Matthew Stafford had to make a lot of changes when he was traded from the Lions to the Rams in 2021. It wasn’t just on-field adjustments, either. He had to learn a new city, get used to new teammates and a completely different coaching staff, too.
Additionally, his Thanksgiving plans would look very different in Los Angeles than they did for a decade-plus in Detroit. The Lions play a home game every Thanksgiving, while the Rams haven’t played that day since 1975 – the longest drought of any team in the NFL.
Stafford was asked this week if he misses playing on Thanksgiving and his answer left no doubt about it.
“Oh yeah. Absolutely, I loved it. I love playing in that game,” Stafford said. “I love playing the early game, especially always at home. It’s a pretty good gig. Go play the game and come home, have Thanksgiving dinner like everybody else pretty much at 5:30 or 6:00 and watch whatever game is on at that point. Then you’ve got the rest of the weekend off so you don’t have to watch what you eat, kind of have a good time with it. Last couple years, obviously little different stories so got to kind of pace yourself on Thursday and make sure you don’t go too crazy knowing you’ve got a game on Sunday. It’s something I miss for sure and just that tradition is a really cool one. It’s something that the city of Detroit and in Dallas obviously but grew up watching that game as a Cowboy fan, played in it in Detroit for a bunch of years.”
The Lions always play the first game on Thanksgiving, a home matchup in Detroit. As Stafford said, that allowed him to spend the rest of the day with his family, and then get the weekend off to enjoy the rest of the games on Sunday.
The Rams obviously didn’t play on Thanksgiving again this year and will instead take on the Cardinals on Sunday afternoon. Stafford’s former team lost to the Packers on Thursday afternoon in a shocking upset, falling 29-22 at home.