The NFL is still a couple months away from releasing the full 2019 schedule, but bits and pieces are coming out.
One piece: The traditional Detroit and Dallas Thanksgiving games will be the Bears against the Lions and the Dolphins against the Cowboys, according to Sports Business Daily.
This would make it the second straight year that the Lions host the Bears on Thanksgiving, and it would be a continuation of one of the NFL’s oldest rivalries. It would be the Dolphins’ sixth Thanksgiving visit to Dallas; they’ve previously been there on Thanksgiving in 1973, 1993, 1999, 2003 and 2011. The 1993 Dolphins-Cowboys Thanksgiving game is one of the most famous Thanksgiving games in NFL history, with the Dolphins winning on a last-second field goal after Cowboys defensive lineman Leon Lett fumbled the game away by muffing a blocked field goal.
It’s the NFL’s 100th season, and the league is attempting to highlight matchups with historical significance, so it’s no surprise that an old rivalry like Bears-Lions and a Thanksgiving matchup with some tradition behind it like Dolphins-Cowboys would be on the schedule. There’s no word yet on what the third Thanksgiving game, on NBC in prime time, will be.