The NFL is making a slight tweak to its Thanksgiving Day schedule. Don’t worry, the Lions and Cowboys aren’t going anywhere. But if you’re someone who eats Thanksgiving dinner at lunchtime, your post-meal nap now might not line up perfectly with the day’s first game.
Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show on Friday, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell revealed that the league is pushing back the traditional 12:30 p.m. ET kickoff of its first Thanksgiving game by 30 minutes. Starting in 2025, the first game on Turkey Day will kick off at 1 p.m. ET, right in line with a typical Sunday afternoon schedule.
“One little small change, we’re probably going to move from a 12:30 Eastern start to 1:00. We’ll go back to the traditional windows,” Goodell said. “So they’ll be 1, roll right into Dallas, and then roll into the primetime.”
As McAfee said, “standard.”
In other words, the NFL is simply shifting Thanksgiving to its usual Sunday rhythm. It’s a minor adjustment, but it might actually help logistically, particularly when it comes to scheduling West Coast teams. That early 12:30 p.m. ET kickoff has always meant a 9:30 a.m. body-clock game for any Pacific Time Zone team visiting the Lions.
There’s also a media side to consider here.
FOX and CBS don’t have fixed Thanksgiving slots; either one can get the early or late game. The change could impact pregame show ratings, especially for the second game, which likely enjoys one of the most-watched pregame windows of the year, when everyone’s home, the 4:30 p.m. ET slot has the audience all to itself, without other games siphoning attention. Networks care about that window, in part because the pregame programming brings in meaningful ad revenue.
It’s a small move, sure, but it also shows that even Thanksgiving football isn’t immune to the NFL’s constant push to optimize every minute.
We’ll have to wait until May 14 to find out who will get the honor of playing the Lions at 1 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.