Good morning and happy Thanksgiving! While you’re trying to find the cranberries in the back of the fridge, (where did you put those things?), here are excerpts from the best of the many Thanksgiving and football themed articles from around the web.
Pigskin Pigsplosion NFL Week 13 Preview
by Ryan Glasspiegel for The Big Lead
A special Thanksgiving edition of The Big Lead’s weekly NFL football preview.
If you stop to think about it, it’s pretty rude of the NFL to make all three games on Thanksgiving be compelling ones. Though a motive would be hard to discern, it seems readily apparent that the league is involved in a sinister plan to cause relationship strife around this holiday.
26 (More) Rules of Thanksgiving Touch Football
by Jason Gay for the Wall Street Journal
Rules to live by if your Thanksgiving tradition includes playing touch football.
Remember: It’s not just a game. It’s an opportunity to relieve a year’s worth of pent-up aggression upon the loved ones who don’t return your text messages and never do the dishes.
9. If anybody starts a Thanksgiving family touch-football fantasy league, you can ban them from the family for seven years.
18. This year’s halftime show is explaining to Dad who Katy Perry is.
19. Relationship breakups can be hard on the Thanksgiving touch-football game. It was very sad that your brother Todd and his girlfriend Karen split up, because Todd is family. But mainly because Karen had six touchdowns last year.
Ndamukong Suh and Warren Buffett: The Bruiser and the Billionaire
by Kevin Clark for the Wall Street Journal
Ndamukong Suh is one of the most compelling characters of the early game between the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears. He’s known as a rough and dirty player on the field but off-field he’s a burgeoning businessman.
“Everyone says, ‘Wait til your football career is over.’ Or the biggest saying is always ‘Life after football,’ ” Suh said. “But as an athlete, someone who is bright enough and understands how to compartmentalize, and has time management from already having two jobs at once—playing football and going to class and getting good grades-—you can have 70 to 90% of the focus on your ultimate job but at the same time slowly build to what you are going to be one day.”
Suh’s best memory was an arm-wrestling match between Buffett and Suh at an event. At his Michigan home, Suh has a letter, written by Buffett: “I, Ndamukong Suh, hereby release Warren Buffett from any claims for physical injury that I may suffer in the arm wrestling contest…”
Thanksgiving Football Is Tradition for Chris Borland
by Taylor Price for 49ers.com
Chris Borland is an unlikely new defensive star for the San Francisco 49ers who will be playing on Thanksgiving night versus the Seattle Seahawks. Here’s a story from the team’s site about his background and football upbringing.
Chris, the second-youngest of six boys, played football with his brothers; he also tried to keep pace with them in other ways. Joe, 13 years older than his NFL-playing brother, remembered Chris running around their home with two-pound weights in each hand. The story gets better. Chris used to do that in the winter time… as a 4-year-old.
The next game is on a familiar day for the Borland family: Thanksgiving. Although Chris hasn’t played in a “Turkey Bowl” game since his high school days, he has a pretty good memory of that battle. Just like any other group of family and friends who gather to play recreational football games hours before a Thanksgiving meal, the Borland’s were no different. Only, their game was a little more physical than most neighborhood contests.
In the last “Borland Turkey Bowl,” Chris caught the game-winning touchdown pass from Joe, earning the right to hoist a trophy topped with a plastic turkey head. Chris earned the hardware, too. He collided with a sapling tree and bloodied his forehead as he caught the winning pass. But as Joe tells it, Chris wasn’t even the toughest player in the yard that day. Sarah Borland, the only female sibling of the bunch, suffered a dislocated shoulder in the game. What did she do after the injury? Oh, she just popped her shoulder back into place and kept playing.
Chiefs safety Eric Berry has right attitude for what could be fight of his life
by Sam Mellinger for The Kansas City Star
Not a Thanksgiving story per se, but I thought it was good to include this as a reminder to give thanks for the health of us and our loved ones and for the people who support us when we’re faced with big challenges.
The Chiefs star will see a lymphoma specialist in his hometown of Atlanta this week, trying to find a definitive answer for a mass in the right side of his chest. His season with the Chiefs is over.
Everyone’s fight is their own, of course, but if this becomes Berry’s fight, he will engage it with an incredible amount of support… In high school, Berry volunteered at a dentist’s office. In college, he would sneak into the equipment room the night before games to help the team managers polish the helmets… With the Chiefs, he is constantly thanking the men and women who cook and serve the team meals. He’s the one hugging the flight attendant on the plane and donating backpacks full of school supplies to local kids.