LA NFL Team Name

Preparing for this weekend’s playoff football games, it occurred to me for approximately the 12,732nd time that the LA area really could use a football team. While one could argue that cold weather is almost a requisite to play professional football, the lack of inclement weather hasn’t kept San Diego, Arizona, Carolina, and Miami from fielding decent teams, and their fan bases are pretty darn passionate. The real challenge in having an LA area team is, of course, in the naming of said team.

The name of a team plays a significant role in a lot of things. Find a great name, people get excited to declare their allegiance. Find a crummy name, and people will take a long time to care. After all, the Houston Oilers pissed enough people off to get kicked out of town, out of the county, and even out of the state to Tennessee. Where they promptly took the name Titans. Alliteration alone has kept the locals there from running the team out on a rail.

A great name is one that speaks directly to the people of the area. Using the aforementioned Titans as an example of what not to do, the team is subtly indicating that Tennesseans either have a deep-seeded love for all things deep-fried and have grossly expansive waistlines as proof, or that people from Tennessee are actually the forebears to Greek gods and that they’ve been banished to Tennessee by Zeus where they are as far from Mount Olympus as possible. This latter explanation, however, is doubtful, as people from Tennessee don’t even speak Greek.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is the team from Pittsburgh, the Steelers. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a town that grew up out of the twin industries of mining and steel manufacturing. The emblem on the Steelers helmets actually typifies three elements in the manufacturing of steel. The yellow hypocycloid is coal, the orange is iron ore, and the blue is scrap steel. The team has long been known to play a rugged, hardnosed, and defensively-oriented type of football, all of which speaks to the blue-collar nature of the town and its inhabitants.

Where then, does that leave LA? 5 teams in the league are named after birds (Cardinals, Ravens, Seahawks, Eagles, Falcons) but the LA Seagulls doesn’t really strike fear in anyone’s heart, and to LA people, they’re akin to flying rats. 4 teams in the league are named after predatory big cats (Panthers, Jaguars, Lions, Bengals). It’s doubtful that there are or ever were any lions in Detroit or Bengal tigers in Cincinnati, but these names have worked these franchises for so long, people have stopped paying attention. LA Lemurs or Los Angeles Cheetahs just won’t put asses in the seats.

There are then those teams with names that are fairly self-evident. Broncos are wild horses that can be found littered through Colorado, so Denver had a shoo-in with that name. San Francisco is one of the best known gold rush boom towns, so 49ers is pretty easy. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Kansas City Chiefs, Dallas Cowboys, New England Patriots all fall into this category as well.

But really, where do we stand with Los Angeles? Miami has the Dolphins, and we could use the Sharks, but San Jose, another California professional sports organization, already has the name taken. Plus, the name is a little too negative an image for a surf-based culture such as ours. Sea lions are pretty mean, as anyone who’s had the displeasure of dealing with one knows, but they don’t really project intensity, toughness, or excitement. (We’ll ignore the Cleveland Browns in this argument.)

Around and around I’ve gone, trying to make sense of this. What in the world is just so LA and is at the same time a name that works for a football team? The Los Angeles Traffic? The Los Angeles Cougars sounds too college. The Los Angeles Mayans, Aztecs, or Incas would generate more hate mail and ACLU lawsuits than a video of hooded Klan member punching a kitten in the face.

So, if Sharks and Dolphins are out, how about Orcas? The Los Angeles Orcas has a nice sound to it, but their other name is Killer Whale. And frankly, in a town that loves to raise kids on gunplay, graffiti, and violence-as-entertainment, having a name that so inherently objectifies the ending of life, this may be a little too graphic. So, with that in mind, I did a little fiddling, stuck with the mammal of choice and came up with the right name:

The Los Angeles Cetaceans of Ill Intent.