Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons (Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports)
The Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys always get NFL Thanksgiving Games at home, but the league stacked up this year’s slate.

On Wednesday evening, the full 2025 regular-season schedule was released. The three NFL Thanksgiving Games will see the Lions host the Green Bay Packers (1:00 p.m. EST), the Cowboys host the Kansas City Chiefs (4:30 p.m. EST) and the Baltimore host the Cincinnati Bengals (8:20 p.m. EST).

Dallas usually hosts an NFC East rival in their Thanksgiving game slot, having played the New York Giants or Washington Commanders on the big day in four of the last five years. So it was surprising for many when the league put the marquee Cowboys-Chiefs matchup on the holiday slot.

According to a report from Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, the Chiefs and Cowboys showdown was chosen as one of the three NFL Thanksgiving Games because the league thinks it’ll set a record in viewership:

“The NFL made a strategic decision to schedule the Chiefs versus the Cowboys in Dallas on Thanksgiving Day. The game will air at 4:25 p.m. ET on CBS and stream live on Paramount+. The thinking, based on talking to a number of people at different networks, is that the NFL thinks the game can set a record for the most-viewed NFL regular-season game in history. The record was set on Thanksgiving Day in 2022 when 42.1 million watched the Cowboys beat the Giants on Fox.”

Plenty of NFL fans frequently complain about the number of prime time games the Cowboys and Chiefs get on an annual basis. But it’s all about ratings and money in the NFL, and those two teams drive ratings better than the rest.

Based on the NFL schedule format, the Chiefs and Cowboys only play once every four years. They last met at Arrowhead Stadium in Week 11 of the 2021 season, with KC winning a defensive slugfest 19-9.

2025 NFL Thanksgiving Games Could Mark The Best Slate Ever

DaRon Bland and Dak Prescott (Photo by Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images)
It’s not a stretch to believe that this year’s set of Thanksgiving games could go down as the best ever. The Packers and Lions are bonafide Super Bowl contenders, and the Chiefs-Cowboys contest features plenty of star power on both sides of the ball.

The Bengals-Ravens rivalry has been must-watch TV since Joe Burrow entered the league five years ago. This game could very well determine the 2025-26 NFL postseason picture, possibly even the AFC’s top seed.