A young Chiefs fan at the first Thursday Night Football game in 2006 on NFL Network. The Chiefs played the Broncos in the NFL’s first Thanksgiving triple-header. / Photo By RJ Sangosti / The Denver Post via Getty Images
The Kasnas City Chiefs will play on Thanksgiving this year for the first time in nearly 20 years. A lot has changed in the NFL since the last time the Chiefs were featured on Thanksgiving. As recently as 2005 there were only Lions and Cowboys games on Thanksgiving. Now 20 years later the season starts on a Thursday, we sit through a bad game every single Thursday night and we've added a game the day after Thanksgiving.
The last time the Chiefs played on Thanksgiving in 2006, Andy Reid was the coach of the Eagles, Patrick Mahomes was in elementary school and Taylor Swift had just released her debut album.
Now they'll all be in your living room while you reheat leftovers.
The Chiefs franchise is 5-5 in 10 Thanksgiving games, however, that record is a bit misleading. The Kasnas City Chiefs are 5-4 on Thanksgiving with three of those games taking place while they were in the AFL. They also went 0-1 in one game as the Dallas Texans before they moved to Kansas City in 1962.
Not to be confused with the other Dallas Texans, who had relocated from New York where they were the New York Yanks and New York Bulldogs of the NFL. That franchise had started as the Boston Yanks in 1944. _Those_ Texans played in Hershey, Pa. and Akron, Ohio. Their lone Thanksgiving game was a 1952 win over the Chicago Bears in Akron. The Milwaukee Chiefs' 1940 Thanksgiving win over the Buffalo Tigers does not count either.
So anyway, the Chiefs would be over .500 on Thanksgiving except the New York Titans beat the Dallas Texans at the Polo Grounds in 1960. Got it?
**Year**
**Opponent**
**Result**
**Location**
2006
Denver Broncos
W, 19-10
Kansas City
1996
Detroit Lions
W, 26-20
Detroit
1995
Dallas Cowboys
L, 24-12
Dallas
1987
Detroit Lions
W, 27-20
Detroit
1981
Detroit Lions
L, 27-10
Detroit
1971
Detroit Lions
L, 32-21
Detroit
1969 (AFL)
Denver Broncos
W, 31-17
Kansas City
1968 (AFL)
Houston Oilers
W, 24-10
Kansas City
1967 (AFL)
Oakland Raiders
L, 44-22
Kansas City
1960 (Dallas Texans)
New York Titans
L, 41-35
Polo Grounds, NY
The Chiefs-Broncos game on Thanksgiving '06 was historically significant for a number of reasons. It was both the first Thanksgiving primetime game as part of the first Thanksgiving tripleheader and the first ever Thursday Night Football game. It was also the first time more than two professional football games were played on Thanksgiving since the AFL-NFL merger.
Fittingly, the last AFL Thanksgiving double-header also featured the Chiefs beating the Broncos. After the merger owner Lamar Hunt had advocated for the Chiefs to host Thanksgiving games alongside the Cowboys and Lions. Instead they got to travel to Detroit in 1971 and didn't play again on Thanksgiving for a decade when they again went to Detroit and lost.
The AFL added a second Thanksgiving game in 1967 and the Chiefs, who were a premier franchise at the time, participated in all three double-headers in '67, '68 and '69. The NFL had them back in 1971, but only featured them four times over the next twenty years. This Thursday will mark their first Thanksgiving game in a decade so most Chiefs players and fans probably just enjoyed their holiday by eating dinner and watching football.
With that in mind, the Chiefs have been a regular part of our holiday traditions recently. This will mark the third straight year that the Chiefs will play on Christmas and they were also featured in a Hallmark Christmas movie last year that debuted on Thanksgiving weekend.
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