Thanksgiving is almost here, and just like the parade, the food coma, and the annual family political debate, there’s one tradition everyone actually looks forward to: football. This year’s NFL Thanksgiving triple-header sticks to the script: The Detroit Lions kick things off against the Green Bay Packers, the Dallas Cowboys host the Kansas City Chiefs in the late afternoon slot, and the night wraps up with the Baltimore Ravens taking on the Cincinnati Bengals.

But it wasn’t always this way. For most of NFL history, there was no Thanksgiving night game at all. It was just the Lions and Cowboys holding down the holiday while everyone else passed the gravy. These two teams have been woven into the day for decades. But what if we tell you that back in the 70s, the NFL actually tried removing the Dallas Cowboys from the Thanksgiving lineup in favor of the St. Louis Cardinals?

And yes, it went as badly as that idea sounds. The experiment didn’t just fail… it face-planted. And that’s where the conversation begins.

Why did the NFL’s Thanksgiving experiment with the Cardinals fail?

Decades ago, the NFL floated the idea of experimenting with different teams hosting the second Thanksgiving game. For the same reason, the league even asked for volunteers. But no team wanted to play on a holiday when fans were busy with dinner, family, and festivities. But then the Cowboys stepped in and instantly turned Thanksgiving into a money-maker. Here’s how their early Thanksgiving games took off:

• 1966 vs. Browns: 80,259 attendance
• 1972 vs. Rams: +6,000 increase from the previous home game
• 1974 vs. Washington: 63,243 attendance

In short, the Cowboys on Thanksgiving quickly became a massive win for the NFL. But despite that success, the league decided to shake things up. For a couple of years (in 1975 and 1977), the NFL pulled Dallas off the Thanksgiving slate and handed the spot to the Cardinals. The result? Atrocious. The reason? A mix of factors.

For starters, St. Louis already had a huge Thanksgiving tradition: the Kirkwood–Webster Groves Turkey Day Game, a high-school rivalry more than 100 years old and packed with fans every year. That means the high school football already owned the day. Fans weren’t asking for NFL football on Thanksgiving, and, to make matters worse, the Cardinals weren’t particularly popular in their own city. A rough combo from the start.

After all, the Cardinals moved from Chicago to St. Louis in 1960 and didn’t reach the playoffs until 1974. And even that didn’t spark anything. During their entire St. Louis tenure from 1960 to 1987, they never won a single playoff game. Their drought was brutal; more than 50 years without a postseason win, stretching from 1947 in Chicago all the way to 1998 in Arizona.

Meanwhile, the Cowboys were the NFC’s darling in the 1970s, backed by a massive and loyal fan base. So when the league tried replacing them with the Cardinals, the experiment failed almost immediately. And the numbers? They pretty much tell the whole story.

The fans preferred the high school game over the Cardinals game

The Cardinals’ Thanksgiving Day attendance was just as rough as the idea itself. They hosted the Thanksgiving game in 1975, and even though the team came in at 8–2, the crowd barely showed up. We’re talking about only 41,899 fans that year against the Buffalo Bills, their lowest attendance of the entire season. And the reason was straightforward.

People in St. Louis were already committed to the high school Turkey Day game, and local fans simply didn’t put the Cardinals high on their holiday priority list. It was a flop. Still, the NFL tried again in 1977. That time, the turnout was 50,269, which looked respectable on paper… but was still nowhere near the numbers the Cowboys or Lions pulled, or what the league was hoping for.

The result? The NFL backed out. By 1978, Dallas was back in the Thanksgiving slot, and just like that, stadiums were packed again. Which naturally raises a question: What did the NFL learn from this failed experiment? Thanksgiving football only works when you stick to tradition. That’s why the Lions and Cowboys remained Thanksgiving staples, and why that’s not changing anytime soon.