Top Ten End-Zone Celebrations of All Time

In this dead week of football where analysts talk about the Super Bowl all week and begin to talk about the Pro Bowl Sunday morning, I feel as it is best for me to fall in line with with them and instead of touching on the more serious nature that is the Super Bowl and instead talk about the more celebratory things in football like dancing, spiking, and joy.

Whether they are premeditated and choreographed or on impulse and impromptu, we as fans love end-zone celebrations. Whether it is our team, in which case anything and everything goes or the opposing team/team we hate and we think they should be flagged for “excessive celebration” we are enthralled with these tea-parties in the end-zone. I know I love them and hope you do as well, so here are my top ten end-zone celebrations of all time.

10. DeSean Jackson

Maybe, because this is still fresh in my memory that I am somewhat biased but I really enjoyed this celebration. Even though I cannot stand DeSean Jackson, he turned an average” 10 yard out route” into a run that could not have been caught by anyone in the NFL let alone the mediocre Dallas secondary. Although there was no preconception of what he would do there was an eency weency amount of taunting mixed in with his somersault, which I can appreciate.

9. Terrell Owens

No, it is not a Jabawockee. It is one of the many celebrations brought to you by Terrell Owens. If he spent less time thinking about what he was going to do after he catches the ball, I guarantee he would free up some room in that large brain of his for concentrating on actually catching the ball. This wasn’t his best ever but I liked the “popping and locking” and can never get enough of it.

8. Chad Johnson

Yes, at this point he was Chad Johnson not Chad Ochocinco. However, he announced yesterday that he is legally changing his back to Chad Johnson in case anyone was worried and wants to start putting stuff up on eBay. The Batman to TO’s Robin is also well-known for his celebrations and short-arming passes but we all love those now rare occasions when he does eventually reach the end-zone, waiting with anticipation for what he will do.

7. Randy Moss

Even though Randy isn’t exactly in the height of his career, at one point he was the biggest threat on the field with his ability to get behind and above any corner and safety and he did it plenty of times throughout the former half of his career. This wasn’t one of his best catches but it was one of his best celebrations. I am usually a stickler for sportsmanship, but in this case I differ with Joe Buck. Pretending to moon and actually doing it are completely different and for that I don’t mind much.

6. Steve Johnson

While this season, Steve Johnson may be better known for the touchdown celebration that never happened because he dropped balls that could not have been thrown any better. However, I feel he has a lot of potential to be a great receiver and bring us more clever touchdown celebrations like this one.

5. Terrell Owens

This dance alone has balls. To be able to mock Ray Lewis and live to tell about it is reason enough to make the list. But this celebration is also near and dear to my heart because at Kyle Brewer’s wedding this summer, I taught the exact same dance to newly appointed USC Athletic Director, Pat Haden.

4. Braylon Edwards

Not only did Braylon Edwards save my fantasy team on several occasions this year he inspired me with this “dougie” to teach under privileged children “how to dougie.” It was perfect timing in that he was able to “dougie” on the defender and when the music kicks in just at the right time. While he doesn’t always make the best decisions behind the wheel and he may no longer be a J-E-T Jet after this offseason but I always had a man-crush on his beard.

3. Lance Moore

First of all, the title of the video is pretty funny lol. I am a sucker for hip-hop culture and anytime athletes embrace their urban roots and I am right there rooting for them. Lance Moore also was a good pick-up for me in fantasy this year with Reggie Bush out and he had plenty of opportunities “to jerk it” more often.

2. Terrell Owens

This one I especially like because it was on Dallas. On the incurring possession Dallas would drive down the field and score on an Emmitt Smith run of which he would take back the star, so to speak. TO would answer back on a second touchdown only to get blindsided which I also especially liked.

1. Joe Horn

The best part about this celebration is not that it was creative or premeditated but that Joe Horn had a flip-phone. And because of this celebration he will never be recognized for being a substantial receiver in the NFL but he will forever be remembered for being Joe “on the” Horn. And all of it almost went out the window when he was having trouble finding the phone he placed there prior to game time. And I always wondered if he had placed another phone in the other end-zone in case he scored at that end.

New NFL Nike Uniforms (with pictures of all teams)

Many of you who follow college football or sports fashion may be familiar with Nike’s line of pro combat uniforms that can be found on some of the better schools in the country. Schools like Oregon, Boise State, Alabama, The U, and Ohio State have been given special uniforms for special occasions throughout the course of the season. These are bright, loud, innovative, and technologically sound uniforms that are years ahead of their time.

With the slow and outdated Reebok still on the clock as the official and exclusive outfitter of the NFL, the league has looked outside the bun to better brands. New Era will have the rights to all the hats and Nike will have the rights to pretty much everything else, most importantly the game worn uniforms. Sketches were drawn up and leaked a few days ago showcasing the bold new threads. Word on the street is that they are fake but as a uniform connoisseur, I beg to differ.

