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work marketplace. Empower your business and hire the world's most in demand developers, designers, project managers and more at www dot up work dot com. The model those emotionalizelf turning handle and his website by a little bit of a old pike was like before it for forty five is on the one way forty or five looking to go. He's the same pak or go or go touchdown says all sixty seven yard run or shawnlich only label the Baste is alive in the world. The Beast was most
definitely alive. He was going full on Beast mode, and that play right there is forever known as the Beast Quake. Hello everyone, Welcome to NFL explained I'm a deedy Kinkabwalla, joined as always by the wonderful and eloquent Mike yam what's up, Yammer. I'm doing great. I cannot tell you how excited I am because you just dropped Yammer out there.
My nickname not nearly as cool as Marshawn Lynches. Although I can't do what Marshawn did in that NFC wild Card game back in If I was able to stiff arm, push five dudes off of me in an NFL football game and get into the end zone, believe me, I would want the fans basically erupting so darn loud that the place would be shaking. And that's exactly what happened, right.
The crowd was so loud the noise registered on the Richter scale, and that's kind of be some sort of crazy trifecta, one nickname leading to one action leading to one event. I mean, and the whole pantheon of NFL nicknames. What better way to start the show, right, It's totally appropriate.
And I'll say this, Sometimes names evolve over time, and for Marshawn Lynch, his actually did because think about it this way, like when he was playing Pop Warner football, man child is what he was called, and then as he grew up, it's sort of evolved into beasts and then it clearly stuck. I once again just wish I had it. But when you think about some of these nicknames, there are so many a deity that are just so darn creative, and you just wonder, like, where the hell
did that come from? So I think on today's show like we should go through some of our favorites and explain as much as we can some of the origins of some of those nicknames for sure, because just like when we did this over team names, some of them are extremely obvious. Like you said, I mean, take Iron Mike Ditka. He grew up in western Pennsylvania, in the steel towns of Western Pennsylvania. Obviously he was Iron Mike, but Sweetness. We're going to get to sweetness and Walter Peyton.
That one's a little bit less obvious. Let's say, yeah, No, there's other obvious ones, right like Javon Curse the freak. Just watch him on the football field. Yeah, that one is finning Dante Hall the human joystick once again, one that just applies. But there's been something that's been bugging. I mean, do you have a nickname because you dropped mine? Well, yes, I mean I had a family friendly one and one
that I don't particularly feel like sharing. But I will say that when I was a child, I was called Adidas fairly regularly. Oh I like that, add Adidas. Can I start calling you Adidas? You're more than welcome to do that. I've also been called a deed. I've been called Deats. Okay, I got a little surprised for you at the end of the show with regard to your nicknames. I hope it's a shoe deal that seems to be
a running commentary through our episodes here. Let's just say, Justin Tucker is getting his shoe deal before you and I are getting our shoe deal. Okay, that was a disappointment, But what won't be a disappointment, I promise is this episode. Yeah, you know, I've been so so excited for this one because there are people with nicknames, there are units with nicknames,
there are whole teams with nicknames. And again, like I said, running through some of our favorites, the history the story behind some my favorite thing to do, especially when I get to do it with you. Well, look, let's just roll into it, because there was an email chain that was going and this might be a little too inside baseball, but I do think it speaks to what you're referring to on players, teams, units that had nicknames, and we had to claim five piece. Let's just say that there
was a little bit of real estate grabbing. I think I might have saw the email in the text message before you did, so I'm like, oh damn, I'm getting on this real fast because I don't want Adidas over here to try to take some of my nicknames and some of the players. So I'll kick things off here because for me, one of the ones that really stood out I just remember, and not to get into the whole fantasy thing, but Chad Johnson, how about Ocho Sinko. Joe Sinko is going to kick the extra point and
