The Name Game

And other breaking news...

Sep 29, 2025

Every game on Sunday evening should end in a tie. Monday morning deserves that.

I’m 100% behind Romeo Doubs’ Guardian Cap. Seeing him worked up, marching towards the sidelines, reminded me of a Spaceballs character. He had three TDs last night.

And after all my negativity about the Cowboys, it was a lot of fun to see George Pickens make a shitload of amazing catches, including one wildly reminiscent of Dez Bryant’s non-catch against, yep, Green Bay that knocked them out of the playoffs a decade ago. I still have no idea. I think he held on long enough TBH.

The rest of the games… FOX sent Tom Brady back to Tampa Bay to call the Eagles vs. Buccaneers game with Kevin Burkhardt (if I were Donald Trump, I’d describe him as ” a real dud” Burkhardt and Joe Davis fucking kill me) and for as much as Brady has been criticized, I haven’t heard a line this amazing in a long time. Felt like I was on ‘shrooms. 10/10.

In explaining Buccaneers Bucky Irving’s running style, Brady mentioned that Irving always runs on the balls of his feet and ended the thought with this:

Strangely, enough Brady has been jabbering about Doritos off the field and ON THE FIELD for years. Peep a skinny Rex Ryan in this clip while QB Tom howls about Doritos.

Wheels within wheels. Here’s a 2006 Donruss Doritos/Frito Lay parallel.

Former Chicago Bear Peanut Tillman is quitting his FBI gig. “I want to be on the right side of history.”

I miss a lot of stuff. This is one spat from last week I’ve been meaning to post. It’s Dave Portnoy and Greg Olsen squabbling about fashion. I believe Portnoy was just trying to get some banter going, but because he is generally a combative douche most of the time, it’s tough for Olsen to process. I think Portnoy would have welcomed a little back and forth. Olsen didn’t like it though. I don’t think Olsen believed his logo-less baseball cap would stir up trouble, but that’s what happened. I love this kinda stuff.

Another thing I missed. At the end of 2023, I think I missed writing about NY Jets legend Mark Gastineau scolding Packers QB Brett Favre TWENY YEARS AFTER Favre purposely took a dive in 2001 and allowed the Giants Michael Strahan to get the single-season sack record in the Meadowlands?

(Favre’s done a lot of shady shit in the Meadowlands, btw)

The confrontation comes late in this vid. The whole thing looks like a Safdie Brothers movie. It feels absolutely uncomfortable.

Look, a lot of weird painful shit obviously happened in the fall of 2001. The Twin Towers went down. The world stopped. Then the NFL season resumed. By the time the Packers showed up to play the Giants, at the end of the season, none of us had “healed.”

I’m sure in Favre’s way, he was just trying to help. Not thinking of the record books. Not thinking of Gastineau’s feelings. Not thinking that another bad thing involving “Jets” could happen in NYC in 2001? Well he was wrong. In retrospect his “dive” is in even poorer taste.

Was anyone in power in 2001 actually on Gastineau’s side? Rudy Giuliani is a huge Giants fan. He tolerates the Jets. Bernard Kerik? I’m not sure. Beau Dietl only expressed support for the Jets years later by offering a seat at Rao’s to Aaron Rodgers. Lot of good that did Gastineau.

The Giants have always been the fancy franchise. The Jets have had to fight for scraps.

I don’t recall what Gastineau said back then. I’m sure he was pissed. I only know that we got 18 episodes of his ex-wife’s reality show The Gastineau Girls a few years later.

The NFL started officially keeping track of sacks stats in 1982. Gastineau set the record with 22 in 1984 — the Jets first season in the Meadowlands at Giants Stadium. However, way before he had BBQ troubles on Shark Tank, Al “Bubba” Baker had the unofficial single season record of 23 during his rookie year with the Detroit Lions in 1978.

AL BUBBA BAKER SIZZLE VID THAT I’M FORBIDDEN TO EMBED

Officially, Strahan broke Gastineau’s record in 2001 with 22.5. TJ Watt tied it in 2021. Jared Allen tied Gastineau with 22 in 2011.

Who do you think wound up in the NFL Hall of Fame?

