This Thursday the Green Bay Packers will welcome the Miami Dolphins to Lambeau Field for a Thanksgiving night showdown on NBC. This will be the second year in a row the Packers play on Thanksgiving after they beat the Detroit Lions 29-22 last season. While it was a great win for the Packers, it will also be remembered as the day that Jordan Love was denied his turkey leg.
The turkey leg has become an NFL Thanksgiving tradition over the years thanks to the late John Madden and his Turkey Leg Award that was started in 1989. It’s been renamed over the years and is now known as the Madden Player of the Game and is awarded to the MVPs of the winning teams of the Thanksgiving games. The players receive a $10,000 donation in their name to a youth or high school football program of their choice and are presented post-game with a turkey feast to chow down and revel in their spoils…however, no revels were to be had for Jordan Love last Thanksgiving.
Love, who was awarded the Madden Player of the Game, did not get a turkey leg after the win. Instead, FOX sideline reporter Erin Andrews noted in the post-game interview that he’d just be getting the donation made on his behalf. The other teams that won last Thanksgiving, the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers, were given post-game turkeys leaving the Packers as the odd team out. And no one really seems to know why.
Fans noticed immediately and it led to memes, conspiracy theories, and Packers running back AJ Dillon even started selling “Turkey Gate” t-shirts. There was so much uproar that former NFL tight end and current FOX analyst Greg Olsen took to Twitter to defend himself after people accused him of ripping up what should have been Jordan Love’s turducken earlier in the game.
One year later, it seems players haven’t forgotten Turkey Gate. According to Matt Schneidman of The Athletic, tight end Tucker Kraft had some words on the drama after Tuesday’s practice. He called out Olsen for ripping the turducken apart before declaring, “We’ll make sure Jordan gets it this year.”
Tucker Kraft on Jordan Love not getting a turkey leg in Detroit last year:
"Pretty sure Greg actually ripped into it, right? He started eating it before we got an opportunity. We’ll make sure Jordan gets it this year. We’ll make sure about that."
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) November 26, 2024
Kraft wasn’t the only teammate talking about Turkey Gate this week. While chatting on 97.3 The Game in Milwaukee, AJ Dillon brought it up saying that FOX still owes Love for the oversight and that NBC needs to “do it right” this week. “We don’t forget,” he added.
#Packers RB @ajdillon7 has a message for NBC this Thanksgiving👇
Make sure to give Jordan Love his turkey leg. pic.twitter.com/xyXcX9lTNz
— 97.3 The Game (@TheGameMKE) November 26, 2024
While it is still unclear why FOX had no turkey ready, one can only hope NBC can repair the turkey leg-shaped hole that’s been left in the team’s collective stomach. But before that can happen, the Packers gotta take care of business against an ascending Dolphins team in the lights on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.
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