Nike is not stupid. They would not let something as big as this just slip through their fingers and into the hands of someone with a blog. I believe they intentionally leaked the line to draw a buzz towards their upcoming contract in 2012. The biggest clue to me that they are real is the attention to detail, high-end design, and similarities between the college line pro combats. I know what I believe and while they my not be set in stone, you can decide for yourself. Lights please!

San Fransisco 49ers: One of the more traditional uses with the stripes on the under shirt is a new them Nike’s use of the flywire on the shoulder pads is similar to that of Florida, which will be on many NFL makeups.

Indianapolis Colts: Another traditional look with modern update. Don’t worry they get better. At least these are better than what #18 is wearing now.

San Diego Chargers: Here we go! Light blue to teal baby. I’ve been looking for a reason to be a Chargers fan for some time now and hopefully by 2012,  Norv Turner will be out along with the old uniforms. These are one of my top 5.

Arizona Cardinals: The Cards look fly now with black jerseys and white helmets and this version with feathers incorporated into the shoulder pads and pants is nicer than their current situation. Unfortunately quarterback is not included.

Buffalo Bills: These bring back the 80s Bills with reminders of Jim Kelly and O.J. with royal blue and red old school look with the Bill in the center of the jersey.

Kansas City Chiefs: The Chiefs’ fan base just expanded from 6 to 7 with these. The head dress on the shoulders and helmet are sooooo dirty!

Cincinatti Bengals: I like the Bengals current uniforms and am a little iffy about these only because I can’t really make out the design throughout the uniform. I would like em a lot more if that made it a little more easy to identify.

Chicago Bears: Nothing too crazy here. Just a newer and updated version of what Jay Cutler throws picks in. However, notice the flywire design on the shoulders again further verifying my thesis that they are real with a consistent theme

Dallas Cowboys: Finally something Jerry Jones has no control over… for now. And finally they have one color blue in their uniform.

Philadelphia Eagles: Still same ugly color green but the judgmental fans in Philly will like these with the wings on the shoulders similar to Oregon.

Jacksonville Jaguars: My favs! The print down the side is so creative. Sick colors! And MJD will look awesome in this new helmet in LA.

New York Giants: Favorite team with least favorite unis. Nothing out of the ordinary with high expectations and low results. Maybe Eli can learn to slide feet first in these. New York might need some smurf turf also to match.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Soooo tight! Yellow helmets with steel plating decals is genius. Red, blue, and yellow striped on one sleeve and name and number on the other. One of the best.

Atlanta Falcons: Not much changed with these but they are still nice. Would have been nicer with a Vick #7 though too bad he was stupid.

Tennessee Titans: All light blues is definitely different. I also like the different logo on the helmet with just the back end of the flames going into the facemask.

Seattle Seahawks: Personally would have liked to see more lime green throughout but I’m weird like that. The under shirt with wings on it is creative too.

Minnesota Vikings: Too bad B-Chill won’t be around to see Adrian Peterson in these beauts. The horns on the sleeves and new helmets make a nice match. A loud match but a nice one.

Oakland Raiders: The silver and black are back. Easy E would have loved these…

New Orleans Saints: I always thought their colors should have been purple, green, and yellow playing to their Mardi Gras strengths but these are aight.

Washington Redskins: Unfortunately they didn’t get rid of the mustard yellow and I can’t really make out what the background of the jersey is but they’re better than what 36-year-old Donovan McNabb will be getting paid 18 trillion for the next 4 years currently wears.

New York Jets: Broadway Mark and their defense will look good in these dark intimidatiors.

New England Patriots: If you don’t like these than you’re not American. So creative to implement the stars and stripes into their unis. Tom Brady’s flowing locks will compliment the new white helmet.

Detroit Lions: Simple but modern. Light but blue. These unis just look fast for some reason due to their lightness.

St. Louis Rams: I’m glad they threw the tacky gold helmets out the door. These are much cleaner and still utilize the ram’s horns.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: So glad they decided to bring back the old creamsicle colorway. The current colorway is horrific and it nice to see them going back to their roots with the original Buc.

Cleveland Browns: The worst franchise in history didn’t change much with their outerwear either. They moved the stripes from the shoulders to the sleeves. Big whoop.

Miami Dolphins: Best colorway of all the uniforms: Loud and in your face just how Don Shula and Dan “The Man” Marino would have liked.

Carolina Panthers: Black panthers? These uniforms are intimidating and innovative with the cat scratches throughout. They’ll need them to try to claw their way into a playoff game.