you know what I heard, he kicks pretty well. At least that's the word. Kevin Hubert, the normal holder. We'll put it down high snap. Look at that he drills it. O Joe Sinko point. I heard somebody was telling me that he was kicking one day of practice and they said he was kicking up believable. He'll be hard to live with. Like you think about Ocho Sinko, how different it is and the buzz, and I think there's so much that it was made around that time. It's sort
of like a joke and being funny. But when you legally change your name like Chad Johnson did to Ocho Sinko on the back of his jersey because he was fined by the NFL when he did that, when you legally change your name like he did in two thousand eight, it no longer becomes a joke. Now it is really serious. And just in case you're wondering, he did return his last name back in so we can just go with Chad Johnson. But the lore and the legacy surrounding Ocho Sinko,
it doesn't go away. Legal name or not. Fine, but I'm going to disagree with you right here. You think that that was a major grab. I think there are actually two Bengals players that had better nicknames than Ocho Sinko given to me. Well, one of them absolutely has to be Albert Woods, better known as Ikey. I mean, and when we talk about variations and offshoots, the Ikey shuffle. And do you know how Ikey Woods actually got his name? No,
please explain. His brother couldn't say Albert. He just kept thing e e e e and that eventually turned into Ikey. And here, very quickly is my second former Cincinnati Bengals player with a very very very good nickname, Andy Dalton, the Red Rifle. Oh I didn't even think of that one. That's a good one, of course. No, well, due by you, I have to tell you. Andy Dalton was not happy when J. J. Watch said, well, we wanted to turn
the red Rifle into a Red Rider bb gun. So sometimes your nickname can be taken from you and bastardized. But anyway, let's move on. You give me your next one, and I'll do my best to knock it down because that's what I like doing. It's hard for me to go to the next one. Because now I just have like a Christmas story in my head and a leg lamp just pictured in my brain right now. And maybe there's a younger audience that has no idea what I'm
referring to. Google it, trust me and watching around Christmas time, please because it's like a holiday tradition. Prime Time, how about Dion Sanders, but his parents such a kick the sideline? Dion Sanders Sanders is dashing, You're looking backwards from about the forty yard line. Is he gonna do a number on the crown here? Prime Time Sanders shows how I gots nos all the way for a touchdown. I think about what he did on both sides of the football,
the flare, the dramatics, you know. I know ESPN did that thirty for thirty with him as sort of the focal point. I think it was a thirty for thirty. Like he's one of those characters that if he's on my phone, if he's on the television, I gravitate. I stop what I'm doing because it's Prime. And when it's Dion Sanders referring to himself as Prime, I always get a kick out of. It's like when Ricky Henderson was referring to himself in the third person. Dion does sort
of the same thing with prime Time. It is a completely appropriate name, but it has nothing to do with football, but it also speaks to what he was as an athlete. I think you can make an argument Dion Sanders Boat Jackson might be too, were the greatest athletes that sports has ever seen to play at the pro level in two sports like Dion Sanders MBO. Jackson did really amazing baseball and football, and yet the name prime Time originates
because of what he did on a basketball floor. High school friend name Richard Fain actually gave him the nickname after he put up thirty points in a basketball game. I would have thought it was a higher point total a d D than thirty, like more like fifty plus. But he must have had some spectacular moves. And now, of course he's doing his thing as the head coach at Jackson State. You know what's funny about that one. I remember him also being Neon Dion when he played
for the Yankees, so he had another nickname. But here's another thing that I'll give Deon Sanders credit for, and that is bestowing a nickname. He is the man who came up with any time for the fabulous return man Devin Hester, and that is because whenever Devin Hester had the ball, any time he can score. Props for that one.
