“I wonder if they had any mud bowls this year.”

That was something my mom wondered about on Thursday night when we were hanging out at her house on Thanksgiving. She was obviously referring to a Turkey Bowl, the annual Thanksgiving tradition of football fans gathering on some field or in some backyard and engaging in a game of tackle football.

Young and old would engage in this activity when I was growing up. I played in my share of Turkey Bowls as a kid. I’d get all muddy and then go home and hang out with the family and watch the Cowboys and Lions games on television before sitting down for dinner. Of course, I had to make a quick stop in the basement or bathroom to change out of my dirty clothes before I could even enter the house. Heck, when I was still in school and had such a thing as a four-day Thanksgiving Weekend, I’d play tackle football every day before going back to school sore and injured on Monday morning.

I played in my last tackle Turkey Bowl back in 1996 when I was 24. I remember intercepting a pass, and then the game was suddenly over. I was so sore for the next few days that I actually had to pull on my pants in order to lift my legs in and out of my car.

I’m not kidding.

Do football fans still engage in Turkey Bowls all throughout the United States on Thanksgiving Day? Maybe it’s just me, and maybe I’m just old and out of touch, but it sure doesn’t seem like it’s as popular as it used to be.

It now seems rare on Thanksgiving to see people, both young and old, gathered on fields or in yards, playing tackle football in their sweatpants and generic-looking football jerseys. It’s not just on Thanksgiving, either. Finding a pick-up tackle football game on any day seems less common than it did when I was growing up.

Why is that? Have we evolved as a society to the point where we now recognize the dangers of tackle football? Don’t get me wrong, in no way do I think I or the kids I grew up with were anywhere close to being on par with the boys and men who play organized high school, college and professional football in helmets and pads. I don’t ever remember suffering a head injury while playing pick-up tackle football. I don’t ever recall getting my “bell rung.”

No, I don’t think our evolution has anything to do with our fear of suffering brain damage. I think it’s just how we’ve evolved as a society in general. Not to sound like an old person, but it is now less common to see pick-up games of any sport–football, baseball, basketball and hockey–than it was when I was a kid, and even then, the adults of the world were commenting on the many empty fields and courts in their communities.

As it pertains to football, maybe we have evolved to the point that engaging in a sport where we have to tackle one another just seems barbaric. If you do see pick-up football being played in the modern era, it’s now usually of the flag variety. You see it in person. You even see it in fictional movies and television shows.

Speaking of which, the last time I played in a Turkey Bowl, it really was flag football. I don’t know where the person who organized the game got these flags, but I’m sure glad they did. It was 2012, I had just turned 40 years old, and I think I would have called the police if someone had tried to tackle me that day.

I wasn’t in pain at all as I drove home for the big Thanksgiving feast, and I had just as much fun as I ever did playing tackle football in my youth.

Maybe I had evolved. Then again, maybe I was just old.

Perhaps I really am out of touch and totally unaware that football fans, especially young ones, still gather on fields and in yards all around America to engage in the annual Thanksgiving Day tradition known as the Turkey Bowl.

If that’s the case, I’m glad. Just don’t ask me to play. I really will call the police if someone tackles me at the age of 51.