Baltimore Ravens: Purple and black don’t go well together, so they needed some white to bring their defense to light. These are way better than what Ray Lewis is shimmying in right now.

Houston Texans: These unis just look like Texas. Now, I don’t really go for anything from Texas but these uniforms are clean.

Denver Broncos: Thank God! They got rid of the disgusting things the currently call a uniform. These unis summon John Elway and I guarantee it brings a win. These are just classy.

New Las Vegas Stadium

If you haven’t heard, I’m following in Aaron Simms’ footsteps out of Douglas County, who is the youngest person ever to run for county commissioner at 18 years old. I’ve got 5 years on the aspiring politician and 1 speaking point that will set me apart from my fellow candidates. I will successfully bring a professional stadium to the city of Las Vegas!

The pros of bringing a pro stadium to Las Vegas completely outweigh the cons. It would give a little jolt to our economy by creating jobs from design to construction to ushers to front office staff. The more we diversify our economy away from the hospitality industry, the faster our recession will concede and the more stable we will be for the future. Building a stadium isn’t the cure-all but it is a start and we all would love to see it happen.

Mayor Oscar Goodman has been lobbying for a professional team for years and the one thing that always holds us back is our lack of facilities. Cashman Field isn’t exactly in the best neighborhood, confining the 51s fans to people who live in North Las Vegas or people who will drive for dollar beers. The Thomas and Mack is still holding up well. There is a lot of history in the T&M and it would be dumb to wipe away all the tradition and renovations that are in place to improving their facilities. Sam Boyd Stadium is antiquated and far from any central point in Las Vegas and this is actually a live shot from the UNLV football game last night vs. Air Force.

The question now becomes what sport to bring here? Well, we had an audition for the NBA in 2007 but that didn’t exactly go well for the city. Las Vegas has never been so dirty and crime ridden for such a short amount of time and it looks like we better just stick to hosting NBA Summer League and Team USA. The NHL isn’t exactly in an expansion mode right now and the teams in the Southwest don’t do as well financially as the traditional Canadian and East Coast Teams.

We are now left with the NFL and MLB. The NFL would obviously be the most attractive option for Las Vegas but with a melting pot of fans throughout our city it would be hard to attract an NFL team with shifty fan loyalty. Not to mention, the NFL has bigger fish to fry with collective bargaining coming up and the possibility of bringing a team back to Los Angeles way ahead of Las Vegas.

I think the best case scenario for Las Vegas would be to bring a MLB team to the city that never sleeps. The Southwest has been great breeding grounds for baseball with many successful players coming out of Vegas. They also are the league that is most willing to continue with talks as Las Vegas as one of their top cities with Portland, San Antonio, Austin and Mexico City despite the complication we present with gaming.

The next item on the to-do-list becomes where. Where do we build the stadium? I have two potential options with the first being off of Tropicana Ave. and Paradise Rd. A stadium here would be both walking distance from the Strip, McCarran Airport, UNLV, with easy access to the highways just as long as it’s height stays out of fligh patterns. A stadium here would a allow for a minor tourist attraction as long as we don’t count on tourism to be a part of the fan base. It would be a breeding ground for new and young fans within close proximity to the university. And with the I-215 and I-15 both less than a mile away it allows the easy access for locals to go to go to games with ease.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=east+flamingo+las+vegas&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

While, I prefer the Tropicana location there are plenty of viable options throughout the city with the land available for a project of this size. Another potential location would be on Las Vegas Blvd. South just South of Warm Springs Rd. The acreage here is massive, it is near local hot-spots Town Square and the Las Vegas Outlet Center and again both freeways within walking distance.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=east+flamingo+las+vegas&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

The two teams on the chopping block are the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland A’s (my personal preference). If we get the Oakland A’s we could keep the colors and change the name to the Las Vegas Aces. The name  “Aces” plays both of our gaming roots and baseball specifics with pitching Aces. We could bring on Las Vegan residents Greg Maddux and Pete Rose to run the front office and it would be like we never missed a step.

The next issue becomes financing as always. If an Mark Cuban’s investor group doesn’t pony up some cashola then we have some “majuh majuh” problems. The city isnn’t exactly in a position to make it rain a stadium in the desert and it would not be ideal to make the stadium for MLB and UNLV football. While it would add value to our university, MLB doesn’t like to share facilities especially with a collegiate program. However, if we did draw from the High-Ed budget we could be playing baseball in Las Vegas by April 1, 2014.

The NFL’s Worst Uniforms

I love the collaboration of sports and fashion when it comes to nice uniforms. As, a whole I would say that the NFL is no on the forefront of uniform designs and I kind of get that. They’re good with consistency, not switching too many things up and losing or confusing fans. The NFL, while it may be young in its existence is a fair traditional and conservative institution that prides itself on its history.

