Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I'm reading John Thorn's book "The Armchair Quarterback", which is essentially snippets of various NFL authors over the years. Its a neat book, and its interesting to see how literary football expressions have changed over the years. Some terms have a specific shelf-life, others seem to stand the test of time (for better or worse).

Favorite expression - 'coughing up the football' when a player loses possession. Brings to mind images of emphysema, an undercooked dinner, vomiting, etc. I like how this expression ignores the role of the defense in causing a turnover...they simply had to stand around the player with the ball who, due to a medical condition or a bad pre-game meal, was unable to retain possession of the football.

Least favorite expression - I would love to find out who coined the phrase "big time players make big time plays in big time games" so I could demand an apology from that person. I hear this stupid expression at least once during every NFL or NCAA broadcast. The expression itself is ipso facto, it explains nothing, and is used almost regardless of player/play situation/game. This expression is so lame that NFL coaches feel comfortable using it when addressing the media.

“forced” to punt - as if the head coach had a gun pointed to his head.

As far as ones that have been around for a while, "running downhill" and "burn a timeout" are not favorites of mine.

It is the new school ones that most bug me- stuff like "in space", "eye talent", "high pointing the football", etc.

"on the come"
"can be as good as he wants to be"
"one of the best" (seems like every color analyst uses this as a default when they have nothing else to say)
"hat on a hat" (they're helmets, for gosh sake!)
"naked bootleg" (unless I'm not seeing something ...)
"wide right" (of course I hate this expression ... I'm a Bills fan!)

"Pitch count" is starting to sneak into NFL broadcasts. This one is absurd as it gets considering "snap count" would work perfectly fine. I guess "snap count" is not cool enough. "Pitch count" was most recently uttered by Dan Fouts which then caused Ian Eagle to describe a Tom Brady pass as a nice "slider."

Taking it to "the house".

The worst and most overused is "Beast"

So and so is a BEAST.

“High-pointing” the ball is overused and usually incorrectly. A receiver who reaches up for a ball thrown slightly high isn’t “high-pointing” it. He’s just catching the ball where it’s thrown. When a receiver comes back to the ball to block out a defender, he is potentially “high-pointing” the ball.

"Complete the proccess of the catch" always annoys me, and it's hard to imagine (for the new fans) that a few years ago that expression didn't exist.

Terms being used Incorrectly are the ones that bug me. Maybe don't really fall into the 'expressions' category.

End around's being called reverses or double-reverses.

"RPO" when it's play-action and not a RPO.

Read-option, zone-read, and can throw RPO in here too since broadcasters just pick one and stick with it all game so you hear it 30 times a game when they picked the wrong one to describe what's actually happening.

"3-tech", when it's not a 3-technique and announcer is just saying it because every announcer says it so trying to sound smart when they don't know what they're talking about.

Things like that. Announcers, talking heads, bloggers, writers, etc always take what they think is new (and they're usually years or even further behind) and run it into the ground but what annoys me is the misapplication. Saying these things just to say them instead of it being what really happened.

Reaser wrote:"RPO" when it's play-action and not a RPO.

What is the difference between RPO and play-action? I always thought RPO was like some sort of Madden game abbreviation for play-action that caught on with announcers and that the two terms meant the same thing.