Jack White and Post Malone Face Off in NFL’s Thanksgiving Music Showdown

Mia Reynolds, 11/17/2025Jack White and Post Malone headline the NFL’s Thanksgiving halftime show in 2025, showcasing their unique musical styles in Detroit and Dallas. With themes of nostalgia, unity, and homecoming, the event promises to blend family traditions and cultural celebration amidst the excitement of football.

2025’s festivities throw a particularly colorful cast onto the football field. Ford Field in Detroit isn’t just rumbling with the footsteps of brawny running backs—it’s vibrating with anticipation for Jack White’s first-ever Thanksgiving halftime show right in his hometown. Having Jack White headline Detroit, with his story stretching from those sinewy garage band beginnings to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame laurels, feels more like a sweet homecoming than a slick industry booking. Homegrown talent lifting the power cords where they first started—that’s the sort of symmetry sports and music fans quietly adore.

There’s a twist to this year’s production, of course. For the first time, Eminem and his trusted manager Paul Rosenberg took the reigns as executive producers, with Lions brass laying it out plainly: landing iconic acts is part of their bigger mission to reshape the halftime show into a can't-miss, cultural happening every November. From a business perspective, it’s a savvy move; from a fan’s, there’s something undeniably bracing about having one music legend endorse another, right on their home turf. There’s a bit of inside baseball to it, sure, but the audience never minds the all-star call-ups.

Jack White’s musical arc is famously zigzagged: early White Stripes thrash, sepia-toned ballads, restless solo experimentations. That he’s only just gotten his Hall of Fame induction in 2024 says as much about industry timing as it does about how some innovators get recognized on their own, quirky schedules. His shout-out at the ceremony to Meg White (“she’s very grateful”) barely raised his voice but echoed through every rock fan tuned in. Under the dome of Ford Field, that history—personal, local, and genuinely electric—charges every chord.

But hang on—the party doesn’t pause in Detroit. Dallas, with its own penchant for spectacle (and, frankly, a stubborn love for big hats and bigger personalities), welcomes Post Malone to the Cowboys’ midfield this year. Not everyone realizes he grew up in those same suburbs, shadowing his dad during those Cowboys concessions shifts. There’s a certain almost-cinematic full circle here: a kid stacking nachos before halftime, now set to fill that very slot with his genre-hopping string of hits. Post himself summed it up in a statement with a Texas twang: “It’s a real honor to be part of the Red Kettle Kickoff with The Salvation Army and the Dallas Cowboys and help bring hope to so many people.” You get the sense he means it. Hope, after all, is as essential to football fans as superstition.

Anyone vaguely tuned into the music charts since 2015 knows Post Malone’s trajectory doesn’t follow straight lines. Billboard trophies? Plenty—eleven, if you’re counting. Grammy statuette? Not yet. (The man is up to 18 nominations, still swinging at that particular windmill.) But his sound—softening the edges between hip-hop, rock, country, and sad-boy ballads—lands as easily at a Friday night tailgate as it does in the backroom of a smoky Texas bar. There’s something almost alchemical in the way he flattens the genre divide into pure, singalong moment.

Comparisons are inevitable, though perhaps this year’s are unusually poetic. There’s White, a kind of analog prophet, conjuring up ghosts of rustbelt soul and vintage fuzz pedals. Set against Post Malone, a poster child for digital-era musical mashups—one hand in the past, the other scrolling through the endless playlist of Gen Z’s fragmented tastes. Yet both, stepping up on national TV, serve a singular, oddly unifying role: to remind a fragmented, often discordant America that music is still the quickest way to light up a living room. Or a stadium.

Elsewhere, the NFL isn’t holding back on the star power. CeCe Winans will open Detroit’s anthem slot; gospel runs in her veins, and her opening notes have a knack for making even the most cynical sports fan pause mid-bite. Baltimore’s finale sees Lil Jon back in action, still glowing from his stint organizing last season’s Super Bowl halftime chaos. If anyone can manufacture a contagious halftime pit in the face of chilly East Coast winds, it’s him.

A certain breed of critic will always grumble that halftime shows have lost their edge—too commercial, too predictable, too eager to please a sprawling TV audience. Maybe there’s some truth in that, now and then. But argue this while the first few bars of “Seven Nation Army” or “Sunflower” shake the windowpanes and see who’s not at least tapping their foot. If nothing else, the day’s pageantry offers a reminder: entertainment, at its best, is a communal ritual. It stitches together the anxious football diehards and the merely hungry, the proud locals and the handful who—if they’re honest—tune in solely for the concert.

So, as 2025’s Thanksgiving banners unfurl, and the Lions and the Cowboys line up for another round, remember just how rare it is for such disparate worlds—brash rock minimalism, tattooed pop optimism, gospel grandeur—to collide on a single day. Sure, that last slice of pie might be gone by halftime. But, at least you’ll have a reason to crank up the volume once more, regardless of the score. Sometimes, togetherness sounds just like guitar feedback or a sweet hook echoing above the crowd.

