The New Orleans Saints don’t play this year on Thanksgiving, and they don’t have a long history of playing on Turkey Day. Along with the Atlanta Falcons, the Saints have played the most Thanksgiving games in the division. The Saints and Falcons have ironically faced off on Thanksgiving for two of each team’s four games on the holiday. Only five NFL teams have played fewer Thanksgiving games than the Saints, and three have been around for less than 30 years.
How has New Orleans performed in their limited action? The first of the Saints four Thanksgiving games in 2010 against the Dallas Cowboys. New Orleans’ debut was dramatic and came down to the wire. The most memorable play was Malcolm Jenkins chasing down Roy Williams to force a touchdown-saving fumble.
The Saints returned to Thanksgiving in 2018 and 2019 against the Falcons in sort of a home and home Thanksgiving series. The venue was irrelevant. The Saints came out with the win in both years, highlighted by Shy Tuttle stiff arming Matt Ryan into Christmas. Unfortunately, the Saints final game on the fourth Thursday of November ended with an ugly loss to the Buffalo Bills in 2021. That was their largest margin of defeat that year. All-time, New Orleans is 3-1.
This year’s slate of NFL games on Thanksgiving (and Black Friday):