The National Football League continues to honor and remember the late John Madden with the third annual John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration on Thursday the 28th November.
Madden once said: ““There is no place I would rather be today on Thanksgiving than right here, right now, at a football game,” and the John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration brings together all the things that were important to him – family, football, food, tradition and fun.
This year’s edition of the John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration will include the following elements:
- Network partners FOX, CBS and NBC will continue to celebrate Madden’s contributions to the game, both on the field and in the announce booth, with tributes that will appear during every game on Thanksgiving Day. The schedule includes the Chicago Bears vs. the Detroit Lions at 12:30 p.m. ET on CBS, the New York Giants vs. the Dallas Cowboys at 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX and the Miami Dolphins vs. the Green Bay Packers at 8:20 p.m ET on NBC. Live audio of all three Thanksgiving Day games will be broadcast nationally on Westwood One and SiriusXM.
- Each show opens with a special NFL-produced Madden Hallmark spot featuring Madden expressing what Thanksgiving means to him in his own words. The Hallmark spot can here be viewed.
- Each network will select a Madden Thanksgiving MVP who will receive a $10,000 donation from the NFL Foundation to a high school or youth football program in their name, as the issue of youth football was close to Madden’s heart. This year, for the first time, every Madden Thanksgiving MVP will be awarded the Madden Thanksgiving MVP Trophy, created to honor Madden and celebrate what the game of football means to the Thanksgiving holiday. The trophy is shaped like a pylon and features various “Maddenisms” scattered throughout the trophy, as well as visual cues that allude to the theme of the holiday.
- What’s new this year is that the NFL is the newly founded John Madden Foundation supported by over NFL Auction Used items from the three Thanksgiving games will be auctioned off, with proceeds benefiting the new foundation.
- A coin with a silhouette of Coach Madden on one side (“Heads”) and a six-legged turkey on the reverse (“Tails”) will be used for the coin toss, and a patch with a silhouette of Coach Madden will be on each player’s jersey appropriate for all three games. The coin can here and the jersey patch here be viewed.
- Special John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration stencils will be installed on the sidelines at Ford Field (Detroit), AT&T Stadium (Dallas) and Lambeau Field (Green Bay), along with stadium wall panels that feature an iconic image of Madden from his time as coach show.
- NFL radio broadcast partners Westwood One and SiriusXM NFL Radio will air Madden and Thanksgiving-themed programming leading up to and on Thanksgiving Day.
- The NFL’s social media channels on to record.
- NFL Media will support all elements of the John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration in programming and across all platforms leading up to and on Thanksgiving Day, including “Good Morning Football” on NFL Network.
The John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration was created in 2022 to honor the late icon’s indelible legacy.
