One of the most familiar NFL matchups currently going features the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills, who will meet for the seventh consecutive regular-season.
During that stretch of annual battles, which excludes the
many postseason bouts, the only two editions of the matchup played “under the lights” were the first two in the series, in 2020 and 2021.
Since then, CBS has broadcast each of the previous four games, three of which were considered “nationally televised,” all of which were placed in the late-afternoon time slot to become de facto primetime games depending on the week.
Whether the sun’s out or not, the games have always felt big, but this one could set up as the most significant regular-season battle yet; the brand-new stadium lights of New Highmark Stadium beaming down only add to that. It’s also later in the season compared to previous editions, and there’s always a big-game feeling playing on the national holiday most associated with football.
The Chiefs played on Thanksgiving Day last season against the Dallas Cowboys, losing a frustrating game that may have soured some fans as they went about their holiday traditions. I was a little annoyed with the loss impacting my favorite holiday, honestly.
However, the evening game feels perfect — and once upon a time, Thanksgiving evening football in Kansas City felt like it could become a tradition.
In 2006, the NFL scheduled the first-ever night game on Thanksgiving Day: the Chiefs and Denver Broncos squared off at Arrowhead Stadium as the inaugural third NFL game of the now-traditional holiday slate.
For what it’s worth, Kansas City won the game 19-10 on the back of running back Larry Johnson rushing for 157 yards over 34 carries and kicker Lawrence Tynes nailing four field goals, including the one that put the game out of reach late in the fourth quarter.
However, I bring up the game because it was one of the last granted wishes of Chiefs’ founder Lamar Hunt’s life. He “lobbied the NFL for 37 years” to have Kansas City host a Thanksgiving game, and the faithful of Chiefs Kingdom showed out by packing the stadium to a capacity of 80,866, a crowd that, at the time, was “the largest since 1972.”
Yet, the NFL didn’t give Hunt the wish of making Arrowhead the annual home to the new timeslot on Thanksgiving Night, potentially joining the Cowboys and the Detroit Lions as evergreen hosts. At the time, Lamar’s son, now Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt, told NFL.com that the franchise would “try to get it next year.”
But here we are, 20 years later. Kansas City is finally back in the game Hunt lobbied for, even if it’s away from home.
Hunt was actually hospitalized during that 2006 game, unable to watch on television because the NFL Network was too new for the hospital to have. He would pass a few weeks later in Dallas, Texas, the city where he originally founded the football team we all know and love.
It took too long to relive Hunt’s dream of his team helping to cap off one of football’s strongest days of tradition, but at least this will be an epic, inevitably memorable matchup.