That's definitely a good one. I actually thought you would gravitate towards Slash because I think of you obviously covering the Steelers a lot living in Pittsburgh, and I was like, Oh, I wonder if Cordell Steward is one of the people that Ady is going to try to grab. I think about him and what he was able to do in Boulder at see you, and how athletic he was. But the name, and this is what surprised me. I thought he was still Slash when he was in college. That
apparently was not the case. Steelers commentator Myron Cope, a legendary voice around Steelers Nation, actually gave Cordell the nickname because of his ability to play different positions, whether it's quarterback, running back, and wide receiver. But to me, if you saw him on the football field, you understand why he was given that nickname. Slash kind of like any time, right, like it's appropriate, the physical response that you get and if you have to put it to a word, Cordell
Stewart's style of play, Slash. It all makes sense to me. You know, it's funny because I think I remember seeing somewhere that Bill Kawer coach Bill Kawer to take credit for calling him Slash. But Slash is certainly a little bit more entertaining than one of his successors, of course, and that is big Ben, Big Ben Roethlisberger, because I
mean he is big. Yeah. See whenever they tiny and big for the nicknames, like when it's the reverse, like when it's a big dude who gets the nickname tiny or a big guy like my nieces and nephews will call me Big Mike, and I love it because they're too young to know that I'm really not Big Mike, but I will. I'll take it for as long as I can. Sure. It's like two tall drones. Is not a little guy. He obviously was too tall. So there
you go. Big Ben, Well, he's obviously one of the biggest things on the field, like Big Ben in London, which I don't think really actually had anything to do with it, but I did cover him in a game in London where he stood next to Big Ben, and it made for you know, quite an iconic photograph. I gotta go through my mental rolodex on things. And you're timing in terms of your career because you covered the
Giants for a significant period of time. I don't like and on the years, but just being in that area, you probably made reference to Rivas Islands more than a few times in a Gang Green. Speaking of nicknames, uniform, Darrell Rivas because I felt like I referenced Rivas Island more times than not. When I was actually working at ESPN at the time and we were doing highlights around the NFL. Darrell Rivas was a spectacular a cover corner
as you have seen in the NFL. And once again that nickname very appropriate to what he was able to do to wide receivers. So Darrell Rivas is also a
native of Western p a very good guy. When the Jets were going through their bad phase, which you know has happened on occasion, or when they were going through one of their bad phases, I always thought that Gang Green reminded me of Gang Green G A N G R E N E, which is what like dead tissue, and so I felt like gang space Green should maybe not be used because it makes you think of gang, but that's just me also appropriate at the same time, and Jets fans right now, don't hate me. You you
understand where I'm going with this. Um My last favorite, because we had to pick five, was a guy that I've been fortunate enough to become friends with over the years, and I refer to him as Snake a lot, Jake Plumber, and I reached out to him knowing that we were going to do the show, and we were talking and I said, Hey, like Jacob doing this podcast, NFL explained, and we're doing nicknames. You're stood out to me because
I call you Snake all the time. And I said, I'm assuming it's something to do with the way that you played, right because you were kind of you had a little bit of wiggle And he laughed and he said, no, it's actually not how it came about, and he said it is true, though he did tell me he's like, no, no no, I definitely had wiggles, so I know where you're where it's coming from. But he used my term to explain the story. He said, the wiggle and the
nickname actually came from when he was a kid. He was playing a lot of um dodge ball, apparently with his brothers, and his brothers gave him the nickname after Jake read Kenny stay Bler's book called the Snake the other nickname for the other quarterback. And then when he got to a s U he signed his first autograph as Jake the Snake Plumber and it's stuck from there. So appropriate, not only for the way that he played, but it had nothing to do with that. It was
his big brothers just giving him the nickname. We have seen quite a few of these stories right where it's brothers or grandmothers or siblings of sisters, you know, parents. I was just reading about ha ha Clinton Dix. That's not actually his name. His name is has seen, but his grandmother when he was three years old, because he would giggle all the time, called him ha ha instead. And now his teammates just call him ha ha. Just throwing that out there. You know, it is kind of
