"It was a different time back when I was playing. Those were the only games that were being played on Thursday; we did it every year. In fact since I joined the Cowboys back in '89 to this day I've only had one Thanksgiving day off.
"We always felt it was real advantage for us, to play on Thursday and then have the weekend off, and it would recharge us before we went down the stretch run. . . . now with all the Thursday games, whether it's the Cowboys or the Lions, I don't think they have an advantage over the other teams in the league."
But even though a competitive advantage may have been lost, the luster of the Thanksgiving date remains: "The difference is that [for] the Thanksgiving games, everyone's huddled around the TV . . . It's a part of what most families do—eat turkey and dressing and watch the Lions and watch the Cowboys.
"I applaud Tex Schramm of the Dallas Cowboys, many many years ago, when the offer was made by the league to play on Thanksgiving, no one wanted to do it, and Tex Schramm said, 'We'll do it, but we'll only do it if we get to play in this game every single year.' "
This year Aikman will once again work on Thanksgiving, traveling to Detroit as the Lions host the Packers.
