Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

For the first time since the formation of the AFC and NFC in 1970, no AFC teams will play on Thanksgiving Day.

The Dallas Cowboys hosted their first annual Thanksgiving game in 1966 (they skipped a few years in the 1970s), joining the Lions, who’ve been doing it since 1934. The league added a primetime game to the mix in 2006, with the NFL Network airing another marquee matchup, now broadcast on NBC.

Since CBS and FOX each get one of the daytime games, there was always an AFC team slated as one of the opponents for whichever game was scheduled to air on CBS. For years, CBS had exclusively been affiliated with games featuring at least one AFC team, with FOX having the same arrangement for the NFC.

That changed entering the 2014 season, as the league began “cross flexing” games between the two networks after Week 5, allowing CBS to air two NFC games and vice versa to balance out the television schedule.

The most recent example was last Sunday’s game between the Redskins and 49ers, which aired on CBS.

Rather than air one of Detroit’s two home games versus AFC opponents (Buffalo and Miami), the league took advantage of the new policy and made a division game with Chicago the marquee game for CBS. FOX gets an NFC East showdown between the Eagles and Cowboys and then the NBC gets the Seahawks and 49ers, which looked like a potential Top 5 game of the year when the schedule was initially announced.

While the Bears aren’t as formidable of an opponent as might have been expected at this point, it’s a great move to make all three of the NFL’s traditional holiday games division matchups. People were going to watch last year’s Houston-Detroit game regardless, but all of these games are going to be worth watching for football reasons, not just diversions to keep people from having to engage in awkward family conversations.