When it comes to the football on Thanksgiving, things remain constant. The Detroit Lions will be in the early game, and then the Dallas Cowboys will take center stage. The third contest is a bit more flexible, but you know there will be something on TV as you settle down for the night.
But in 2023, there will be something new added to the equation. On Turkey Day, the six NFL teams in action will all be sporting a unique black and gold patch on their jerseys.
Wondering what that’s about? Let’s take a closer look.
Kirby Lee/NFL Photo Library
John Madden Remembered on Thanksgiving Jerseys
In the world of football, few names loom larger than John Madden. He first made a name for himself as a successful head coach—the annual NFL video game still carries his name. The Minnesota native also made quite the impact in the broadcast booth, and he’ll be remembered in that capacity on Thanksgiving. Madden passed away in 2021.
On Thursday, the teams in action will all be sporting a black and gold patch on the front of their jerseys. While things might not be perfectly legible on TV, that detail shows a silhouette of Madden wearing his broadcast headset.
But that’s not the only tribute to the main man. As the NFL laid out in a press statement, Thanksgiving will be the league’s second annual “John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration.”
Beyond the jersey patches, the coin toss will also feature a special coin. The “heads” side shows Madden, while the “tails” side shows a six-legged turducken. We’ll explain the latter in detail shortly.
There will also be tributes to Madden during TV and radio broadcasts, and “each network will select a player of the game who will receive a $10,000 donation from the NFL Foundation to be given to a high school or youth football program in their name, as the topic of youth football was important to Madden.”
The NFL statement included a quote from the iconic broadcaster that summed up his relationship with the holiday.
“There’s no place that I would rather be today on Thanksgiving than right here, right now, at a football game,” he once said.
How About Madden’s Six-Legged Turducken?
Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images
As mentioned above, the inverse side of the Thanksgiving coin features a six-legged roast turkey. And no, you’re not mistaken; birds don’t usually have that many legs.
The image, however, is pure Madden.
During his time calling Thanksgiving games, the broadcaster started to award the “John Madden Turkey Leg MVP Award.” One year, though, Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith quipped that his five offensive linemen also deserved a turkey leg.
From there, the rest is history.
“Enter Joe Pat Fieseler, a barbecue owner in Texas,” ESPN’s Ryan Hockensmith recounted in 2021. “He invented a six-legged turkey soon after, and Madden started handing them out the next year. When he announced his All-Madden team at the end of every season, Madden also made sure food was a theme of the show—his favorite players were often big, forgotten linemen with big appetites, so he thought the perfect all-star awards should be meat and gravy, not trophies and plaques. He had become America’s fork man.”
And lest you think that Madden only enjoyed turkey, the broadcaster learned about turducken (a turkey stuffed with a duck, which is, in turn, stuffed with a chicken) and shared the delicacy with the football-watching world.
There’s no better occasion to remember the late, great John Madden during the Turkey Day NFL games.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.