Sports Nut

Teenage Mutant Ninja Bortles

Turn Down for Watt, Stafford Infection, and 2014’s other most popular fantasy football team names.

Turn Down for Watt.

Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

On Thursday night, the 2014 NFL season kicked off with the Seattle Seahawks’ resounding victory over the Green Bay Packers. Thousands of fantasy football leagues launch this week as well. One possible Week 1 matchup: “Show Me Your TDs” vs. “Turn Down for Watt.”

On Wednesday, I collected a sample of more than 360,000 different fantasy teams in public leagues on ESPN.com. The resulting list of the 30 most common team names reveals the jokes football fans make when polite company leaves the room. Herewith, an uncensored look inside the juvenile, pun-addled minds of football fans.

This rundown of names—including a tribute to the movie Step Brothers, plus lots and lots of double-entendres—is likely not surprising to anyone who’s been in a fantasy football league. Life also imitates art, as “Chalupa Batman,” “Password is Taco,” and “Vinegar Strokes” are all references to FX’s fantasy football–centered show The League. And then there’s “Beats by Ray,” an alarmingly popular reference to the Ravens’ Ray Rice and domestic violence, which is more than just dim and bro-ish—it’s dim, brutish, and hateful.

In addition, I collected the most popular names inspired by particular players. For some teams, there’s a lot of competition for the top spot. Among the most popular Detroit Lions–related puns are the aforementioned “Stafford Infection” (that’s quarterback Matthew Stafford) and “Suh Girls One Cup” (defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh). “Stafford and Sons,” “Touch Me and I’ll Suh,” “Boy Named Suh,” “Suh Tang Clan,” “No Suh For You,” and “Calvin and the Chipmunks” (that’s wide receiver Calvin Johnson) are all relatively popular as well.

Mixed in with the usual sexual innuendo, there’s some enjoyable weirdness when you look at the top names associated with each franchise: multiple Ninja Turtle shoutouts, the kicker-horror combo “The Blair Walsh Project,” and the Wizard of Oz–wide receiver mashup “Somewhere Over Dwayne Bowe.” There’s also homophobia, as well as the awful “Ben There, Raped That,” a reference to sexual assault allegations against Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. That team name was selected with alarming frequency—nearly 70 times.