NFL announces annual John Madden tribute with Thanksgiving Celebration

The NFL is honoring the late, great John Madden this Thanksgiving with the inaugural “John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration,” the league announced on Friday. The honors and tributes will be wide-ranging and fill up the week leading to the slate of turkey day games.

Along with an archived audio clip of Madden himself talking about the relationship between holidays and football will play in the lead up to each game. And the trio of networks airing the respective games — FOX, NBC and CBS — will be producing special tributes for the legendary coach and broadcaster to be played during the broadcasts.

“No one cared more or contributed more to our game than John Madden,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a press release. “Honoring his memory and impact on the NFL is important and Thanksgiving Day brings all of the elements significant to John to life – family, football, food and fun.”

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Further, in each of the games — Bills-Lions at 12:30 EST on CBS, Giants-Cowboys at 4:30 EST on FOX and Patriots-Vikings at 8:20 EST on NBC — the broadcasting network will name a “Madden Player of the Game” and the selected player will have a $10,000 donation from the NFL foundation made in their name to a youth or high school football program of their choosing.

According to the release, the festivities will also feature, among other things:

• Madden-themed Thanksgiving logos on the 25-yard lines of each field, plus a Madden sticker on the back of helmets featuring the iconic image of the coach raising his fist.
   
• Thanksgiving and Madden-centric program will airing throughout the week “on all NFL Media platforms, and the NFL’s radio broadcast partners Westwood One and SiriusXM NFL Radio.”
   
• EA Sports will be putting on a competition between players from the respective competing teams prior to Thursday — and of course the game will be EA’s Madden NFL 23.