"TMQ" Team Nicknames
| Team | Nickname(s) | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona Cardinals | Arizona of Mexico Cardinals | During the 2005 season Arizona played a "home" game in Mexico City, drawing far more spectators than the team typically managed to in Arizona. |
| Arizona Cactus Wrens | The cactus wren is the official state bird of Arizona. | |
| Arizona (CAUTION: MAY CONTAIN FOOTBALL-LIKE SUBSTANCE) Cardinals | Also, Arizona is a historically poor performer in the NFL. | |
| Arizona (Contains Powerful Football Substance) Cardinals | Arizona's 2008-2009 playoff run prompted a deserved name change. | |
| Atlanta Falcons | Atlanta Typos | The Atlanta uniforms resemble errant smudges on a printing run. |
| The Angry Birds | In reference to the popular video game of the same name, the nickname was given in 2011 after the Falcons had the NFC's best record in 2010 only to be blown out in their only playoff game that year by the eventual Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers, hinting that the Falcons are "angry". No mention of the Typos nickname in the post, combined that the all-black uniforms were replaced by the team's 1966 throwback uniform as the team's third uniform in 2009, hinting that the Typos name may have been retired. | |
| Baltimore Ravens | The Nevermores | Edgar Allan Poe was a famous resident of Baltimore and his poem "The Raven" was the inspiration for the team's name. The poem is well known for its repeated use of the word "nevermore". |
| Buffalo Bills | None | Easterbrook currently does not have an official nickname for the Bills. He briefly used the name "Budgies" in 2008, but no longer does. He does make frequent references to the team's Ivy League ties (currently the fact that quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick is a Harvard graduate, and previously with GM/Harvard grad Marv Levy and coach/Yale grad Dick Jauron) with upper-class English culture comments. In a 2011 column he called the Bills the "Buffalo Williams," since "Bill" is a common nickname for William. |
| Chicago Bears | Ming Ding Xiong | Mandarin for "bears whose outcomes are decided by fate". Their recent successful seasons had several games won on "lucky" plays, or decided by fate. |
| Cincinnati Bengals | Cincinnati Tootsie-Rolls | The black and orange uniforms resemble a Tootsie Roll wrapper. |
| Cincinnati Trick or Treats | Black and orange are typically the dominant colors of Halloween decor. | |
| Cleveland Browns | Cleveland Browns (Release 3.0b) | Originally nicknamed "Release 2.0" when Cleveland first regained its NFL franchise, the version number was incremented when Romeo Crennel became head coach. |
| (also Cleveland Oranges, Release 3.0b) | The Browns also wore all-orange uniforms from time to time, leading to the Oranges nickname, but no longer wear the orange jerseys. The name is also a dig to the fairly drastic reorganizations and retooling of the Cleveland roster over recent years. | |
| Detroit Lions | Detroit Peugeots | The lion logo resembles the logo of the Peugeot Motor Company, which is ironic because the team is owned by the Ford family. |
| The Cowardly Lions | A reference to their tendency to punt on fourth downs as opposed to trying to achieve a first down, a move which Easterbrook detests. | |
| Detroit Edsels | Referring to Ford's infamous late-1950s automotive flop; an obvious jab at both the Lions' long history of futility and the Ford family ownership. | |
| Denver Broncos | Denver Cursors | The Broncos' uniform contains a bright orange stripe, described as a cursor when viewed on TV. |
| Denver Broncos High School | Used late in the 2011 season to refer to the offense installed by John Fox to accommodate Tim Tebow, a run-oriented read-option scheme that at the time was widely popular in American high schools. | |
| Houston Texans | The Moo Cows | The team's logo is essentially a stylized cow. |
| Indianapolis Colts | The Lucky Charms | The horseshoe logo resembles a marshmallow shape from Lucky Charms cereal. |
| Kansas City Chiefs | The Flintstones | The stone arrowhead logo resembles carved, stone age items seen in the cartoon. |
| Miami Dolphins | Marine Mammals | Though the Dolphins are often referred to as "the fish", dolphins are actually mammals. |
| The South Florida Dolphins | The Dolphins currently do not play in Miami proper. They play in Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, 15 miles north of downtown. | |
| Minnesota Vikings | Hyperboreans | The Hyperboreans were a mythical barbaric people in Greek mythology. Today the term can be used for any people who live in a cold climate, as the Vikings did. |
| New England Patriots | Flying Elvii | The team logo resembles an airborne Elvis Presley, and Easterbrook reasons that Elvii is the plural of Elvis. The team itself has admitted that the logo is modeled after Presley. |
| New Orleans Saints | The Sinners | In 2012, it was revealed that the Saints were involved in a very "unsaintly" bounty scandal. |
| United States Saints | Following Hurricane Katrina the Saints were without a home field for an entire season, and were adopted by the rest of the country. | |
