Josh Petry, Touchdown WireFri, November 21, 2025 at 1:06 PM UTC·2 min readThe NFL continues to honor and commemorate the late John Madden with the fourth annual John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration on Thursday, Nov. 27.
Madden once said, “There’s no place that I would rather be today on Thanksgiving than right here, right now, at a football game,” and the John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration brings together all the things that were important to him – family, football, food, tradition, and fun. He was loved by all who knew him and all who listened to him on Sunday afternoons.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA special NFL-produced Madden Hallmark will kick off each broadcast, conveying what Thanksgiving meant to him in his own words. Each network will select a Madden Thanksgiving MVP who will receive a $10,000 donation from the NFL Foundation to be given to a high school or youth football program in their name, as the topic of youth football was essential to Madden. For the second year, each Madden Thanksgiving MVP will be awarded the Madden Thanksgiving MVP trophy, created to honor Madden and celebrate everything the game of football means to the Thanksgiving holiday. The trophy is in the form of a pylon and includes various “Maddenisms” sprinkled throughout, along with visual cues to speak to the holiday theme.
A coin featuring a silhouette of Coach Madden on one side (“Heads”) and a six-legged turducken on the reverse side (“Tails) will be used for the coin toss, and a patch featuring a silhouette of Coach Madden will be included on the jersey of each player at all three games. Special John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration stencils will be placed on the sidelines at Ford Field (Detroit), AT&T Stadium (Dallas), and M&T Bank Stadium (Baltimore), along with stadium wall panels featuring an iconic image of Madden from his coaching days.
The John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration began in 2022 as a way to honor the late icon’s indelible legacy.
This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: NFL to celebrate fourth annual John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration
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