The National Football League's Thanksgiving Classic is a series of games played during the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. It has been a regular occurrence since the league's inception in 1920. Since 2006 three games are played every Thanksgiving.

The first two are hosted by the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys, with one team from each conference playing either team (the game with an NFC team as the visitors airs on Fox, as they have the rights to the NFC; CBS airs the game where an AFC team are the guest side to the Lions or Cowboys. The third game airs on NFL Network as part of its Thursday Night Football package and pits two different teams against each other each year. The Lions have hosted a game each year since 1934 (excluding the years 1939–1944), and the Cowboys have hosted a game each year since 1966 (excluding 1975 and 1977 when the St.

Louis Cardinals hosted a game instead). Football on Thanksgiving is actually a tradition that predates the league's formation itself. Records of pro football being played on Thanksgiving date back to as early as 1902, when the "National" Football League, a Major League Baseball-backed organization based entirely in Pennsylvania and unrelated to the current NFL, attempted to settle its championship over Thanksgiving weekend; after the game ended in a tie, eventually all three teams in the league claimed to have won the title.

In 1905, the Latrobe Athletic Association and Canton Bulldogs, considered at the time to be two of the best teams in professional football (along with the Massillon Tigers), played on Thanksgiving; Latrobe defeated Canton. The next year (1906), Latrobe and Canton rematched, but a rigging scandal with the Tigers leading up to the game led to severe drops in attendance for the Bulldogs and ultimately led to their suspension of operations. In 1919, the New York Pro Football League featured a Thanksgiving matchup between the Buffalo Prospects and the Rochester Jeffersons.

The game ended in a scoreless tie, leading to a rematch the next Sunday for the league championship.

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