Armed and Dangerous: Exploring NFL’s Most Iconic Player Nicknames

We're taking another look at NFL history through the eyes of some of these great player nicknames and some of the legends that played the game.

And today's topic, armed and Dangerous, the nicknames of NFL players who want to be remembered and preserved.

Coming up in just a moment.

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This is Darren.

He's@pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another spin on looking at some of the legendary nicknames in NFL history.

And it's kind of an interesting way to go back and see some of these colorful nicknames that players were called and to sort of get a little bit of a player profile on them just to preserve their history a little bit and to appreciate what some of these guys did in their playing days and maybe even some stories on how they earned their nickname.

That's all gonna make a lot of sense here to have a lot of fun here to preserve some football history.

So tonight our topic in our nicknames is Armed and Dangerous.

These are the nicknames that have something to do with, you know, artillery or weaponry to them, mostly in a projectile fashion or something that would cause a projectile or something maybe military wise.

So to start off, let's go right to the big gun right away.

And how about the minister of defense?

Yeah.

Mr.

Reggie White wore number 92 for his entire NFL career.

He played for the Philadelphia Eagles and of course for the Green Bay packers later in his career.

Had had tremendous games at both of them.

One of the career sack leaders of all time.

He was instantly put in the hall of Fame as soon as he was eligible.

And many people don't know that he started off his career in the usfl.

Of course, he was born in Tennessee.

He attended the University of Tennessee and actually went to Howard University there in that same state.

And then the Memphis Showboats of the USFL.

Drafted him.

He played the 84 and 85 seasons for the USFL on the showboats.

And when the USFL disbanded after winning their lawsuit against the NFL, winning only a dollar, which closed their doors there for a while in the original NFL or usfl, he ended up going to Philadelphia where he ended up taking a pay cut, making much more money with the Memphis Showboats.

I believe that record still stands with them.

And he got the name of Minister of Defense because of course he was a member of the clergy, hence the minister.

And he played on defense and boy did he play defense.

A great career for Reggie and some of the things that he did were just tremendous.

He ended up with 198 sacks for his NFL career.

That doesn't count the USFL 23 and a half.

So he's well into the 220s if you count his entire professional career.

1048 NFL tackles and forced fumbles, 33 of them.

Guy was a beast and could not be contained in.

Even if you tried to double team him somehow, he just had that upper body power and speed and he was the guy.

He was the guy that offensive coordinators cringed at when you had to play against him.

They had to put some bodies on that guy for sure.

Number 92.

So the minister of Defense is our first nickname here in our Armed and dangerous.

Another one many of us are familiar with.

We, most of us saw him play was Peyton Manning often called the Sheriff.

And you know, there is another hall of Famer came from University of Tennessee and of course he went to the Indianapolis Colts and later on in his career the Denver Broncos won a Super bowl with each of those franchises.

One of the few starting quarterbacks to do that.

Maybe he might be the only quarterback to ever do that to win super bowl and two teams.

I'll have to look that up a little closer.

But very interesting that he did that and some of the statistics he was.

Many call him one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.

And I cannot disagree with that tremendous player in Peyton Manning.

And we have maybe one that you didn't know much about.

How about Fred the Hammer Williamson?

He was an AFL champion and a three time AFL All Star in the early 60s.

He had 36 interceptions from his defensive back position there and he played his college football at Northwestern.

But one of the most interesting things is that he got into acting, went into Hollywood.

He was an avid martial artist and he holds black belts in many multiple disciplines in, you know, some of the fine arts of the Orient and you know, just a tremendous thing.

He's got to go, go into his acting career and, you know, do some of those things.

Very talented man, both athletically and martial arts and acting.

And one that had a very interesting nickname with the hammer.

And next on our list is Jim the Machine Gun Kelly.

We just talked about him and.

And he got that name.

Now if you go back, we all know who Jim Kelly was.

He took the Buffalo Bills to four Super Bowls, played at the University of Miami for the Hurricanes under Jimmie Johnson back in the day, was quite the catch.

Also a member that went to the USFL and played for the Houston Gamblers and really put up some big yardage there and got the attention.

And when the USFL disbanded, the Buffalo Bills swooped in and grabbed him.

I believe they drafted him earlier in his career and he turned them down.

So they had his rights.

But he took the Buffalo Bills the four Super Bowls.

Unfortunately they were not able to win those.

But he set many records for the franchise and was quite, you know, admired by the fan base and by NFL fans in general.

Just a good guy, comes from the Pittsburgh area.

So another one of those western Pennsylvania connections that went on to some great success.

Now the nickname Machine Gun came from.

And they just adopted that because of the gun.

You know, the act of throwing, sometimes gunning the ball downfield or your arm is a gun.

And he definitely threw some bullets, did Jim Kelly and he earned that name and we're proud because he did a very good job there.

Next we have a couple of stars that collegiate stars that ended up going into the pros, two brothers.

The first one was Ragheeb Ismail, played for Notre Dame.

He was nicknamed the Rocket.