weird how teammates can sometimes come up. I hope that didn't come about because of the you know, I think some players say, hey, you can't pronounce my name, you can call me this. That actually happened one time Tina by Woozier, who obviously has now been balling out with Cincinnati. I remember meeting him for the first time and I said, hey, I don't want to mispronounce your name. He's like, oh, just call me Cheeto. And I was like, no, no no, no, tell me how to pronounce it, and he taught me,
and obviously now I can say it. But everyone referenced him as Cheeto because of the struggles of pronouncing his name, and yet here it is. He still has the ability to have a cool nickname. But also people know how to say his name because he's obviously having success now on Sundays. Well, frankly, that's where I think Adidas comes from. It's a D D sounds like Adidas without the US. Yeah,
get it. So it's a common yeah. All right, Just so you know, I'm not limiting myself to five okay, all right, So you're a little rule breaker over here, Adidas. All right, Well, one of us needs to be right. I think that since you mentioned being in western Pennsylvania, one of the names that I have to start with is Craig iron Hood Hayward. Now part of that is because of course I cover his son, cam Hayward, who is a star defensive end and captain for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Just a wonderful gentleman. And he, of course is the son of the former pit star Craig Hayward, who was probably maybe twelve or thirteen years old. He was hanging out at a boys and girls club in New Jersey, and of course you and I are both from New Jersey, so there's another connection. And some of the other kids started, I don't know, creating a little trouble, and something led to something else led to something else, and a kid, as a legend goes apparently hit Craig Hayward over the
head with a pool queue. Now it was the cue that broke, not Kim Hayward's dad's head. So after Kim Hayward's dad's head, Craig Hayward's head was totally fine. His mother started calling him Ironhead, and it just sort of stuck. And then you think about the type of player he was, the way that he ran the football, how he ran over people, his toughness, well, it was again kind of like Yammer, a name that really fit. Once he got into his vocation, I un't heard, Hey, work boy is work?
Why did he make a couple of people pay for being in a wrong place. I like it, and I think the general rule of thumb is if mom and dad and grandma and grandpa are dropping your nickname, it will never be lost ever again. Your nickname is now your your new real name. That's true, although I don't think I want anyone actually calling my children the nicknames I call them, But that is a story for another day. And that's the deal. The deal. Build the team that
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on network conditions and five G content optimization. Since we talked about my growing up a Giants fan, well, then of course Bill Parcels, the tuna comes up, and I tried hard to figure out where exactly this definitely totally came from. But I'll say that even our fabulous, amazing researchers, they think they think it's because of what Bill Parcels used to say himself. Apparently whenever somebody would say something ridiculous or absurd to him His response was, who do
you think I am? Charlie the Tuna, And that's because Charlie the Tuna was apparently an animated character for Starkist brand Tuna, and somehow the Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcels became known as the Tuna. I love that story, and I think every time I make tuna melts at home, I will think about Bill Parcels. Okay, if that will help your appetite, you go right ahead and do that. Okay. So we have to move on to the refrigerator, because the fridge has been a star in several of our episodes.
We've had his right like him running the football in London. Now, of course, his day job was as an enormous defensive lineman who just occasionally moonlighted as a ball carrier. And the fridge is not because he was so enormous clogging up the lanes on a football field, but because when he was in college at Clemson, he was on an elevator and a friend said that you're blocking all of the elevator's light and you're taking up all the space.
You're like a walking refrigerator. And so then that stuck. But as I said to you earlier. Some of my favorite things are derivatives. When the Packers later on had b. J. Rogie, another enormously big defensive lineman who occasionally moonlighted carrying the football, based calling him the freezer, isn't it clever? I do like that. It's very fitting. Although I think you can go like solar eclipse, but the refrigerator seems very appropriate.
