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The Purple People Eaters:
The Dumbest Nickname Ever For A Collection Of Great Players?

 

The Purple People Eaters sounds like bad guys on a children’s television special.  One can only imagine walking down the toy isle at the local retail store to find the Purple People Eater plush doll staring you in the face for $14.99.  It is an embarrassing nickname for a defense that was that ferocious.  After being dubbed the Purple People Eaters its no wonder they could not win a Super Bowl.      

Football, like all sports, has seen its share of nicknames over the years.  However, football is somewhat unique in that it is conducive to granting nicknames to specific units, as opposed to simply individual players.  In addition to the Purple People Eaters some of the more famous defenses in NFL history include the Steel Curtain of the seventies Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Sack Exchange of the New York Jets of the eighties.  On offense, we have seen the likes of the Cardiac Kids in Cleveland during the eighties and the Greatest Show on Turf in St. Louis in the late nineties and into the new century.  Those nicknames are tough and clever and give one a sense of what that particular unit brings to the table.  The Purple People Eaters?  Not so much.

 

Read more about The Purple People Eaters and the disappointment that is being a Minnesota Vikings fan in “My Least Favorite Team is My Favorite Team”