Football, Thanksgiving and a Simple Quest

Arrive at the mother-in-law’s house. Sit on a sofa. Watch football. Eat to the point of agony. Doze off. Watch more football.

It’s the watching football that is perhaps the best tradition, and I recently decided to do a little bit of detective work to find out whether there’s a local connection to these great Thanksgiving games.

In short, I wanted to find out how many people from Anne Arundel County have ever played in an NFL game on Thanksgiving Day.

The answer, according to my research, ranges between zero and four.

I am not really sure.

As it turns out, finding comprehensive stats on old football games is a little tricky, and finding the hometowns of players is also hard. 

Thanks to the great website pro-football-reference.com, I found 13 former NFL and AFL players that had hometowns listed in Anne Arundel County.

After sifting through box scores, I learned that there are at least four guys who are from Anne Arundel County who may have played on Thanksgiving Day. I say “may” have played, because based on the box scores, it’s tough to discern for sure if these players actually stepped onto the field.

Bill Currier of Glen Burnie played defensive back the NFL from 1977 to 1985 for the Houston Oilers and New York Giants. He played for the Oilers in 1979, when they appeared in a Thanksgiving Day game against the Cowboys. The Oilers won, 30-24, but it’s not clear if Currier appeared in the game.

Currier also played for the Giants when they played the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day in 1982. But again, it’s unclear if he was in the game for the Giants’ 13-6 win.

Currier, for what it’s worth, is now an athletic director at a christian school in South Carolina.

Odenton native and graduate Darnerien McCants was a wide receiver for Washington Redskins in 2002. That season, Washington traveled to play the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day and lost, 27-20. However, game logs indicate that he missed several games that season, and did not return to action until the following week.

Charles Alan Pastrana of Annapolis played quarterback for the Denver Broncos in 1969 and 1970. (This was before the AFL-NFL merger.) Denver lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-17. There is no evidence from this box score that he played.

(Intriguing side note: Pastrana is the uncle of famed motorsports stuntman Travis Pastrana.)

Mike Reichenbach is listed as a native of Fort Meade, who played linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1984 to 1989. In 1989, the Eagles drubbed the Cowboys 27-0 on Thanksgiving Day. The box score, however, doesn’t indicate whether he made it into the game or not.

Jacob Bender of Mayo appeared in two games for the Jets in 2007. That year, the Jets were crushed by the Cowboys 34-3 on Thanksgiving Day. It does not appear that Bender played in the game.

So, there you go. Anne Arundel County is not exactly a hotbed of Thanksgiving pigskin glory.