Here's another one, Western p A and other Steelers one. I'm sorry I have two more Steelers ones just because I sort of have to have them. I just think they're that good. Jerome Bettis the bus. Back when he was at Notre Dame, a student reporter said that he actually looked like a bus. The student started chanting, nobody stops the bus. The bus carried on through his entire professional career. And when Jerome Bettis won the Super Bowl in his hometown of Detroit, he stood on that podium
and what did he say? Is this the lot of stop for the bus? You know what? In rod And it's always a more time when you have to call the quits. And uh, I played this game to win a championship. I'm a champion, and I think that this is in Detroit Mr Bregulars, Mike, I have to do another Steelers one, and that, of course is James Harrison's nickname Deebot. Now I think this is really funny because when I say Deebo, you don't think of James Harrison. Who do you think of? Look? I get some time
fortunately to be around the San Francisco forty Niners. So no, I'm not thinking about Harrison. Um thinking about receip streaking down the football field and finding his way into the
end zone. And that's hysterical to me because, as you know, Deebo was that freakishly strong, bullying, frightening character on Friday, the movie that came out back in So the Steelers nicknaming their teammate defensive players looking at James Harrison that menacing, freakishly strong bullying of a person and nicknaming him Debot makes total sense to me. You're talking about a wide receiver. Yeah,
But the history behind the wide receiver's nickname. His dad said that Depot was Tyshawn was actually bullying kids in the neighborhood. So his dad gave him the nickname Debo from the movie Friday, which apparently Debot was seen about quote a thousand times, so it's fitting from the kind of that perspective. Well, unfortunately for him, there is a
Debot clothing line, and that is James Harrison's. You know, this all goes back to the whole thing about what we talked about when we did one of our first episodes on team names, and I told you I don't like shared names, you know, like when you have a football team and a baseball team that have the same name. You did say that, Yeah, so I don't really love shared nicknames. Well, it's kind of like Iron Mike, right, like when you say Ditka. For sure, there's also Mike Tyson.
That is true. But who's one into that fight? Well at this stage right now, although you don't even know about that. Uh, let's move on Megatron, who has just entered the Hall of Fame. I mean it's obvious because of course Calvin Johnson had these superhuman abilities and seemed like the fictional Robot character. He was given that nickname by his fellow receiver Roy Williams. But I think what's so magical about Megatron is all of the offshoots Mike
like Legatron. So Greg's urline was this undrafted rookie out of Division two Missouri Western State and just started kicking the you know what out of the ball. And just a few games in he was called Legatron. So Megatron Legatron. And now there is a Maple Tron and that is a young wide receiver who currently is playing in Pittsburgh. His name is Chase Claypool. He is originally from British Columbia. So when he went to Notre Dame, it's these Notre
Dame kids. Here's the Jerome bettist tie again Notre Dame, he was called the Maple Bandit. Then he went to the Combine and he had these insane measurables that reminded people of Calvin Johnson. Most notably, he ran a sub four four five forty while weighing more than two hundred and thirty pounds, which hadn't been done since Megatron did it. And so then all of a sudden, the Maple Bandit became Maple Tron. And I can tell you this, Chase
Claypool actually really likes the nickname. He calls himself Maple Tron. And now he has a clothing line that says Maple Tron. So the other thing I need, can we make it while there is Addis clothing line, so we just need the Amber clothing line. You can claim Adidas is yours and I'll come up with the Yammer one. At some point, everyone's got a clothing line now all of a sudden, Yeah, I don't want to do that work. I would just like someone to send me stuff. I'll do that, and
I'm an equal opportunity distributor of great clothing. So everybody, anybody listening, feel free. Okay, I like it moving right along. Send Adidas the clothing, Send Yammer the wine. This podcast is sponsored by Kindrel. Kindrel Designs builds, manages, and modernizes the mission critical technology systems that the world depends on every day. Working side by side with their customers, they
imagine things differently by forging new strategic partnerships. They unlock new possibilities, creating a world powered by healthy digital systems. Align with opportunity, oxygen to innovation and energy to change the world. Kindrel the heart of progress. Kindrel Designs builds, manages, and modernizes the mission critical technology systems that the world depends on every day. Working side by side with their customers,
they imagine things differently by forging new strategic partnerships. They unlock new possibilities, creating a world power by healthy digital systems alive with opportunity, oxygen to innovation and energy to change the world. Kindrel the heart of progress. Mike. You know what else besides offshoots, I find really interesting the
