If you get drafted by the Detroit Lions, working on Thanksgiving Day is just part of the deal, and rookie offensive lineman Tate Ratledge plans to be there next week.

Ratledge’s planned attendance, however, caught many Lions fans by surprise after they were duped by an article in The Onion claiming the rookie requested to have Thanksgiving Day off because his mom is making his favorite pecan pie. And despite the absurdity of this claim, and the fact that it was published by the well-known satirical outlet The Onion, there were apparently a lot of Lions fans who thought Ratledge really had the gall to see if Thanksgiving was eligible to be a PTO day.

Here is the quote that was jokingly attributed to Ratledge in The Onion after claiming he asked head coach Dan Campbell for Thanksgiving off.

“I know we have a game scheduled, but my family has this big tradition every year where we all get together on that day and have a feast and watch football, and I really don’t want to miss it,” said the 24-year-old guard, adding that he’s very excited to spend time with his cousins and have a few helpings of his grandma’s famous stuffing. “I’ve already had to cancel a lot of weekend plans because of games this season, so I’m hoping I don’t have to back out on this, too. Plus, my mom said she’s making pecan pie just for me—it’s my favorite.”

The only thing crazier than thinking people might actually be duped by the above quote is the fact that people were actually duped by the above quote. According to Ratledge, he heard from “many people” about the article, with a team employee even noting a fan called into a local sports radio show to complain about the bogus request as if it were real.

Tate Ratledge said he got sent The Onion article about him by “so many people.” Said he heard from a team employee that someone called into a local radio bitching about it as if it were real.

Good to know if 2025 people still don’t understand satire. https://t.co/0low9lqYv9

— Justin Rogers | Detroit Football Network (@Justin_Rogers) November 20, 2025

It’s hilarious. But it’s also a little concerning. With AI, satire websites and troll social media accounts running rampant on the internet, we’ve all been duped by a video or headline before. But believing a rookie NFL player asked to have Thanksgiving Day off to eat pecan pie? Come on. Maybe just stay off the internet if you weren’t aware or savvy enough to sniff that one out.

If the Lions beat the Green Bay Packers next week on Thanksgiving Day, Ratledge should be invited by Fox to have a turkey leg. Because the poor guy gave up Thanksgiving with his family to show up and work for the Lions.

The post Detroit Lions rookie didn’t really request Thanksgiving Day off appeared first on Awful Announcing.

As you may have heard, the U.S. Mint has officially stopped producing pennies. I understand the reasoning behind this move — nobody spends pennies anymore, and manufacturing them costs three times as much as the coins’ face value, so it no longer makes sense to make cents. But news of the penny’s demise still made me a bit melancholy, because I collected pennies as a kid, beginning when I was about nine years old. And that means I know about a classically inconspicuous guy named Victor D. Brenner, who I want to talk about today.

Brenner was a sculptor who created the design for the Lincoln penny, which went on to become one of the most ubiquitous and iconic images in American life. The coin went into circulation in 1909 to coincide with the the Great Emancipator’s 100th birthday, so it’s been in use for 116 years — the longest run for a coin design in American history. During that time, Brenner’s artwork has been reproduced billions of times and seen by hundreds of millions of people, even though most of them haven’t known his name. He’s like the Charles Brannock of loose change.

Of course, the designers of our other coins aren’t household names either. But Brenner is unique because he’s at the heart of one of the most notable chapters in the annals of American coin collecting. When he created the Lincoln penny’s front design (or the obverse, as they say in the coin biz), he also created the “wheat stalk” design for the back (or reverse). Like any artist, he wanted to sign his work, so he included his initials — V.D.B. — in between the wheat stalks at the base of the reverse.

It wasn’t unusual for American coin designs to include a designer’s initials. For example, the Lincoln penny’s predecessor, the Indian head penny, had a tiny sideways “L” for its designer, James Barton Longacre. But many observers at the time considered Brenner’s initials to be too prominent and ostentatious, especially on a coin meant to honor Lincoln. The outcry quickly led Treasury Secretary Franklin MacVeagh to have Brenner’s initials scrubbed from the design during the penny’s first month of production (additional info here). By that time, however, some coins with the initials had already been struck at the Philadelphia and San Francisco mints and had entered the nation’s coinage supply. By the end of 1909, the penny production numbers for the two mints looked like this:

• Philadelphia: 28 million with initials, 72.7 million without.

• San Francisco: 484,000 with initials, 1.8 million without.

Since the pennies with Brenner’s initials were less plentiful and somewhat controversial, they quickly became collector’s items. That backstory was like catnip to nine-year-old me (and, I’m fairly certain, to lots of other kids over the years). It activated my nascent collecting instincts and was like the gateway drug that got me interested in the hobby. I bought one of those blue Whitman albums to house my growing penny collection, and of course I was especially keen to fill the spots for the two 1909 V.D.B. editions. Did I succeed? I still have my album, so let’s take a look:

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WASHINGTON — President Trump has expanded his claims of sedition and calls for the death penalty to include any American who, if given the implausible opportunity, would travel back in time to kill Hitler as a baby, in a Truth Social post early this morning. 

“The radical commie left is OUT OF CONTROL! ENEMIES FROM WITHIN! Not only do we have Congress urging the military to DISOBEY MY ORDERS just because they HAPPEN to be illegal (which is ILLEGAL!), but it has come to our attention that U.S. ‘citizens’ are plotting to violate the LAWS OF NATURE to traverse time and MURDER AN INNOCENT BABY! This is SICK! This is SEDITIOUS! I am calling for the IMMEDIATE EXECUTION of ANY registered democrat caught in possession of a flux capacitor, TARDIS, or that Hot Tub from that other time travel movie! What was it called? Lots of women in that movie, great cans, many of them on the younger side as well. WE WILL PROTECT HISTORY and MAKE AMERICA GREAT!” 

While legal experts on both sides of the political spectrum largely question the legality of executing American citizens based on their answer to a philosophical musing, Pam Bondi assured reporters that the President is well within his rights to do so. 

“The office of the Presidency is a part of the historical fabric, and as sitting President, Donald Trump is its chief guardian,” Bondi said to a room of notably exasperated reporters. “Mr. Trump is merely curbing the dangerous rhetoric of leftists who want to murder a baby in 1889 simply because they disagree with it. This familiar attitude of violence from the left is deplorable. Rest assured, if American time travel is used to interact with the Nazis, it will be used in peace and cooperation.” 

Despite growing criticism, Trump held his ground on the controversial stance and went on to post numerous proposals for how time travel should be used.  

“We should be friends with Nazi Germany! Look at what they accomplished! They would make incredible allies! We’re going to make a really great time deal with the Nazis, a big, beautiful deal. We give them some of our modern technology, they build some statues of me across the globe, everyone wins! Make America greater before!”   

Joe Rogan has weighed in on the situation, calling anyone who would kill Hitler as a baby “cowards” and claiming that he will be using time travel to go to 1945 and “Fight Hitler as a man!”

The post Trump Demands Death Penalty for Anyone Who Would Go Back in Time and Kill Baby Hitler appeared first on HARDTIMES.