So, I do understand why they do not necessarily have the most groundbreaking and daring uniforms and are more comfortable with nothing outside of the secondary color wheel and 2 striped shoulder pads. So please take this list with a grain of salt and enjoy.

Philadelphia Eagles: The old school kelly green unis we saw Mike Vick scurrying all over the field in this weekend are much nicer than the latest. My main problem consists with the color choice, as this is where many of my issues come with the uniforms. It’s hard to say I am an Eagles fan, a fan of the blank and black? I mean what color is that? It’s like if someone took Florida Marlin teal and Raider black and got this awk concoction.

Kansas City Chiefs: The Chiefs aren’t that bad. I’m not completely against their color scheme. I mean Joe Montana made them look good for like a week. My problem resides in their front office. I don’t know whose decision it was last year, but I starkly remember when they played the Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City wore their former Dallas Texans unis but it was dumb. I understand that it is a part of their past which is fine and they should rock them once a year but why would you choose that one time to be when you play the team who dominates not only the region in fan base but your own state. I think KC lost the 17 fans they had in Kansas and Oklahoma to Dallas that week.

Washington Redskins: I still don’t know how the Skins have lasted by keeping their namesake in this age of political correctness but somehow they have salvaged it and more power to them. They have never really produced a good team; they draft a lot of good players, and then trade them away from their hideous colorway. I think it started as plain maroon jerseys, and then Dan Snyder’s Great Grandfather spilled mustard from his hot dog on his replica jersey and created that monster. The players try to even wear black and yellow cleats to liven the unis up a little but it just looks bad because it brings out the mustardiness in the colorway even more. Ugh!

St. Louis Rams: Usually I am a fan of creative design in uniforms when it incorporates the team mascot into the uniform and especially the helmet. However, this particular instance just doesn’t do it for me. I wasn’t a fan of the royal blue and yellow. I am not a fan of the navy blue and gold. Honestly, I think they should move the team back to LA and start from scratch by rebranding the team by calling them the Los Angeles Stars. The name “Stars” enables them to play off of their fan base of Hollywood. As much as I hate the Lakers they would have modern purple and gold uniforms. The Lake show has millions of fans who love rockin the purple and gold. The logo would consist of a modern version of gold stars in a dark purple sky. They have a new quarterback with a bright future and could do a lot of big things with Ari Gold as the owner and Pete Carroll coming back to SoCal to coach. I know I’m genius right?

Cleveland Browns: I feel bad even saying this because the state of Ohio just isn’t very good anything. They have shitty franchise in every sports and lose all of their soon to be stars because they can’t get their kindergarteners in a single file line. Obviously, a “Brown” is in reference to the canine. But it is rare that the franchise makes reference to their namesake or incorporates it into their brand. So, some dumb Clevelander (not the nightclub) probably thought to just make them it the color. Oh and then let’s throw some orange puke in there to match the shit brown. Typical Ohio.

Denver Broncos: Denver is a great city graced with a horrible franchise. Any future success left the Rockies when John Elway and Terrell Davis did. Their current uniforms suck and their previous ones were absolutely horrendous. And it is the dumb front office that has decided to bring them back not sparingly but wear them pretty much every other week. They resemble the situation in Cleveland in that they have the same base color of shit and they too can’t get their players on the same page. They were dumb by adding a vertically striped sock to match the rest of their Bonanza High School JV uniforms. But some players twist the socks and some pull them straight leaving everyone in Denver in a cold and snowy mess.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: This review comes with much dismay and disappointment because I know they can accomplish so much more in Tampa. They have beautiful weather year round, a ton of fans in a great football state, a great mascot, but the walked it all off the plank with their current uniforms. Their expansion uniforms were nothing short of beautiful. They looked like delicious creamsicles in the form of stellar athletes. And in the current era they would be more modern and even way nicer. With the bright colors they would look like a jerk crew with pads. I don’t even know where to start in describing their current colors of I guess rusted copper and red?

Dallas Cowboys: Now, I am going to restrain myself from being biased because I hate everything from Texas and the Cowboys in particular. But I did pick them to win the Super Bowl in the Taj Majones this year. So, that should be a reflection of my objectiveness. The Cowboys are a “Van Gogh” so to speak. They look good from far away but when you look up close they’re an abstract sponge painting. The colorway of silver pants/white jersey/silver helmet troubles me. The pants are silver with a tinge of aqua in them when they hit the light. White traditional jersey-no quams there for the most part. The traditional design is fine; however, the royal blue trim is where confusion comes to play. The silver helmet does not match the silver pants!!!!! Two completely different colors. The navy blue star on the helmet does not match royal blue trim on the jersey!!!! Just make them the same color silver and same color blue!!!!!! Shit!!!!