3 Worst NFL Team Names in Professional Football
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There's an origin story for every team name in professional football. But some are much better than others.
With the Washington Commanders revealing their new team name earlier in 2022, we wanted to take a look at the other NFL team names that should never have been allowed in the league — two of which are still current team names. And they're not even offensive, they're just so boring that we can't imagine cheering them on for another decade.
Houston Texans
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Duration: 2002-present
Bottom line: The only name that could possibly be worse than the Houston Texans would be the Houston Houstonians. Aren’t all people from Houston also Texans by default? This name seems lazy, especially when you consider the person who named the team the Texans — owner Bob McNair — said the name was “something unique to Houston and the NFL.”
The Houston Stallions, which was the other finalist, would have been unique as would the Apollos, Challengers or Toros, which were also under consideration. But “Texans” doesn’t tell non-residents much about the city of Houston, other than it being located in Texas.
Cleveland Browns
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Duration: 1944-present
Bottom line: Contrary to popular belief, the Browns aren’t named the Browns because their primary color is brown. They also aren’t named the Browns because the best player in franchise history is Jim Brown. There’s a much vainer meaning behind the name, and that has to do with the team’s founder: Paul Brown. Yes, the man who founded the team decided to name it after himself!
Paul Brown would later also found the Cincinnati Bengals but, thankfully, he decided not to name them the Cincinnati Pauls or the Cincinnati Browns II.
The Steagles
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Duration: 1943
Bottom line: What do you get when you breed a steeler with an eagle? You guessed it: the Steagles! This wasn’t a planned team name but one that came by necessity during World War II. Both of Pennsylvania’s two NFL teams — the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles — lost so many players to military service that they merged together for one year. While the official team name was the Phil-Pitt Combine, many refer to this squad as The Steagles.
They used co-coaches, as neither the Eagles nor Steelers’ head coaches wanted to be demoted, and the Steagles went 5-4-1. The next year, the Eagles had enough players return from the war to be a standalone team, while the Steelers then merged with the Cardinals due to still lacking enough players. Fortunately, that team name wasn’t called the Stardinals or the Cardlers; it simply had the moniker of Card-Pitt.