As Wisconsin families and Packers fans fondly look forward to gathering every fourth Thursday in November to observe the tradition of catching up with relatives and overeating, the Green Bay Packers will revisit a long-standing tradition of playing a football game on Thanksgiving Day. The NFC North battle, set for Thursday, November 23, in Detroit against the Lions, will be Green Bay’s 37th Thanksgiving game, 3rd-most by an NFL team, and they will enter that contest with an all-time 14-20-2 record on the holiday. This will also mark the 22nd Thanksgiving game between the Packers and the Lions, and Detroit holds an 8-12-1 between them.
To get fully prepared for Thursday’s game, fans of the green and gold can relive past Turkey Day memories, as this is the first of a five-part series that recounts in reverse order the most noteworthy and influential Green Bay Packers moments on Thanksgiving Day. Today’s memory, rated the fifth most important, takes us back to when it all began.
5. November 29, 1923: Green Bay Packers 19, Hammond Pros 0
Although the NFL began playing Thanksgiving games in 1920, this marked the first-ever Thanksgiving contest played by the Packers, who in 1923 were in their third season in the NFL. The last game on their schedule that year was a home matchup with the Hammond Pros, who entered the game with a 1-4-1 record, good for 15th place in the NFL standings. On the other hand, the Packers owned a 6-2-1 record, which put them in sole possession of third place behind the Canton Bulldogs and the Chicago Bears.
