The NFL’s Top Clichés: 10 Tired Broadcast Platitudes

The NFL is a TV monolith, with games accounting for 47 of the most-watched TV shows since the start of the 2024 regular season. But as usual, viewers must wade through a stream of football clichés from analysts and announcers during game telecasts and studio shows. After a while, these trusty platitudes grate on viewers.

You know the vernacular I have in mind.

This team needs to establish the run. 

It’s up to the O-line and the D-line to win the battle in the trenches. 

They can do it—but only if they run north-south instead of east-west. 

Because they can’t afford to get behind the sticks. Or lose the turnover battle. Otherwise, the defense will just pin their ears back. In the end, it all comes down to execution. Because you can’t win the game here, but you just might lose it.

There, we just jammed in nine of them.

Phil Simms keeps a list of TV pet peeves on his desk at home in New Jersey. “The one I love is ‘spatial awareness.’ What the hell does that mean?” Simms told me this year. “Or how about, ‘The quarterback did a great job keeping his head up and looking downfield while he was rolling out.’ Well, where the hell was he going to look?” Some of Simms’s other groaners include “downhill runner,” “high-pointing the ball,” and QBs “climbing the pocket.” As Simms joked, “You mean he moved up?”

The list is always changing as some are embraced and others fade. Here are my top 10 most annoying football clichés in use this season:  

1) Arm talent: Remember the good old days when a quarterback had a strong and or accurate arm? Not anymore. The new catchphrase is “arm talent.” It’s become ubiquitous on shoulder programming and game telecasts. My favorite offshoot may have come from Tedy Bruschi of ESPN. The former Patriot said QB Jordan Love of the Packers has an “arrogant” arm. 

2) Shank: This one drives me crazy. “Shanking” is a golf term for hitting the ball off the club at virtually a 90-degree angle. So if a right-footed kicker misses a field goal, or extra point, to the left, that’s not a “shank.” It’s a “hook” or a “pull.” ESPN’s Joe Buck got it exactly right on Monday Night Football during Browns-Broncos. But not every announcer does. Golf lesson over.

3) Out in space: This phrase usually refers to getting a skill player in the open field with no tacklers nearby. In other words, X player is really effective when there’s nobody around to tackle him. Really? Who knew?

4) Get in his grill: Getting in somebody’s face is so ’90s. Now, when one player confronts another face-to-face, they “get in his grill.” This phrase started on ESPN, then spread like wildfire.

5) The room: Thanks to Paul Pabst of The Dan Patrick Show for this beauty. As in, this new player really adds to the “Colts wide receiver room.” As Pabst tweeted: “Started gaining traction in 2023…now, it’s ‘The Room’…use it…know it…live it.”

6) Dial up the blitz: No, the coach isn’t on his phone to order a pizza. But hey, it sounds cool. Or they wouldn’t be using it so often.

7) The … National … Football … League: For some reason, NFL analysts have an aversion to saying “NFL.” Instead, they slowly and portentously pronounce the … name … of … the … league. Like it’s a religious incantation. Amen.

8) Game manager: Ah, yes; the ultimate damning with faint praise description of a QB playing as much to avoid losing the game as to win it. Warning: Come contract negotiation time, you don’t want to be known as a “game manager.”

9) Dawg: The Pat McAfee–ization of sports is complete. We’ve gone from Lawrence Taylor’s “crazed dogs” to McAfee’s all-purpose tribute of “Dawg.”

10) Alligator arms: I have to admit I love this description of receivers reluctant to extend for a pass in fear of getting hit. This applies equally well to your buddy who never picks up the check after a game is over.