FanPost

steelers all-name team

Fighting off a bad cold and basically confined to the house for the day, i read the post about Amos Zereoue's restaurant and got to thinking about the Steelers with the best names over the past forty or so years.  With nothing more constructive to do, I went position by position and compiled a list, picking players who's names sounded either: a) cool  b) exotic  c) descriptive  or d) just plain funny.   this was a good exercise given all of the cold medication i'm on since many of the names made me laugh out loud.  so did the play of some of those who made the list.  feel free to weigh in on the selections...

OFFENSE:

T -- Justin Strzelczyk  (quick story: was out to the 'burgh with my buds from jersey for the steelers-patriots playoff game in '96  --  was driving the turnpike back to jersey when the blizzard hit... didn't make it past harrisburg -- ...  anyway, we're staying at the hilton, where the team is, and on the morning of the game we walk across the foot bridge to three rivers.  well, strzelczyk is walking about twenty feet ahead of us.  he's listening to a walkman and air drumming the entire way across the bridge and make cymbal-crash gestures and noises at the end of long rolls.  my friends and i got so pumped up by this that we started head-butting one another.  this was at 8:30 in the morning, by the way)...

G --  Jim Clack  (great 70s name)...

C -- Dermotti Dawson  (miss him!)...

G -- Carlton Haselrig  (just sounds like a wrestler, doesn't it?)...

T -- Tunch Ilkin  (if you got in a scrap at a bar with a guy named tunch ilkin, wouldn't you just back off?  even if the dude was like 5'4?  i don't care... any dude named tunch ilkin can mess you up)...

TE  -- Jay Riemersma  (the matt spaeth of five years ago)...

QB -- with apologies to Mr. Roethlisberger, i gotta go with Bubby Brister.  has a guy ever looked more like his name than Bubby Brister?

TB -- with apologies to Frenchy Fuqua and Famous Amos, it's gotta be Fuamatu-Ma'afala.  when my son was three he went out for Halloween as Fu, in full steelers uni with Fu jersey and afro.  That was a killer costume...

WRs -- hard to leave Yancey Thigpen out, but Louis Lipps and Weegie Thompson have him beat...  (hey, I'll bet Weegie would sign on the cheap to take Nate W's #3 receiver spot)...

 

DEFENSE

DE --  Dwight White and Brentson Buckner.  Dwight White because the name and the man were both pure poetry.  As for Brentson Buckner...  I hated that dude.  First, his was named Brentson, which makes him sound like a spoiled New England tennis geek, and second he was lazy as hell.  I put him on the list just so I could make fun of him...

NT -- Kimo von Oelhoffen.  I know he wasn't a nose tackle but that's a nose tackle's name...

OLB -- Rod Breedlove.  Found him on the team's 1965 roster.  wish he was on the '75 team, though, because i picture him with sideburns and a porn mustache...

OLB -- Loren Toews.  Gay-est Steeler name since William Gay...

ILBs -- Hardy Nickerson and Levin Kirkland.  Those two bad-asses were named Hardy and Levon?  Funny...

C -- Chidi Iwuoma.  say that like twenty times fast.  it's better if you're on a lot of cold medication...

C -- Ricardo Colclough.  on the list because i wanted to make fun of him, too.  damn, he sucked.  and i think he's still in the league somehow.  who does he have compromising pictures of?

S -- Lethon Flowers.  Thankfully for him Elvis Patterson got the nickname "Toast" first...

S -- Troy Polamalu.  God bless him...

 

SPECIAL TEAMS

KR --  Najeh Davenport.  The original Mike Tomlin "Big Dudes Who Return Kickoffs For No Particular Reason" designee...

PR -- Antwan Randle-El.  Run right, run left, run right, run left, run right, run left, tackled for one yard gain...  but we loved you Eight-Deuce!

P --  None.  I hate punters.

K -- None.  Ditto..

 

 

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