Every Thanksgiving needs a turkey, but that doesn't even begin to explain why the NFL always serves up the Detroit Lions the fourth Thursday each November.

Some background:

The Lions started the 1934 season, their first in Detroit, at 10-1.

But the team was drawing only about 12,000 per game, not what owner G.A. Richards expected after moving the franchise from Portsmouth, Ohio, after the 1933 season.

Richards had an idea. Borrowing from local colleges and high schools, he moved his team's 12th game to Thanksgiving for maximum exposure.

It worked. The team drew 26,000 against the defending NFL champion Chicago Bears, and the Lions have played on Thanksgiving ever since (except for 1939-44 due to World War II).

It seems like another trend started that day -- the Lions lost.

But they haven't always been losers, and they are 33-33-2 on Thanksgiving.

However, they are winless this season and have lost six of their last seven Turkey Day games.

Now 0-11, they face the 10-1 Tennessee Titans on Thursday in one of the biggest mismatches in NFL history, at least based on team records, according to pro-Football-reference.com.

It's time to ask: Does this turkey tradition still fly?

Mike O'Hara of the Detroit News wrote earlier this month that the Lions should worry about losing the game, in part because of the campaign by ESPN's "Mike and Mike" -- Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic -- to have it taken away:

"ESPN is a partner of the NFL. It doesn't dictate to the league, but its voice cannot be discounted as purely media ranting. Suppose the broadcast networks -- Fox, CBS and NBC -- chime in?"

Nate Davis and Sean Leahy pick up the debate today in USA TODAY's NFL blog, The Huddle.

Click here to join the debate

thehuddle.usatoday.com