2020 NFL schedule: Jaguars only team to never play on Thanksgiving … and won't this year

The last big event of the NFL offseason arrives Thursday night when the league releases its 2020 regular-season schedule – with the assumption that the start date of Thursday, Sept. 10, will happen in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. There will be contingency schedules as well but not released publicly. The biggest day of the regular season each year is Thanksgiving. The Jacksonville Jaguars are the only active franchise to never play on the holiday, and that's highly unlikely to change in 2020.

Since 2006, there have been three games scheduled each Turkey Day: an early start from Detroit, a mid-afternoon game from Dallas and then a prime-time game where there's no pre-arranged location or matchup – although, oddly, it has been Saints vs. Falcons the past two years.

Every active franchise has played on the holiday at least once except the Jaguars, who entered the league in 1995. The NFL generally likes to schedule marquee teams in the four slots available, and the fact is that the Jaguars simply aren't one.

Jacksonville doesn't visit either Detroit (hosts the Lions) or Dallas (doesn't play Cowboys) in 2020 so that leaves only the prime-time game, and there's little chance the NFL is going to put a Jags team coming off a 6-10 season and with zero national cache in that spot. Casual football fans likely could only name Gardner Minshew II and Leonard Fournette from the Jaguars.

Incidentally, Jacksonville also has the longest Monday Night Football drought too. It hasn't played in that game since Dec. 5, 2011, against the Chargers. The Jags are 8-7 all-time on MNF, but they most likely will not be in one of those games this year, either.

The Jaguars already have caught one break this season in that there will be no international games, so they get back two "true" home games that were to be played in London. At William Hill sportsbook, Jacksonville has a league-low Over-Under win total of 4.5 for 2020.

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