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Week
13 poll: Best nickname
Nearly all of the
league's 31 teams have an interesting story behind their nicknames. Some of them
are common lore … others may not be. Which club has the best team nickname?
Use our criteria below as well as your own to judge, then place your vote on the
main page. | Results
from Weeks 1-12 | Complete
team nickname origins
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TO MAIN PAGE
TO VOTE IN POLL NOW
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Baltimore
Ravens
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On March 29, 1996, Baltimore’s NFL team became the Ravens. The nickname was selected from among three finalists in a poll conducted by the Baltimore Sun. Baltimore fans selected the name in honor of Edgar
Allan Poe, the American poet who penned his famous poem, “The Raven” while living in Baltimore.
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Chicago
Bears
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When this team became a charter member of the American Professional Football Association
(APFA) in 1920, the team was located in Decatur, IL, and was named after team sponsor, the Staley Starch Company. The team moved to Chicago in 1921 and became the Chicago
Staleys. In 1922, after team founder-manager and star end George Halas purchased the team, he changed the name to the Bears. Halas reasoned that because football players were generally bigger than baseball players, and the city’s baseball team was the Cubs, then logically the football team should be the Bears.
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Cleveland
Browns
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The Cleveland All-America Football Conference franchise conducted a fan contest in 1945 to name the team. The most popular submission was “Browns” in recognition of the team’s first coach and general manager Paul Brown, who was already a popular figure in Ohio sports. Brown at first vetoed the choice and the team selected from the contest entries the name “Panthers.” However, after an area businessman informed the team that he owned the rights to the name Cleveland Panthers, from an earlier failed football team, Brown rescinded his objection and agreed to the use of his name.
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Green
Bay Packers
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The name was a natural since the team was sponsored first by the Indian Packing Company and later the Acme Packing Company. Although both companies went out of business, the team prospered under the name Packers.
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Philadelphia
Eagles
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When Bert Bell established his NFL franchise in Philadelphia in 1933, the country was struggling to recover from the
Great Depression. New president Franklin D. Roosevelt had introduced his “New Deal” program through the National Recovery Administration, which had the Eagle as its symbol. Since Bell hoped his franchise also was headed for a new deal, he picked Eagles as the team name.
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RESULTS OF PREVIOUS POLLS
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| | | | | Note: Photos
courtesy of the Associated Press.
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