| The Boy Scouts | The fleur-de-lis logo used by the Saints is similar to the logo of the Boy Scouts of America. | |
| New York Giants | Jersey/A | The Giants actually play in New Jersey. MetLife Stadium (originally New Meadowlands Stadium) is located in East Rutherford, NJ, next to the team's now-demolished former venue, Giants Stadium. The "A" likely refers to the fact that the Giants were the first of the two New York teams to move to New Jersey (in 1976, as opposed to the Jets, who did not move until 1984) and also were sole owners of Giants Stadium, with the Jets as their tenants (both teams jointly own the new stadium). As for the stadium, Easterbrook began calling it "Snoopy Stadium" in his October 12, 2011 column, referring to the character's use as MetLife's advertising mascot. |
| The G-Persons | The Giants are commonly referred to as the G-Men. Because some of the people in the Giants organization are women as well, G-Persons is more politically correct. | |
| New York Jets | Jersey/B | The Jets play in New Jersey as well; as noted above, they were tenants of the Giants from 1984 through 2009, before the opening of MetLife Stadium. When the Jets played at home in Giants Stadium, announcers referred to the venue as The Meadowlands, in reference to the Meadowlands sports complex in which the stadium is located. |
| Oakland Raiders | Oakland Long Johns | After the pirate of that name. |
| Philadelphia Eagles | The Nesharim | Philadelphia has the sole logo that faces right to left and "nesharim" means "eagles" in Hebrew, which is also read right to left. |
| The Heat | Easterbrook decided to give the Nesharim nickname a break for 2011 after the team signed several Pro Bowl-caliber players after the end of the 2011 NFL lockout. The name is in reference to the Miami Heat of the NBA, which the previous year made its own rash of free agent signings. | |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | The Hypocycloids | The team logo features three hypocycloids. |
| San Diego Chargers | Bolts | The San Diego logo resembles a bolt of lightning. |
| San Francisco 49ers | Squared Sevens | Seven is the square root of 49. From the 2011-2012 season Coach Jim Harbaugh also gained a nickname as Harbaugh/West in reference to his brother (mentioned as Harbaugh-East in the August 23 column) coaching the Baltimore Ravens. |
| Seattle Seahawks | Blue Men Group | The Seahawks wear entirely blue uniforms. By contrast, most teams wear uniforms whose pants and jerseys are different colors. The name is a reference to the Blue Man Group, whose performers wear black clothes but cover all exposed skin with blue. |
| Green Men Group | The alternate nickname always appears when they wear their green alternate uniform, though the nickname has made several appearances in the 2009 season even when they wear other uniforms. | |
| St. Louis Rams | Les Mouflons | A mouflon is a type of sheep whose curved horns are often mistakenly used as a depiction of ram horns. Dubbed after a series of what Easterbrook considered poorly played games by St. Louis. |
| Tampa Bay Buccaneers | City of Tampa Buccaneers | The team actually plays in the City of Tampa, Tampa Bay being a body of water. |
| Tennessee Titans | Flaming Thumbtacks | The team logo bears an uncanny resemblance to a thumbtack with a flame on the top. This nickname was first used by a reader of the original TMQ column with the username of Rib Eye. |
| Washington Redskins | Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons | The Redskins are headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia and play in Landover, Maryland, but have no facilities in the nation's capital itself. Indigenous Persons was used to avoid the more controversial Redskins. Easterbrook's original nickname made reference to the Chesapeake Bay, but later changed to the more accurate Potomac River since the Chesapeake Bay area also covered the Baltimore Ravens, with its watershed going all the way up to Pennsylvania state. |
| (also Washington Nanticokes) | The Nanticoke are the tribe indigenous to the area. Easterbrook briefly switched back to calling the team the Washington Redskins out of respect for Joe Gibbs when he initially came back, but after the poorly-played 2004 season, he switched back to the other names. |
Easterbrook also frequently referred to defensive coordinator Gregg Williams as being "tastefully named," due to the two sharing the first name of Gregg. He has used the nickname throughout Williams' various coaching stops in Buffalo, Washington, New Orleans and St. Louis, but apparently stopped it once Williams' role in the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal was revealed and he was banned indefinitely from the league.
Read more about this topic: Tuesday Morning Quarterback
Famous quotes containing the word team:
“I doubt if men ever made a trade of heroism. In the days of Achilles, even, they delighted in big barns, and perchance in pressed hay, and he who possessed the most valuable team was the best fellow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)