Thanksgiving in America, for better or worse, has always played out like a sprawling, slightly chaotic family drama. Yes, the turkey sometimes goes dry, and there’s bound to be at least one spirited debate about the best kind of pie—or, heaven help us, canned versus homemade cranberry sauce. But ask most folks what anchors the day, and there’s a good chance it’s that odd blend of gridiron suspense, stadium-sized music, and the comforting noise of halftime pageantry.2025’s festivities throw a particularly colorful cast onto the football field. Ford Field in Detroit isn’t just rumbling with the footsteps of brawny running backs—it’s vibrating with anticipation for Jack White’s first-ever Thanksgiving halftime show right in his hometown. Having Jack White headline Detroit, with his story stretching from those sinewy garage band beginnings to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame laurels, feels more like a sweet homecoming than a slick industry booking. Homegrown talent lifting the power cords where they first started—that’s the sort of symmetry sports and music fans quietly adore.There’s a twist to this year’s production, of course. For the first time, Eminem and his trusted manager Paul Rosenberg took the reigns as executive producers, with Lions brass laying it out plainly: landing iconic acts is part of their bigger mission to reshape the halftime show into a can't-miss, cultural happening every November. From a business perspective, it’s a savvy move; from a fan’s, there’s something undeniably bracing about having one music legend endorse another, right on their home turf. There’s a bit of inside baseball to it, sure, but the audience never minds the all-star call-ups.Jack White’s musical arc is famously zigzagged: early White Stripes thrash, sepia-toned ballads, restless solo experimentations. That he’s only just gotten his Hall of Fame induction in 2024 says as much about industry timing as it does about how some innovators get recognized on their own, quirky schedules. His shout-out at the ceremony to Meg White (“she’s very grateful”) barely raised his voice but echoed through every rock fan tuned in. Under the dome of Ford Field, that history—personal, local, and genuinely electric—charges every chord.But hang on—the party doesn’t pause in Detroit. Dallas, with its own penchant for spectacle (and, frankly, a stubborn love for big hats and bigger personalities), welcomes Post Malone to the Cowboys’ midfield this year. Not everyone realizes he grew up in those same suburbs, shadowing his dad during those Cowboys concessions shifts. There’s a certain almost-cinematic full circle here: a kid stacking nachos before halftime, now set to fill that very slot with his genre-hopping string of hits. Post himself summed it up in a statement with a Texas twang: “It’s a real honor to be part of the Red Kettle Kickoff with The Salvation Army and the Dallas Cowboys and help bring hope to so many people.” You get the sense he means it. Hope, after all, is as essential to football fans as superstition.Anyone vaguely tuned into the music charts since 2015 knows Post Malone’s trajectory doesn’t follow straight lines. Billboard trophies? Plenty—eleven, if you’re counting. Grammy statuette? Not yet. (The man is up to 18 nominations, still swinging at that particular windmill.) But his sound—softening the edges between hip-hop, rock, country, and sad-boy ballads—lands as easily at a Friday night tailgate as it does in the backroom of a smoky Texas bar. There’s something almost alchemical in the way he flattens the genre divide into pure, singalong moment.Comparisons are inevitable, though perhaps this year’s are unusually poetic. There’s White, a kind of analog prophet, conjuring up ghosts of rustbelt soul and vintage fuzz pedals. Set against Post Malone, a poster child for digital-era musical mashups—one hand in the past, the other scrolling through the endless playlist of Gen Z’s fragmented tastes. Yet both, stepping up on national TV, serve a singular, oddly unifying role: to remind a fragmented, often discordant America that music is still the quickest way to light up a living room. Or a stadium.Elsewhere, the NFL isn’t holding back on the star power. CeCe Winans will open Detroit’s anthem slot; gospel runs in her veins, and her opening notes have a knack for making even the most cynical sports fan pause mid-bite. Baltimore’s finale sees Lil Jon back in action, still glowing from his stint organizing last season’s Super Bowl halftime chaos. If anyone can manufacture a contagious halftime pit in the face of chilly East Coast winds, it’s him.A certain breed of critic will always grumble that halftime shows have lost their edge—too commercial, too predictable, too eager to please a sprawling TV audience. Maybe there’s some truth in that, now and then. But argue this while the first few bars of “Seven Nation Army” or “Sunflower” shake the windowpanes and see who’s not at least tapping their foot. If nothing else, the day’s pageantry offers a reminder: entertainment, at its best, is a communal ritual. It stitches together the anxious football diehards and the merely hungry, the proud locals and the handful who—if they’re honest—tune in solely for the concert.So, as 2025’s Thanksgiving banners unfurl, and the Lions and the Cowboys line up for another round, remember just how rare it is for such disparate worlds—brash rock minimalism, tattooed pop optimism, gospel grandeur—to collide on a single day. Sure, that last slice of pie might be gone by halftime. But, at least you’ll have a reason to crank up the volume once more, regardless of the score. Sometimes, togetherness sounds just like guitar feedback or a sweet hook echoing above the crowd.