The Packers haven’t forgotten Jordan Love’s turkey leg

This Thursday, the Green Bay Packers welcome the Miami Dolphins to Lambeau Field for a Thanksgiving showdown on NBC. This is the second straight year the Packers will play on Thanksgiving after defeating the Detroit Lions 29-22 last season. While it was a great win for the Packers, it will also be remembered as the day Jordan Love was denied his turkey leg.

The turkey leg has become an NFL Thanksgiving tradition over the years thanks to the late John Madden and his Turkey Leg Award, created in 1989. It has been renamed over the years and is now known as the “Madden Player of the Game” and is awarded to the MVPs of the winning teams of the Thanksgiving games. Players will receive a $10,000 donation on their behalf to a youth or high school football program of their choice and will be served a post-game turkey feast to enjoy and feast on their spoils… but were no celebrations planned Jordan Love last Thanksgiving.

Love, who was named Madden Player of the Game, didn’t get a turkey leg after the win. Instead, FOX sideline reporter Erin Andrews noted in the postgame interview that he would only receive the donation in his name. The other teams that won last Thanksgiving, the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers, received post-game turkeys, with the Packers the only team left out. And no one really seems to know why.

Fans noticed immediately and memes and conspiracy theories arose, and Packers running back AJ Dillon even started selling “Turkey Gate” t-shirts. There was so much uproar that former NFL tight end and current FOX analyst Greg Olsen took to Twitter to defend himself after people accused him of tearing up Jordan Love’s turducken early in the game.

A year later, players don’t seem to have forgotten Turkey Gate. According to Matt Schneidman of The Athletic, tight end Tucker Kraft commented on the drama after practice on Tuesday. He berated Olsen for tearing the Turducken apart before declaring, “We’re going to make sure Jordan gets him this year.”

Kraft wasn’t the only teammate to talk about Turkey Gate this week. During a conversation on 97.3 The Game in Milwaukee, AJ Dillon brought it up, saying that FOX still owes love for the oversight and that NBC needs to “get it right” this week. “We don’t forget,” he added.

While it’s still unclear why FOX didn’t have a turkey on hand, one can only hope NBC can repair the turkey leg-shaped hole created in the team’s collective stomach. But before that can happen, the Packers must prevail against a rising Dolphins team on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.