1. When the NFL schedule was released in April, there was one game that stood out more than any other to those in the media world: Chiefs at Cowboys in the late-afternoon window on Thanksgiving.

The narrative surrounding the 2025 schedule quickly became, “Will Chiefs-Cowboys set a new record for the most-viewed regular-season game in NFL history?” You have American’s Team, that still draws monster ratings, vs. the most dominant team in recent years, whose star tight end just happens to be engaged to a global pop star and icon.

CBS will air the K.C.-Dallas matchup, which means Jim Nantz and Tony Romo will be on the call. During a brand-new SI Media With Jimmy Traina that dropped Thursday morning, I asked Nantz if he expects CBS to set the record that day.

“I think there’s no question,” said Nantz. “Of course, the other thing that our audience needs to be educated on, there’s a new metric, there’s a new way of measuring the audience size, which is tailor-made for the sports audience that was never being completely covered and picked up in these Nielsen ratings because they weren’t able to rate out-of-home viewing.

“You’ve got that factored in with two enormously popular franchises. It’ll help if they have good records, it’ll help even at little bit more. But even with that, people are watching football on Thanksgiving Day. It’s the prime slot in the late afternoon. I’m on the record as saying I think that we not only will break the record, we’ll blow it out.”

The most-watched regular-season game of all time was a Giants-Cowboys Thanksgiving game in 2022, which drew 42.06 million viewers. The Giants and Cowboys played again on Thanksgiving last season, with that matchup pulling in 38.8 million viewers.

Given the new ratings metric that Nantz referenced, it will be fascinating to see how close the Chiefs-Cowboys game could get to 50 million viewers.

That new way of measuring viewers has already paid off enormously for the NFL, with Week 1 posting gains across the board.

CBS’s late window, featuring the Lions at Packers, drew 23.89 million viewers, making it the most-watched Week 1 game on CBS since they began airing the NFL again in 1998.

Fox’s early window pulled in 17.9 million fans. It was the most-watched 1 p.m. game on any network since 2015.

NBC’s Ravens-Bills game was the most-watched Sunday night opener for the network since 2022, with 24.7 million viewers.

2. Adam Silver has taken some heat for saying on Wednesday that the NBA “is a highlight sport.” The full context of his quote isn’t nearly as bad. He detailed how the NBA will have a ton of games on over-the-air television, but that part was clipped and aggreated, so that’s what people paid attention to.

Here’s the full quote from Silver.

3. I can’t really explain why I think this, but “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE” is a tremendous call for a walk-off home run. That was the line dropped by Mariners broadcaster Aaron Goldsmith on Wednesday when Leo Rivas snapped a 2–2 tie in the 10th inning.

4. If you’re a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off fan (and who isn’t?), you will appreciate this.

5. This definitely needs to be on the “imagine if social media was around for this” list.

6. Chris “Mad Dog” Russo was not a fan of all the celebrities who flocked to the U.S. Open last weekend.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: I started writing Hot Clicks for SI.com in 2007. I’ve written a daily column ever since then. And every single year on this date, I post David Letterman’s monologue from his first show back on the air after 9/11. It’s just as powerful today as it was 24 years ago.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X and Instagram.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jim Nantz on Cowboys-Chiefs Thanksgiving Game: ‘We’ll Blow Out Rating for Most-Watched Regular-Season Game’.

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