ones that are sort of in dispute. You know, I referenced Walter Payton in Sweetness earlier, and there are so many people that think sweetness comes from the fact that he had this just like wonderful, sunny personality. But Jeff Perlman, who I worked with many years ago It's Sports Illustrated, did the definitive book on Walter Payton, and he found out that sweetness actually came from Walter Payton talking trash
to a defensive lineman. He basically said to the guy, your sweetness is your weakness, and after that he was called sweetness. I like that. Here's another one, Dick Knight Train Lane. People love to tell the story that he was nicknamed night train Lane because in training camp he would go and listen to that song and dance to it, etcetera, etcetera. But I have also seen that the reason that he had that nickname is because he didn't like to fly
and he would take the train. That's actually really appropriate. Then it happens on the football field, I'll take that. You know, it's kind of wild too, because for all the individual names Adidas that we get to, how about all of the actual units like the teams or you know, like the DBS or a defense or you know, a specific portion of the offense. Like those units that actually have their own nicknames. I'm always fascinated by a couple of those, especially because there are some that, i mean
just are so obvious, like the Purple people Eaters. I mean, just look at those guys. It's two Hall of famers and Alan Page and Carl Eller, and then you also have defensive and Jim Marshall and tackle Gary Larson. You look at those four starting defensive lineman. They played so many years together, they were in the Super Bowl four years together. I mean they look like people eaters and they were purple, very very obvious, the Minnesota Vikings, the
Purple people Eaters. And on the flip side of that, you think about that no name defense, which has come up a whole lot the last couple of years because of individual success. That certain teams have had ninety two that Dolphins defense. The name actually caught on when Dallas coach Tom Landry actually mentioned that Miami has a good defense but features some months of guys whose names you don't know, and then don't name defense. It's stuck because of that. And it's certainly a team that had a
ton of success, undefeated super Bowl winning team. That defense allowed the fewest points and fewer shards in the NFL that particular year of seventy two. So very very appropriate. Well, and talk about bulletin board material right there. Right, I don't even know who these guys are. They're a bunch of no names and boom, what this is what they do. If we're gonna stick with defensive lines, though, we have
to include the New York sack exchange. Right. That was the Jets defensive line from ninety nine to nine three. And it was actually the team's PR director who used it in a press release after seeing a fan hold up a big bed sheet with the name written on it, and I wonder who that fan was. That fans should really get the credit for that. A lot of these names are fans sourced. I will say that you know one that wasn't fan sourced dirty Birds or Jamala Anderson
actually came up with it. He loves using I got to work with him for the first season, a ton of fun. But he it's like a badge of honor because he does reference it a lot. Those Falcons teams, remember they were fourteen and two got to the Super Bowl, Well, it was Jamala Anderson who created the dirty bird dance um. And then that's sort of how the nickname stock Well. And the flip side to that is the Bungles, the poor, poor poor Bungles who didn't have a winning season between
nineteen and two thousand four. And then of course the Ets, which was actually the Saints in nineteen eighty when they lost their first fourteen games, and it was a local sportscaster, Mike that started suggesting that maybe Saints supporters their fans were paper bags over their heads, and a lot of those paper bags said ats as opposed to Saints. Okay, can we go flip side again from lack of success
to a ton of success. Greatest show on Turf. We had Kurt Warner on one of our previous episodes, the work Week one for NFL players, and it was awesome to have him. If you missed that episode, highly encourage you to go back and listen to it. But consider this, You got a Hall of Fame quarterback and Kurt Warner Hall of Fame running back in Marshall Falk. You got a Hall of Fame one receiver Isaac Bruce. You got a seven time pro bowler Tory Holt. An offense that
was just an absolute jargonnaut espns. Chris Berman actually called the Rams the greatest show on Earth in two thousand and then Earth was eventually switched to turf because they were playing on the AstroTurf in St. Louis. So to me, that is one of the more iconic ones. I think when it comes to team names. Greatest show on Turf, I think is is really well known and everyone references it, and maybe partially because of recency bias and Kurt obviously
