Bills 26, Cowboys 15

In the United States, Thanksgiving and football enjoy a long history together. Before professional football became by far the most watched television sport in America, Thanksgiving Day featured a slate of college football games. Some of those have now been relegated to the following day - Friday - when the sport of choice for most Americans is now contact shopping. Black Friday now features afternoon hockey and basketball games along with a handful of lower tier college football games.As for the fourth Thursday in November, make no mistake; the NFL rules the airwaves on Thanksgiving Day.

In 1934, the owner of the Detroit Lions saw an opportunity to raise the profile of his team and successfully lobbied the league to allow the Lions to play a game on the national holiday. Attendance was strong and the Lions have played a home game every year since. In 1966, Tex Schramm, the General Manager of the fledgling Dallas Cowboys sought the same opportunity from the NFL in order to boost interest and in-stadium attendance. The Cowboys inaugural Thanksgiving Day game drew more than 80,000 to the Cotton Bowl and another holiday tradition was born. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle decreed that the St. Loiuis Cardinals would play Thanksgiving home games in place of the Cowboys in 1975 and in 1977 but, other than those two years, the Cowboys have had a home game, in the later afternoon time slot, on Thanksgiving Day every year since 1966. In 2006, a third prime time game was added to the holiday football viewing schedule.

Thursday's game at AT&T Stadium (the House that Jerry Built) was the first Thanksgiving game for the Buffalo Bills since they played in Detroit in 1994. As seven point underdogs, the Bills were facing a talented Cowboys team which was reeling from a tough loss to the Patriots four days earlier. Head coach Jason Garret was under pressure from owner / General Manager Jerry Jones and from an impatient fan base. The Cowboys needed to right their listing ship and their annual Thanksgiving game would be a perfect setting to do so. They took the opening kick-off and marched easily to the end zone for an early 7-0 lead, leaving Bills fans feeling that they were in for a long afternoon.

But those would be the only points the Cowboys scored until the game was essentially out of reach as the Bills chose the ideal time to dial up their best and most complete effort of the season. The defence looked fierce and Josh Allen got his wish of posting a win in Dallas followed by biting into a turkey leg which was handed to him by CBS field reporter Tracy Wolfson. For me, when receiver John Brown hit a wide open Devin Singletary for a touchdown on a gadget play late in the first half, I began believing that the Bills just might be able to pull off their biggest win in 20 years.

I was quite surprised over the weekend to read that Thursday's Cowboys v. Bills match-up generated huge television ratings. According to the CBS website, it was the most watched Thanksgiving Day game in 27 years and the most watched regular season game in the last three years. Average viewership was 32.5 million, surpassing the Academy Awards in February and making it the most watched television program in the US since the Superbowl. For context, the Superbowl attracts about 100 million viewers in the US every year, making it the gold standard in television viewership. My prediction would have been that the Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game ratings would see their highest levels in games against one of their division rivals (Giants, Eagles or Washington), not for a game against a small market AFC team which has struggled for national relevance for more than two decades. But I sense now that the Buffalo Bills have somehow generated an almost cult-like following among NFL watchers. In other words, it is now officially cool to be a fan of the Buffalo Bills. I've always know that of course. The NFL appears to agree, announcing yesterday that the Bills v. Steelers game on Sunday December 15th has been "flexed" from its original 1pm start time to the prime time Sunday Night Football game with an 8.20pm kick-off. 

Michigan and Ohio State have played their annual rivalry game on the last Saturday in November since 1918. "The Game", as it is known was ranked by ESPN in 2000 as the greatest rivalry in North American sports. Twenty years later, its importance has diminished slightly but remains the biggest regular season game in the Big Ten. For Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, he probably wishes that it would disappear from the calendar as he is now a perfect 0-5 in these games, including an 0-3 record at the Big House which packed in more than 112,000 for Saturday's game. Ohio State scored two touchdowns in each quarter and sealed their entry to the four-team college football playoff. Harbaugh and the Wolverines will settle for a lower tier bowl game. Again.

As for the Bills, for now, they have found their way into the top three teams in the AFC (by record; they still occupy the fifth playoff seed) with a record of 9-3. After last night's Patriots loss in Houston, the current holder of the top seed in the AFC is the Baltimore Ravens who come to Orchard Park on Sunday. The Bills find themselves one game behind the Patriots with a head-to-head game with them in Foxborough on Saturday December 21st. The games just bigger and bigger from here.