Tom Brady’s most memorable Thanksgiving moments

Tom Brady will be working on Thanksgiving this year. 

The seven-time Super Bowl winner will be on the call for Thursday’s New York Giants–Dallas Cowboys game on FOX (4:30 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app). It’ll mark the first time that Brady will call a Thanksgiving game and will continue the tradition established by John Madden where he awards the player of the game with a turkey leg.

As Brady is in his first year in the broadcast booth, he joked that he was surprised to learn that he had to work on the holiday.

“What!?!?” Brady said, jokingly making a face when Curt Menefee told him he had to work Thanksgiving this year on the “FOX NFL Sunday Postgame Show.”

While Brady was joking, apparently it was news to Michael Strahan that he had to work on Thanksgiving when he joined FOX’s studio show in 2008.

“Same exact look I had [when I found out I had to work Thanksgiving], Tom,” Strahan said. “Don’t feel bad about it. When we don’t show up on Thanksgiving, we’ll be having Thanksgiving together. Let these guys do their stuff.”

All jokes aside, this isn’t the first time Brady has had to work on Thanksgiving. He played four games on Thanksgiving in his illustrious career, having some memorable moments on the holiday in years past. Let’s take a look at Brady’s Thanksgiving history as he prepares to call Thursday’s Giants-Cowboys game.

2000: Tom Brady makes NFL debut on Thanksgiving

While many associate the start of Brady’s career with him taking over for Drew Bledsoe when the former New England Patriots quarterback was severely injured during a game against the New York Jets in 2001, he actually made a cameo in his rookie season.

When the Patriots faced the Detroit Lions in 2000, Bledsoe had a miserable day. His final pass of the game was a 101-yard pick-six that gave the Lions a 34-9 lead in the fourth quarter, causing Bill Belichick to put in Brady when the Patriots’ offense made its way back onto the field with 4:04 remaining.

While he was back in the state where he played college ball, Brady didn’t display any of the heroics he had shown during his time at Michigan or that he would show over the course of his 24-year NFL career. He completed just 1 of 3 passes for 6 yards, with his first career completion coming on a third-down checkdown to tight end Rod Rutledge. The Patriots punted the ball right after the completion.

Brady’s appearance in that game was a bit of a surprise to some.

“Tom Brady coming in the game?” Phil Simms, who was on the call of that game for CBS, told the Detroit Free Press in 2020 what his thoughts were when he saw Brady replace Bledsoe. “I thought he was the third-string quarterback, not the second?”

Simms later told the Detroit Free Press that he remembered then-Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis and Belichick raved about Brady during a pre-production meeting for that game. History ended up being kind to Weis and Belichick’s outlook for Brady, even if his performance in that game didn’t signify that he’d even be a quality NFL quarterback, let alone a seven-time Super Bowl winner.

But Brady seemed to enjoy that moment in 2000 when he took the field for just a couple of garbage-time minutes in an otherwise unmemorable game between two non-playoff teams at the Pontiac Silverdome.

“Yeah, I was active for that game,” Brady told reporters of that game in 2020. “It was Thanksgiving Day. We got our butts beat pretty bad by the Lions and got in at the end of the game. I think I threw a few, three passes.

“And it was just, you know, an insignificant start to the career, because I wouldn’t say many people were expecting me ever to have the kind of career that I had. So, for me, it was great to be out on the field and learning.”

2002: Brady notches first Thanksgiving win

Brady and the Patriots made their way back to Detroit in 2002 for Thanksgiving Day. This time, Brady returned to Michigan as a Super Bowl champ, leading New England to a surprising title in 2001. 

In what was the first Thanksgiving game at Ford Field, Brady looked to help keep the Patriots’ playoff chances alive and well as they were 6-5. Brady didn’t have a spectacular outing, but he got the job done. He completed 18 of 30 passes for 210 yards and an interception in that game, which the Patriots won, 20-12.

Tedy Bruschi had a pick-six, Antowain Smith rushed for 80 yards and a touchdown and Troy Brown had 10 receptions for 111 yards. Brady’s major contribution came on the final drive, even if it didn’t result in a score. As the Lions kicked a field goal to cut the Patriots’ lead to 20-12 with 9:50 left, Brady led New England on a 17-play drive to run out the clock and seal the win. He helped convert three third downs on that drive, including two third-and-12 plays. 

”We jumped up on them early, and we just wanted to control the clock,” Brady told reporters after the game. ”We felt like we were in control.”

Even though the Patriots won that game, they weren’t able to make the postseason that year. They faltered down the stretch to finish 9-7, ending their hopes of winning back-to-back titles.

