NFL games on Thanksgiving are a tradition dating back to the first season of the league’s existence, in 1920.

The NFL had six games on Thanksgiving that first season. Over the years, the tradition as we know it has taken shape: the Detroit Lions hosted their first Thanksgiving game in 1934 as a way for the team to increase attendance, the Dallas Cowboys happily volunteered to host of a second game starting in 1966 and the league added a third rotating game for Thanksgiving evening in 2006.

The NFL has become an important part of the holiday. For this season’s three games, let’s compare the quality of each of the three games to a dish on the Thanksgiving table:

Turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes: Bears at Lions

For years, there was a steady drumbeat for the Lions to get kicked out of their annual Thanksgiving spot. Detroit was terrible. Why is one of every three (or two for years) games on Thanksgiving ruined by a terrible team?

That has changed on a large scale.

This is the main course of the day because you get the chance to see the best football team. Yes, those are the lions. Seriously, the Lions are the best team in the NFL. Again: the Detroit Lions are the top team in the National Football League. That’s the first time in our lives we can say that, unless you were born before 1957. That’s the last time the Lions won a championship. They are capable of winning a Super Bowl this season. They have never been to a Super Bowl in their history.

Will this be a great game? Probably not, but we saw the Packers upset the Lions on Thanksgiving last season. The Bears aren’t a great team, but they are interesting to watch because they have No. 1 overall draft pick Caleb Williams, who remains a compelling watch amid an up-and-down rookie season. At least the Bears can give us a good show to start the day. Hopefully, because if we don’t get a good game to start the day…

That weird side dish your aunt brought: Giants at Cowboys

The NFL releases its schedule in April or May and sometimes we get unlucky with key matchups. Sometimes injuries or poor play by a team that wanted to showcase the competition in prime time or another standalone game can unexpectedly ruin the match.

We all could have predicted that Giants at Cowboys wasn’t going to be great.

The NFL really believes that we want to see the Giants in big spots all the time, and that is not the case. So we get stuck with the Giants on Thanksgiving. The Cowboys being bad wasn’t part of the plan. They struggled early and their season declined. In any case, they achieved a nice victory against the Washington Commanders on Sunday.

The Giants haven’t won since Oct. 6, and if they don’t win on Thursday, it’s possible they won’t win again before 2025. New York cut quarterback Daniel Jones last week and started Tommy DeVito in hopes of recreating DeVito’s fun story from last year. season, but DeVito struggled and the Giants’ season somehow got worse. DeVito is questionable on the Giants’ injury report, so perhaps the team will be forced to turn to Drew Lock in his first Giants start.

This is a match between two bad teams. And in terms of viewership, it may not matter.

Last season’s Cowboys game on Thanksgiving drew 41.4 million viewers, the third-highest viewership in NFL regular-season history. And this year people are going to watch again, even though they shouldn’t. Anyway, just because that side dish on the table looks weird and you can’t pronounce what it is, doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste good.

Pumpkin Pie: Dolphins at Packers

You want to save room for dessert.

On paper, the 5-6 Miami Dolphins against the 8-3 Green Bay Packers are not the best matchup. But it must be a good game. The Dolphins got off to a bad start this season due to an injury to Tua Tagovailoa and some bad luck in close games when he returned. Miami has won three games in a row, with Tagovailoa playing like a top-five quarterback, and is desperate to keep piling up wins and get into the AFC playoff bracket. The Dolphins may need a win over Green Bay to stay in the race. They are a team that is better than their record indicates, they are desperate and that makes them dangerous.

The Packers are one of the best teams in football. They have won six of seven games, with the only defeat coming to an excellent Lions team. Green Bay is improving offensively as Jordan Love is coming off a series of early-season injuries. The Packers happen to play in the toughest division in the NFL; they might be the best third-ranked team you’ll ever see.

It should be a good way to end a day full of family, food and football. Even Giants-Cowboys is better than no football at all.