POLL: The Death Zone

What do you think of the name the defense has given itself?

  • I like it.

    Votes: 13 12.5%
  • Meh.

    Votes: 31 29.8%
  • They haven't played enough games yet for a nickname.

    Votes: 52 50.0%
  • Other (read my comments)

    Votes: 4 3.8%
  • I love it.

    Votes: 4 3.8%

  • Total voters
    104

Rat

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I vote that they work on not getting shown up against the better teams they play before coming up with nicknames for themselves.

Killed our divisional chances today though, so maybe it's an appropriate name.
 

HawkinNY

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in no way should they have a nickname. Playing banged up shotty teams and winning isn’t worthy of a nockname. I hope they realize how bad they are after tonight.
 

seabowl

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The 8 Stooges (sans Williams, Jones, and Witherspoon).
 

olyfan63

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But do they have the name on the way to the Super Bowl and the big game makes the name stick?
Great question! Anybody else can chime in with their recollections? Here are mine.

I think the "Greatest Show on Turf" came after the Super Bowl win.
"No Name Defense" was before/on the way to Miami's undefeated season Super Bowl win.
Same with Denver's "Orange Crush" defense, and Super Bowl losses.

In the case of Miami and Denver, those were nicknames that were used to hype the Super Bowl matchups, but they had evolved from a sustained level of high performance IIRC.

I also forgot a few...
Pissburgh's "Steel Curtain" defense. Multiple Super Bowls.
Rams "Fearsome Foursome", but that only referred to the D-Line.
The Tarkenton-era Vikings defense was pretty good, I think they were called the "Purple People Eaters". Led NFL in scoring defense a time or two.
Dallas "Doomsday" Defense, Staubach-era, Ed Too Tall Jones, Randy White, Cliff Harris, Jethro Pugh. A couple Super Bowl wins and a couple losses IIRC.

Basically, I'd say the sample size was well more than 4 games for a defense to be worthy of a *positive* name that stuck.

How about the "Four-Game Fading Phenoms" for the Hawks D after the performance against Green Bay?
Or the "Swiss Cheese Defense" as Hawker84 suggested?
 

JustTheTip

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This is the beauty of "Death Zone". It can be applied in good terms when they play well and bad terms when they play like last night.

I voted Meh in the poll, but now I am onboard.
 

SeaWolv

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If you're going to have a nickname like that you better deliver first and not just against losing teams but the good ones as well. I would prefer nicknames that don't include absolutes like death, or champion, or super but more clever nicknames that incorporate words like buzzsaw, squatch or quake.
 
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