.

Madden patches will be worn on the uniforms of all six teams playing on Thanksgiving Day. The Lions and the Bears at 12:30 p.m. ET, the Giants and the Cowboys at 4:30 p.m., and the Dolphins and the Packers at 8:20 p.m.

Here’s a look at a few of them:

Following his 10-year, Super Bowl XI-winning stint as head coach of the then-Oakland Raiders, Madden joined the world of broadcasting in 1979.

Alongside legendary announcer Pat Summeral for most of them, Madden called 20 Thanksgiving Day games from 1982-2001. In the process, he spoke the Turducken into a well-known Thanksgiving dish, teaching the audience how to prep and cut the meal first invented in New Orleans:

“You got the turkey on the outside, then you stuff the turkey with a duck, then you stuff the duck with a chicken. So it’s tur-duck-en.”

Madden and his crew would then award turkeys, turduckens, and turkey drumsticks to the winning teams.

The NFL has since dubbed it’s Thanksgiving Day games the “John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration”, with each game awarding a “Madden Player of the Game”, and NBC’s night contest continuing the tradition of awarding the turkey leg to the players of the game.