What are some of the funniest lines in NFL history?
The NFL has given us some memorable moments in broadcasting history, with sometimes shocking and poignant moments interlaced with humor
At a time when the most popular sports in the United States were baseball and college football, the NFL decided to join boxing as a heavily televised sport. In the early days, with these two sports being the most popular on television, it made sense for the commentators to also straddle both worlds, hence the legendary Howard Cosell and Jimmy “the Greek” making their mark on early NFL commentary.
The league’s gamble paid off, with the NFL now occupying the top spot in American sports fandom, and by an enormous margin. Over the past 60 years, some of the resulting broadcast moments have gone down in history, with both Cosell and the Greek seeing the years pass them by and an inglorious end to their legacies await them.
Cosell, in particular, provided the foil for Frank Gifford and “Dandy” Don Meredith to work against, giving us shocking moments, such as when Gifford famously told Cosell to shut up during a live Monday Night Football broadcast, or perhaps when Cosell referred to a black player, Alvin Garrett, as a “little monkey”, prompting a national outcry calling for his dismissal. Despite support from Jesse Jackson, Muhammad Ali, and even Garrett himself, and broadcasting archives plainly demonstrating that Cosell had referred to short players of any race as “little monkeys” for over two decades, the die was cast, and it was plain that society had passed the announcer by, and he resigned.
But the humorous moments in the NFL have far outweighed the grave, and Cosell’s broadcasting partner, “Dandy” Don Meredith was one of the funniest to ever be associated with the game. The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback would famously sing Willie Nelson’s The Party’s Over, in tune and on key, once a football game was out of reach, and had said of his former coach, “Tom Landry is a perfectionist. If he was married to Raquel Welch, he would expect her to cook.”
Some memorable tv moments have been had by the players and coaches as well, with the post-game press conference proving fertile ground for memorable quips. Deacon Jones, the devastating member of the Fearsome Foursome defensive line, invented the term “quarterback sack” in just such circumstances. Hall of Fame linebacker, and one of the most intimidating players to ever strap on equipment, Dick Butkus, said that he never set out to hurt an opponent “unless it was important. Like a league game.”
When former Cincinnati Bengals coach Bruce Coslet was asked by the press to expand on the flaws with his team, he responded, “We can’t run. We can’t pass. We can’t stop the run. We can’t stop the pass. We can’t kick. Other than that, we’re just not a very good football team right now.”
Tampa Bay, who were traditionally the worst team in the NFL (that may surprise some newer fans to the game), went 0-14 in 1976. After a particularly humiliating loss, a reporter asked coach John McKay what were his thoughts on his team’s execution, McKay answered back, “I’m in favor of it.”
Before becoming a regular laugh-a-minute pundit, Terry Bradshaw was the quarterback who had won the most Super Bowls. Later overtaken by Tom Brady, Bradshaw suffered the same sort of criticism, that he was a system QB, that he was not the most talented, and one criticism that dogged him for years was that he was a “dumb” quarterback. Bradshaw has never been one to back down from a firefight and responded to the critics, “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.”
One of the most productive fields of humor that has ever graced the NFL is former Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints coach Bum Phillips. The monumental Texan was earthy and humorous almost to a fault, giving us such famous lines as, “There’s two kinds of coaches, them that’s fired and them that’s gonna be fired”, “The harder we played the behinder we got”, and “I don’t mind people thinking I’m stupid, but I don’t want to give them any proof.”
But perhaps the most memorable moment was when Oilers star running back Earl Campbell showed up to training camp overweight and out of shape, unable to run the one mile run in practice. Reporters flocked to coach Phillips to ask him what were his thoughts Campbell, and Bum said, “Well, I guess that when it is first down and a mile to go, I won’t give him the ball.”
In a modern game where coaches and players alike take themselves far too seriously most of the time, perhaps we could do with a few characters like Bum Phillips in the NFL.
Pretty please, with sugar on top.