Top 10 NFL team nicknames

The Game Room
1

Just watched a show on ESPN Classic,here are their choices;

10.Monsters of the Midway(coined in the 40’s,Bears)

9.The Over-the-Hill Gang(Redskins)

8.The No-Name Defense( 73 Dolphins)

7.Air Coryell(Early 80’s Chargers or therabouts)

6.The Greatest Show on Turf(99-01 Rams)

5.The Purple-People-Eaters(70’s Vikings)

4.The Fearsome Foursome(60’s-70’s Rams)

3.The Hogs(Early 80’s Redskins)

They gave honorable mentions to The Orange Crush(Broncos), The Killer B’s(Dolphins) and the Million Dollar Offense (49er’s).

#'s 2 and 1 are obvious I think,See if ya can guess.

They will be #2 The Steel Curtain and #1 America’s Team,I bet.

Agree?Disagree? Which would you add or delete?

2

Hmm, I would have thought that “Monsters of the Midway” would have been higher than #10.

My favorite is the “No-Name Defense”, though. What a great nickname!

Seems to me that “Orange Crush” was good enough to be in the top 10 instead of “Million Dollar Offense”. As soon as you hear “Orange Crush” you know exactly what team they are talking about. Not so much with the other.

Which team was it that was called “The Smurfs” back in the 80’s? Was that also the Redskins? Seems like that was the same year they would do all those choreographed dances in the end zone.

3

The Smurfs were the defensive backs, while the Hogs were the offensive linemen. The wide receivers and tight ends constituted the Fun Bunch, whose celebrations eventually inspired a league-wide ban on such frivolity.

4

Would my bias be showing if I went with Big Blue Wrecking Crew?

List of NFL Nicknames

5

Please fight my ignorance, but who is America’s Team and how’d they get there?

6

According to the show, The Dallas Cowboys.

7

That would be the Dallas Coyboys. The term was coined by NFL Films chief Bob Ryan in 1979, then adopted by the team as if it were, somehow, actually true.

8

As a Cowboys fan, I hate the America’s Team nickname. I love the team and its championship-rich history, but what a pompous and embarassing load of crap.

I don’t know how far the team has gone to adopt or ratify this nickname, since it was created by NFL Films, but I would hope they distance themselves from it.

Doomsday Defense should have made the list instead of America’s Team.

9

Nope, The Smurfs were the three wide receivers, since they were all under 6’. The current offensive line is known as the Dirtbags (which was given to them by Joe Bugle, the O-line coach who also coached the Hogs.) John Riggins’ nickname was The Diesel.

10

You are correct. Obviously the source (which I now can’t find) that I used for my original post was wrong, as every link that comes up in my current search agrees with you. Thanks for refreshing my memory!

11

I actually don’t like the “Monsters of the Midway” or “America’s Team” nicknames because they don’t refer to any specific group of players, just the team in general (and they’re the nicknames of the bears and cowboys -I refuse to dignify by capitalization).

I like “Orange Crush” and “The Steel Curtain” the best of the rest.

12

Cardiac Cardinals (during the Coryell years)

Fearsome Foursome (1960s Rams)

13

#4 on the list.

14

My bad.

15

I do like the Gang Green referring to the New York Jets. Wildly appropriate.

16

The 49ers had the “Million Dollar Backfield.”

17

Seems like a network like ESPN woulda got that right, eh?