And he was nicknamed the Rocket because that man launched like a rocket.

As soon as he got the ball in his hands, it was.

You didn't need a countdown.

It was just a ball hit hands.

And boy, he was fly.

What an exciting kickoff returner, punt returner and offensive weapon when you could get him out in space, throwing some passes to him.

And his brother was Quadri Ismail.

The missile, you know, just the missile comes off a derivative of the rocket, built very similar to his brother and very exciting to watch in a return game and out in open spaces on offense.

And Quadri ended up doing a little bit more into the Canadian Football League, even though he had some spot duties in the National Football League.

But both very interesting gentleman to watch, both in college and in the professional level.

Now, another more contemporary man, and you see this gentleman on the Amazon every Thursday night during the football season, Ryan Fitzpatrick.

And because of his beard, he was often called the Amish rifle.

Again referring to the quarterback's arm being throwing those bullets out there, you know, and taken from shotgun and, you know, those.

The rifle reference to these young quarterbacks, the Amish Rifle.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, great career, played for multiple teams, including the Bills and the Bengals and playing Tampa Bay and well, he was just all over the place.

But a Harvard graduate, so a very intelligent guy and often was had some people had some fun with that and he had some fun with it himself.

And we still see him on some commercials and such, making fun with that and his very famous beard that he wears.

Now, another man that had a similar nickname, the Red Rifle, Andy Dalton.

Andy Dalton, called Red because of his very auburn hair.

And you know, again, the quarterback reference to rifle.

So the Red Rifle Andy Dalton played also played for multiple teams, came into league with the Cincinnati Bengals just like Fitzpatrick did.

They both have that rifle name.

Another guy that we really have talked about quite a bit in the past, the slinging, Sammy Baugh.

Now, Sammy Baugh, man, what a career he has had in the NFL.

Now, Baugh's originally from the state of Texas, was born in Temple, Texas, played his college football at Texas Christian University and had a great college career.

That was a pretty big player for that era of football, especially in college.

Go back and look to see who was picked ahead of him.

But he was a two time NFL champion, first team all Pro four different times, second team all pro another four times, six Pro Bowls and had four times where he was the NFL passing yardage leader in the NFL as well as many other really big records for Sammy Baugh.

And of course he made it into both the Pro Football hall of Fame and the College Football hall of Fame.

And slinging Sammy ball, because he would sling that ball around the yard in a hurry and he could do it very effectively.

Another slinger is more of a contemporary that we may be familiar with, Brett Favreau, who played for the Atlanta Falcons and the Green Bay packers and later the jets and the Vikings.

He was all over the place too, but most famously had his best part of his career, probably with the packers winning a Super bowl there.

Favre was a gunslinger because of that's the style of play he played.

He took some chances and fired some balls where people most of the time looked at him, cringed, especially his coaches throwing the ball in some tight spaces.

But boy, he made some great completions because of that.

Also had a share of interceptions though, because he took the chances.

But that gunslinger mentality was very interesting to watch.

Mr.

Brett Favre, another guy that has a connection to weaponry.

Here is a man they called the Bullet, Bob Hayes.

He was, man, he was a world class track athlete that ended up going to football and could catch the ball and he could run like the wind and he had hands that were so soft and could just, you know, take hold of the ball.

Very hard man to stop because he could get by you in an eye blink.

And Bob Hayes had plenty of big yardage plays, touchdowns and some excitement for the Dallas Cowboy fans back when he played for them.

Another man, Brian Dawkins, had an interesting nickname, Weapon X.

And because of his versatility, he was that factor that defensive coordinators that had him on their team could just put him in different positions and make the quarterbacks think pre snap because you wanted to definitely know where the ball hawking Brian Dawkins was who also by the way, could hit you hard enough to knock your chin strap back up into your neck area because a man liked to hammer people when he had the opportunity to.

So great player, ball hawking, real nose for the ball and who had the ball and he could take him down in a heartbeat.

The last one we want to talk about is A man they called Tank and that is Paul Younger.

There was a period where they just couldn't get in there.

But this was a new age and again he went with the Rams is where he started his career.

He was a great two way player.

Played fullback and half back on offense, linebacker on defense.

Went to Grambling when he was in Grambling State.

So a big part of their success.

He was second team All Pro in two different times and made four Pro Bowls.

His rushing yard he had over 3,600 rushing yards, 34 touchdowns to running back and 100 receptions and one receiving touchdown.

And just a tremendous player.

Ended up going into the College Football hall of Fame from his Grambling State positions that he did.

It's a free agent.

But those are some of our our great nicknames of the Armed and Dangerous and those nicknames are the Minister of Defense, Machine Gun, the Sheriff Rocket, the Hammer, the Missile, the Amish Rifle, Red Rifle, Slinging Gunslinger, Bullet, Weapon X and Tank.

Very interesting players and great players in football history and we hope you enjoyed this little bit of football history and the way we presented it today.

And we'd love to Hear your comments.

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Now until next time everybody have a great gridiron day.

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