Strahan?

Gastineau?

Bubba Baker?

Jared Allen?

Answer: Strahan and Allen. No Gastineau. No Bubba Baker.

After witnessing Gastineau’s pain, I think they should have a pre-game ceremony before a Jets game at MetLife where they extend an olive branch and re-enact this infamous “sack” and have it play out as it should have.

Maybe Ed Anzalone can get this cooking on social media. We can do it next season. 25th Anniversary of the record being broken.

Just Favre and Strahan on the field.

Favre holds a football.

He runs around and eludes Strahan.

Strahan lunges. Favre gets away. Throws ball to an imaginary receiver.

Gastineau watches from the sidelines. He is wearing a Jets uniform. What remains of his mullet is fully dialed in. His helmet is positioned underneath his arm.

Both Favre and Strahan bow in Gastineau’s direction.

Does this sound like an amazing idea?

BONUS ROUND:

I’ve been seeing an EXPLOSION of hyphenated surnames on NFL jerseys this season.

I didn’t really know what it meant. I painstakingly did a bunch of screengrabbing then I found this article and its interactive slider from 2019 (SUPER AMAZING, this is how far behind I am) that is way cooler than my hack work, and shows just how substantially the surname landscape has changed over the years, in parallel with a slight uptick of hyphenated surnames IRL over the same time period.

Since the 2000s more athletes have been changing their names to honor important people in their lives like Maurice Jones-Drew’s grandfather, Mike Sims-Walker’s father, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s uncle, and Nickell Robey-Coleman’s mother.

You might already know why Juju Smith-Schuster changed his last name. Everyone raced to draft Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba in their fantasy leagues. Maybe you’ve heard about another WR Ihmir Smith-Marsette. Or yet another WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine. But there are dozens more hyphenated guys.

Thirty years ago, in 1995, there were zero hyphenated surnames on NFL rosters. Okay. Maybe one. But was an Arabic name, not a compounding of two surnames.

The hyphen in Hicham El-Mastoub surname is simply the format. El-Mastoub, a Lebanese-Canadian center who bounced around NFL rosters, and caught on for a spell in the CFL, only got in two games for the Houston Oilers. He passed of cancer at a very young age. R.I.P.

1995 NFL players did have its own naming quirks, though.

There was Butler By’not’e, a running back whose surname was bedazzled with random apostrophes because an Ohio State typist fucked it all up.

In 1995, there were two separate Mark Carriers in the league. One on offense. One on defense.

There were combo-ed first name guys. Random Bobby Joe and Billy Joes.

Also: Michael Dean Perry. The Fridge’s bro. It’s unclear why the “Dean” part was so important. He was known as “The Ice Box.” And even had his own regional McDonald’s sandwich. I’d eat one right now.

Bill Romanowski was a Philadelphia Eagle in 1995. I completely forgot about that. I had a hunch things didn’t go well there and I was correct. I don’t think they had him asking fans to take SEPTA to the ball game.

Two years later, he’d be breaking jaws in Denver in the pre-season.

1995 NFL names were not complicated. You had pretty basic name shit going on. Guys like:

Rick Mirer

Gary Plummer

And some esoteric stuff, too:

Jumpy Geathers

Carlester Crumpler

Hessley Hempstead

In 1995, the NFL was a league bursting with Dwaynes. Or Dewaynes. Or Duanes. All of the above. The 1990s was a high point for the name Dwayne. The “internet” tells me the name peaked in 1961, as the #240th most popular name. Well a lot of 1960s-baby Dwaynes turned out to be fucking amazing athletes in the 1990s.

In 1995, the Raiders said: We’re gonna need an Eric Ball and a Jerry Ball. They do not need to be related.

The 1995 Cleveland Browns were coached by Bill Belichick and only won five games and only had FIVE RUSHING TOUCHDOWNS all season???? Two of which were by their then 31-year old QB Vinny Testaverde.

But let’s jump ahead to today. Here’s all the hyphenated name guys in the league in 2025. Right now there are 52 players with hyphenated names. (33 of them play defense.) Still a relatively small amount as with regular rosters and practice squads there’s just over 2,000 players in the NFL at the moment.