The National Football League will continue to honour the late John Madden at next Thursday’s Thanksgiving games with commemorations of the former player, coach and commentator liberally sprinkled throughout.

Madden once said that, ‘There’s no place that I would rather be on Thanksgiving than right here, right now, at a football game,’ and the now-annual John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration aims to bring together all the things that were important to the legend: family, football, food, tradition and fun.

Network partners FOX, CBS and NBC will continue to celebrate Madden’s contributions to the game, both on the field and in the broadcast booth, with tributes interspersed throughout each game — Bears @ Lions, Giants @ Cowboys and Dolphins @ Packers — starting with a special NFL-produced Madden Hallmark to kick off each broadcast, conveying what Thanksgiving meant to the Hall-of-Famer him in his own words.

 

Each network will also 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 programme in their name, underscoring the importance of youth football to Madden. This year, for the first time, each Madden Thanksgiving MVP will also be awarded a Madden Thanksgiving MVP trophy, created to celebrate everything the game of football means to the Thanksgiving holiday. The trophy is in the form of a pylon and includes various ‘Maddenisms’, along with visual cues to the holiday theme.

Also new for this year, the NFL will benefit the newly-created John Madden Foundation with proceeds from the sale of game-used items from the three Thanksgiving Day games via NFL Auctions.

A coin featuring a silhouette of Coach Madden on the ‘heads’ side and his infamous six-legged ‘turducken’ on ‘tails’ will be used for the coin toss at each game, while a patch featuring Madden’s silhouette will be featured on the jersey of each player involved.

 

Meanwhile, special John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration stencils will be placed on the sidelines of Ford Field, AT&T Stadium and Lambeau Field, along with stadium wall panels that include an iconic image of Madden from his coaching days. The NFL’s broadcast partners will also air Madden and Thanksgiving-related programming leading up to and on Thanksgiving Day.