Ranking The 5 Greatest Eagles Thanksgiving Moments

Thanksgiving in the United States marks one of the best days of football of the entire year. The slate usually features three excellent matchups between some of the most iconic teams in the National Football League. The Philadelphia Eagles certainly fit in that category, and they've had their share of fantastic moments on Thanksgiving.

The five games below mark Philly's biggest and brightest moments that the Eagles have ever had on the holiday.

No, that's not a typo. Before they became the Steelers, Pittsburgh's football team was called the Pirates. This game didn't feature any big names from the early iteration of the NFL, but Philadelphia's 17-14 win stands out as an important moment in franchise history. It was the lone win of the Eagles' season and the first time the franchise played and won on Thanksgiving. It might not have been the most exciting matchup, but it is worth noting as a unique slice of NFL history.

This Thanksgiving matchup was far more exciting than the first one on this list. Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook led an electric Eagles offense into the desert to face a formidable 7-4 Cardinals team. What ensued was one of the best offensive showings of the McNabb era. The quarterback tossed four touchdowns without turning the ball over, and Westbrook added 110 yards and a couple of scores on the ground. 

Arizona's offense, led by Kurt Warner, wasn't nearly as effective. Warner turned the ball over three times, and the Cardinals totaled a minuscule 25 rushing yards. Philadelphia coasted to a 48-20 win against a team they would go on to face in the NFC Championship in the same season.

It isn't often that matchups between two of the worst teams in the NFL result in an iconic game, but that's exactly what happened when the 0-11 Eagles paid a visit to the 3-6-2 Lions. Philadelphia's squad, led by head coach Joe Kuharich, was so bad that it entered the game as 12-point underdogs to a poor Detroit team. 

That line turned out to be completely inaccurate. Philly engaged in one of the ugliest NFL games of all time, with five total turnovers highlighting a mud-filled slugfest that saw both teams fail to score a touchdown. Eagles kicker Sam Baker knocked in the only points of the game, hitting four field goals to lead a 12-0 Philly win. The winless season was over, and the Eagles had created an iconic game that would be remembered as the "Mud Bowl."

This Thanksgiving matchup was about as close as a game could get to determining a divisional winner in November. Both the Eagles and the Cowboys entered the contest with an 8-3 record, setting the stage for a classic clash between rivals who had nothing but ill will for each other.

Despite the apparent parity between the teams, the Eagles proceeded to whack Dallas for all four quarters. Quarterback Mark Sanchez outplayed his counterpart, Tony Romo, by a long shot, throwing for 217 yards and a score without turning the ball over. Running back LeSean McCoy averaged 6.4 yards per carry en route to amassing 159 yards and a touchdown. Meanwhile, the Cowboys got into the end zone once on the way to a 33-10 humiliation. Beating up a divisional rival on national TV is the dream, and Eagles fans certainly relished it. 

While this game didn't have playoff implications, it had something a little more intriguing: bad blood. The Eagles traveled to Dallas to face a 1-10 Cowboys team that had struggled to get anything going under head coach Jimmy Johnson. As almost everybody expected, Philadelphia destroyed its rival, winning 27-0 in a game that never looked competitive.

The real controversy came in the Dallas locker room after the defeat. Johnson accused the Eagles of putting a bounty on his kicker, Luis Zendejas, and his quarterback, Troy Aikman. Without any real evidence to support the claim, Johnson's accusations came across as whining from a badly beaten opponent. All it did was add some animosity to the next time these teams played, which was another Eagles win.

It's hard to put together a better record than the Eagles have on Thanksgiving. Philadelphia has had the honor of playing on the holiday seven times, winning six of those meetings in emphatic fashion. While they're not typically seen as a staple of Thanksgiving football, the Eagles will almost certainly get a primetime spot on Turkey Day soon. Their high profile as a team, combined with the fact that the Cowboys are almost always featured on the day, virtually guarantees that the two teams will recreate the classic matchup sometime soon.