Once a part of the annual tradition with the Detroit Lions, it's been a while since Matthew Stafford played on Thanksgiving Day. But Joe Burrow, who is expected to make his Turkey Day debut this week, has quite a few memories watching him play on the NFL's marquee holiday.
When speaking with the media ahead of his first Thanksgiving game, Burrow, who has been out since Week 2 due to surgery to repair turf toe, took the moment to take a jab at the former Detroit Lions and current Los Angeles Rams quarterback while reflecting on his memories of watching the games at home.
“I think, just like a lot of kids, you grow up going through Thanksgiving, you have your meals with your family, and then you go sit on the couch. Typically, there's not a lot on, except football,” Burrow said. “Back in the day, it was Lions and somebody, you go watch Matthew Stafford throw for 300, 400-something yards with Calvin Johnson and probably lose the game. But it was fun to watch. Those are memories you have, so I always kind of wanted to be the person out there.”
#Bengals QB Joe Burrow on playing on Thanksgiving:
“You grow up going through Thanksgiving — you have your meals, and you sit on the couch … watch the Lions vs. somebody, watch Matthew Stafford throw 300–400 yards with Calvin Johnson, and probably lose the game.”😂 pic.twitter.com/fTsagL7ymN
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) November 25, 2025
It may be a harsh assessment by Burrow, but it is a fairly accurate one.
The Lions' No. 1 overall draft pick in 2009, it took until his fifth year in the NFL for Stafford to win on Thanksgiving; in one of the early losses, a double-overtime defeat vs. the Houston Texans, Stafford threw for 441 yards and 2 touchdowns, while Johnson had 140 yards and one of those scores.
Things started to turn around in the mid-2010s, as Stafford and the Lions won four straight Turkey Day games from 2013 and 2016. Unfortunately, the good results did not last, and Stafford finished his Lions tenure with three more losses (he missed the 2019 game, another loss) to wind up with a 4-6 record as the Lions starter on Thanksgiving.
It remains to be seen if some of that holiday misfortune will follow Stafford, the 2025 NFL MVP frontrunner, as he was traded by the Lions to the Los Angeles Rams following the 2020 season and has been absent from the Thanksgiving slate since then.
