Teams have personality. Between the owner, the coach, the players, and the fans, a team develops certain behaviors. As we approach the official beginning of the NFL season, WingFan would like to countdown to kickoff by walking you through each team and our assessment of their persona. Let’s forget about draft picks, free agents, and statistics for a moment and just focus on each division, each team, and each personality. Imagine Wendy Williams, Jay-Z, Hulk Hogan and Pam Anderson sitting down to dinner together – what a show right? Well, that’s the NFC East right now. Let’s take a look at what each team brings to the table:
Team: Philadelphia Eagles
Persona: Wendy Williams
With no Super Bowl titles to speak of, the Eagles still manage to have one of the biggest personalities in the league, much like Wendy Williams, who has one of the biggest personalities in entertainment. No Super Bowl wins doesn’t mean “no championships.” The Eagles have actually won 3 NFL championships prior to the Super Bowl era. Wendy Williams has never won an Oscar either, but she was named to the Radio Hall of Fame. Radio – you know the media that existed before the television era?
The similarities continue. The ex-shock jock’s most infamous moment was an interview with Whitney Houston where she hammered Houston on questions of drug use; ruthlessly digging into Whitney’s emotional wounds on-air. Now, would you believe that the Philadelphia Eagles fans hammered Santa Clause with snow balls and booed him at the halftime of a December game in 1968? Ruthless is, as ruthless does. Williams actually broadcast her radio shows out of Philly’s own Power 99 FM – a station she helped take from #14 in local ratings to #2 during her time there. Coincidentally, during the 2000s, former head coach Andy Reid took the Eagles all the way to the Super Bowl where they lost the big game and finished the season as the #2 team in the league. The key to staying relevant for the Eagles and Williams seems to be their willingness to speak to the public about private matters. Stories about Terrell Owens, Michael Vick, and Riley Cooper have littered the headlines in Philadelphia for almost a decade. Williams shared stories on-air about her drug use, her breast implants, and even her miscarriages.
Recent years have been more about transformation for both Williams and the Eagles. The Eagles are now the slimmed down version of Wendy Williams with the extra long weave. New head coach, Chip Kelly, gave the Eagles offense a makeover last year, and drafted leaner players who have more speed and endurance than your average NFL athletes. With the liposuction and new look, the Eagles surprised critics last year by winning the NFC East and making it to the playoffs. Perhaps, this year, they will follow Wendy’s recent big screen appearances with some big game appearances of their own.
Team: Dallas Cowboys
Persona: Hulk Hogan
The Dallas Cowboys are often dubbed “America’s Team” and Hulk Hogan used to enter the ring to a song titled “I am a Real American”. These two deserve each other. For decades these two entities have both entertained the American public. The Cowboys won two Super Bowls in the 70’s and established a dynasty by winning three Super Bowls in the 90’s. Hogan carried professional wrestling from the late 70’s, through the 80’s, and into the late 90’s. Around 1997, the two entities managed to fly off into obscurity, only to be revived every now and then by reality TV and good marketing.
Hogan made a comeback in the new millennium when he landed a reality show called “Hogan Knows Best”. Meanwhile, the Cowboys became a featured team on HBO’s new reality show “Hard Knocks.” The publicity kept them both relevant, even though they were still living in their pasts. Each received the benefit of the doubt from media outlets, while their fans blindly routed for their success and celebrated their celebrity. Recently, both have managed to let their status go to to their heads – literally and figuratively – as infidelity and scandal abound.
Hogan’s wife divorced him after she found out the Hulk was sleeping with his daughter’s BFF; while photos recently surfaced of Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, posing provocatively with younger woman. In the wake of the NFL’s lenient two-game punishment for Ray Rice who hit his wife, Jones’ behavior isn’t exactly the kind of leadership the NFL might want on display. In the coming weeks, we will see how things turn out for Jerry Jones, but one thing is clear, this is American Beauty.
Team: New York Giants
Persona: Jay-Z
You might think this mash-up lacks creativity because New York is Jay-Z’s hometown, but that’s more of the icing than the cake. The Giants are known for not just winning, but winning with a little bit of magic – some would call it luck. Both the Giants and Jay-Z have legitimate titles on their resume: the Giants’ first Super Bowl win in 1986 was a 39-20 thrashing of the Denver Broncos, and Jay-Z’s debut album, “Reasonable Doubt”, is an undisputed hip-hop classic that most fans only started to appreciate years after it was released.
The Giants second, third, and fourth titles required some magic: a field goal miss from Buffalo’s Scott Norwood, a clutch catch off of David Tyree’s helmet on 4th down, and a perfectly placed Eli Manning pass to Mario Manningham with virtually no time left. Jay-Z’s career has all of that: becoming one of the only links to Notorious BIG after his untimely passing, becoming the focal point in hip-hop’s “beef” era (an era where artists challenged each other song for song), and of course, becoming Beyonce’s fiancé (and husband) really didn’t hurt. Some might call these occurrences “luck”. But if you ask the Giants and Jay-Z, they’d say you “Can’t Knock the Hustle.”
Team: Washington Football Team
Persona: Pamela Anderson
No…this combination has nothing to do with a sex tape, but, then again, you never know what’s coming out of Washington these days. With all due respect, the Washington Football Team won three Super Bowls – two in the 80’s and one in the 90’s. Let’s call these the “Baywatch Days”. The Washington Football Team were as pretty as Pamela Anderson bouncing down the beach in a little red bathing suit – they were all put together. Things started to change once Pam left Baywatch and the same thing happened in Washington when ownership changed from Jack Kent Cooke to Daniel Snyder.
Celebrity and branding became a larger part of the picture when both Pam and Dan started to tinker with their already established products. Dan moved the team to the suburbs, while Pam moved from TV to movies. Then the face lifts and plastic surgery ramped up for Pam and Dan. Dan brought in celebrity coach after celebrity coach, celebrity athlete after celebrity athlete, and a carousel of quarterbacks that might finally stop with RGIII. Same thing happened to Pam – her chest got more and more inflated, her face got more and more distorted, and her hair got more and more blonde.
Washington has only been to the playoffs four times in 22 years; and no one has featured Pam Anderson on the silver screen since Barb Wire (appearances aside). It’s almost comedic. Washington just signed their 8th new head coach since the year 2000 and Robert Griffin (RGIII) is their 15th quarterback in the same time period. If there were a team that deserved to sit in the hot seat and get roasted like Pam Anderson, it would be the Washington Football Team. Their current name is a joke in and of itself.
UP NEXT: AFC East Personas