still having a great broadcast careers, that continues to pop up. Maybe, But I still feel like I really like defensive nicknames like the Legion of Boom, which was of course the Seahawks secondary and the late you know, two thousand teams, whatever you call that decade that was of course Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, cam Chancellor, Brendan Browner, And it was cam Chancellor who came up with the name when he said
that he liked to bring the boom. Then when you think of the legion of Boom, you also have to think of the no fly zone, and that I believe is Chris Harris's idea when he was with Denver. And then go back, we were talking about defensive lines at
the top, I feel terrible. How could I not mention the steel curtain that was the nineteen seventies Steelers defensive line led by a man who has one of the best nicknames of all time, Mean Joe Green, not because he was mean, by the way, but because of where he played his college football. You know the answer there, Well that was North Texas. The North Texas Mean Green. Yeah, like I should so me and Joe Green. But sure
the way he played the game was mean. But the steel Curtain that Steelers defensive line helped the Steelers to four Super Bowl wins in the nineteen seventies. And that nickname actually originated in a radio contest. But you know, Mike, we could just keep on going now. This Each one makes me think of something else. We're talking about a defense, and then that makes me think of the Minister of Defense. Oh yes, Reggie White, one of the all time greatest
defensive players who also had an extremely strong faith. And when you listen to him, he sure is hex sounded like a minister. And we could keep going. We could totally keep going. But now I'm thinking about places, Mike, the black Hole, the Dog Pound, the frozen Tundra, give me your favorite. Well, look, just because I've lived in
the Bay Area. Now, obviously the team is in Vegas, but I will say when I moved out to San Francisco in you could feel on Sundays, like even in San Francisco sort of what the black Hole has brought to the table and indity. You've traveled a ton for NFL games, the games that I have traveled too, and there's been a few where the Raiders have been involved.
I cannot get over how well that fan base travels for games, and just the intimidation factor that's there, Like there's something unique about just large human beings that are intimidating, face painting themselves and being there ready to sort of be disruptive. Um to me, black Hole is definitely at the top of the list. Well, we could keep going, but I think this is a great place to ask
our listeners to send us some of these suggestions. And while we may not be able to get anybody a shoe deal, maybe yammer, we can start a movement for some nicknames. I know that I did ask some of my Twitter followers to send me some players that they'd like to see have nicknames. George Kittle was a name that came up the fair amount. Uh T J. Watt was one who some people are saying deserves one of these legendary, transcendent nicknames. I'm sure you've got some guys
that surprises you they don't have nicknames as well. Yeah, No, there's definitely a few players that I also think deserve a little bit more recognition when it comes to just sort of standardizing. And I know we touched on some of those names, but I also think sometimes memories pop up with certain nicknames. I think very fondly of my time back in college. But one nickname that we did not get to that to me just reminds me of my college days. And I didn't even go to Boston
College and Matt Ryan did, but Mattie Ice. I think a lot of people reference it because of his cool, calm demeanor in these under pressure type moments, but when he was at BC, it was also a little bit of a play on a popular beer, Nattie Ice, which does bring me back to my own college days. So I did want to just highlight that sometimes us nicknames have more meaning, I think on a personal level, because they conjure ups just some really positive memories. Two things
for that. Number one, I did not drink Natty Ice, and number two, I was not an underage drinker. Just in case my mom and dad are listening right now, Okay, you make the claims you want to make, I will just say, okay, cool like moving on, all right, Well, everybody, this has been a tremendously fun one. For sure. We left many, many, many nicknames on the cutting room floor.
So if you want the story behind a favorite nickname, make sure to tweet us Mike underscore yam or at a Kinkabwala and we will get you the stories and definitely send us some ideas for some players today who don't have nicknames, who absolutely deserves some, and indeed, let's not forget for anyone who is checking out the show. Make sure you follow us wherever you get your podcast. Not to mention, we always appreciate a rating and a
review and share it with a friend. I know a d you and I are posting this on our social media counts. We'd love when people are getting into the conversation and if you have some more of those nicknames. Is DV made reference to hashtag NFL explained, all right, yammer, that was a ton of fun. Can't wait till next week, and that all our friends listening is NFL nicknames explained. America's most reliable network is going ultra with Verizon five G ultra wide ban and more and more places with
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