Thanksgiving- Honoring the Holiday through Football

As any good American student will tell, the story of the first Thanksgiving is about pilgrims and Indians gathering together to enjoy their harvest, skin a pig, tied up said skin in an balloon-like oval shape, inflate it with air, and proceed to toss it about back and forth.

That magical first Thanksgiving afternoon would come to an abrupt halt when it was discovered that the pilgrims were using a spy hidden in a tree to read the lips of the Indians’ defensive coordinator as he called in sign to the team. Those pilgrims are the forefathers of what would later be know as “New England Patriots.”

History tells us football has always been a part of this holiday. So when your wife or mother or therapist complains that about you spending 11 hours in front of the TV set watching games on Thursday, you stand up and shout the following:

“How dare you try to stop me from honoring our forefathers!

I don’t watch football because I want to, I do it because I have to.

I do it to honor those brave pilgrims who died crossing the ocean on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.

I do it to honor the hard work and sacrifice they made to build a land where free men and women can enjoy the pursuits of liberty, justice and the United Way.

I cheer for touchdowns, first downs, and 4th down conversions, so I don’t forget that Thanksgiving Day is a day of infamy,
that we have nothing to fear but fear itself,
that I ask not what my country can do for me but what my country can do for me and you, and, finally, for Mr. Gorbachev to tear down this wall!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some honoring to do. Could you grab me a beer?”

Then sit right back down before the commercial break is over.

Another way to honor football, is too combine it with your favorite alcoholic beverage and make a drinking game out of it. Check out the web site The Bachelor Guy for The Bachelor Guy’s Official Thanksgiving Football drinking game.

So in honor of those brave pilgrims such as Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, and Amelia Earhart, here is a preview of the games on Thanksgiving Day. My fearless picks at in bold.

Green Bay –3 at Detroit- To think Favre almost retired, nearly denying us a whole litany of “Brett Favre is playing like a 20 year old” stories.

Side note: This has got to be a terrible two-year run for Dan Marino. He has witnessed almost all his records broken by Favre, Manning, and soon Brady, and to top things off he has to share a stage with Shannon Sharpe who probably dangles his three Super Bowl rings in front of him before every show. I hope those residuals from “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” ease his pain.

NY Jets at Dallas –14 – The big news this week was the revelation that during halftime at Giants Stadium, Jets fans heckle and goad women into showing their bare breasts. These requests came to a sudden halt when female Jets fans began obliging them.

Indianapolis at Atlanta +11.5 – Peyton Manning is in a real funk. He threw 6 INTs two weeks ago, could only muster 13 points against a terrible Chiefs defense last week, and during that game, I saw three straight commercials air without Peyton in any of them. Looks like we are days away from the Jim Sorgi era in Indianapolis.
(Jim Sorgi is the back-up for Peyton Manning. Yeah, I know what you are thinking. I didn’t even know he had a back-up.)

Happy Thanksgiving!



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