2010: Brady stamps MVP case

Once again, Brady made a trip to Detroit for Thanksgiving during the 2010 season. Two years removed from his ACL tear, Brady was still one of the league’s best quarterbacks, but he haden’t yet reached that elite level of play fans saw in the 2007 season.

That changed in November 2010. After being upset by a lowly Cleveland Browns team at the start of the month, Brady put up a pair of dominant performances against a pair of his top rivals at the time, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts. He threw for five touchdowns and rushed for another over those two games, leading the Patriots to wins in both.

Brady’s performances in those games set him up to show off against a 2-8 Lions squad. He delivered, completing 21 of 27 passes for 341 yards, four touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 passer rating in a 45-24 win. It marked just the second time in Brady’s career that he recorded a perfect passer rating. 

All four of Brady’s touchdown passes came in the second half, leading the Patriots to five straight touchdown drives after they trailed at halftime, 17-10. They also trailed 14-3 early on.

“He’s like a surgeon,” then-Lions center Dominic Raiola told reporters of Brady’s performance in that game.

Brady finished that season with 3,900 passing yards, 36 touchdown passes and four interceptions with a 111 passer rating. His effort not only helped New England go 14-2 in the regular season, but he also won his second MVP award. He became the first player in NFL history to win MVP unanimously.

That season didn’t end on too high of a note for Brady and the Patriots, though. They lost to the New York Jets in the AFC divisional round.

2012: Brady, Patriots dominate Jets in ‘Butt Fumble’ game

At one of the peaks of the Patriots-Jets rivalry, the AFC East foes met in the Meadowlands on Thanksgiving night. However, New York wasn’t at the playoff level it was at in the 2009-10 seasons, entering the game with a 4-6 record.

Still, the Jets had an opportunity to play spoiler. They lost in overtime against the 7-3 Patriots earlier in the season and had won two of their last three matchups against the divisional rival at home.

New York’s hopes of an upset quickly eroded, though, thanks to Brady … and other things. Brady led the Patriots on a long touchdown drive in the second quarter, throwing a touchdown pass to Wes Welker. The Jets had a promising possession on the next drive with Shonn Greene rushing to the Patriots’ 19-yard line before coughing up the ball.

That fumble commenced one of the more chaotic minute-long stretches in NFL history. On the next play, Brady hit Shane Vereen on a swing pass and the Patriots running back went untouched for an 83-yard score. Two plays from scrimmage later, Mark Sanchez slid into the backside of Jets offensive lineman Brandon Moore, forcing a fumble that later became known as the “Butt Fumble.” Patriots safety Steve Gregory scooped the ball up and ran for a 32-yard touchdown. On the ensuing kickoff, Patriots safety Devin McCourty delivered a hit to Jets returner Joe McKnight that caused the ball to pop up in the air and land directly in the arms of Julian Edelman. Edelman returned the loose ball 22 yards for a touchdown.

By the end of that stretch, the Patriots had taken a 28-0 lead in just 52 seconds. They weren’t done scoring, either. Brady connected with Edelman for a 56-yard touchdown that gave the Patriots a 35-0 lead later in the second quarter. The Jets kicked a field goal right before halftime, but were outscored 35-3 in a quarter in which they had possession of the ball for 12 minutes.

Brady helped the Patriots reach the end zone a couple of more times in the second half, rushing for a score himself in the team’s 49-19 win. While the most memorable moments of the game didn’t include Brady, he still had an impressive day, throwing for 323 yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions with a 144.5 passer rating and a rushing touchdown.

Still, much of the postgame attention focused on that 21-point stretch the Patriots had in the second quarter of that game.

“I was unfortunately on the other side of that in a Pro Bowl where they scored on a fumble, then an interception,” Belichick told reporters when asked if he had experienced a quarter like the Patriots did in that game. “It doesn’t take a lot to score like that, defensive touchdowns, special teams, they can add up in a hurry. Nothing surprises me in the NFL.”

2024: Brady calls his first Thanksgiving game

For the first time in a dozen years, Brady will have to work a game on Thanksgiving. But he’s excited to be on the call for FOX when the Cowboys host the Giants, and he seems ready to take a break from the TB12 diet.

“I guess Gordon Ramsey’s got somebody that he works with that’s doing the turducken,” Brady said on the “Let’s Go!” podcast. “I’ve never had one. I don’t know how ducks and chickens got wrapped into this whole thing. It used to be just turkey. Now, it’s all kinds of birds that we’re eating.

“I’m going in with two hands,” Brady added. “F— it. I’m just going in and have at it.”

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