IMLD Primer: Know Your Lingo

Over the years, Dre and I have developed many terms and nicknames for all things pro football. Here's some of the best to help you, our three readers, follow along better.

• "Pushy" or "Pushyness" - No, it's not a play on the female reproductive system. When we are confronted with a betting line of 3 or 7, one of us will invariably refer to the point that the game result will most likely fall right on the line number, forcing a "push."
• "Interception Santa" - This is a much more recent addition. Last season, after the Raiders traded for Carson Palmer, I said that he was like Santa Claus handing out interceptions like Xmas presents. The name stuck.
• "Total Fraud" - It's hard to confirm which one of us gave this name to Mark "Total Fraud" Sanchez, because both Dre and I have never had any love for the Jets QB. My personal hate came from repeated reports before the 2009 draft that Sanchez was moving up the draft board for his market-ability versus his playing-ability. Looks like those reports were accurate!
• "The Cover Zero Defense" and "Ice Cream Truck Drivers" - Dre, being a Bears fan, and myself, living most of my life in Chicago, have watched the Bears defense give up massive plays to totally uncovered receivers over the years. Maybe it's the Tampa-2 scheme, or the fact that the Bears sign guys off the practice squad and then match the guy up against Steve Smith in a playoff game, but whatever the reason, the Bears like to employ the "Cover Zero" scheme. As in "Cover Nobody." We just assume that Brian Urlacher is calling out the defense screaming "let him go, LET HIM GO!!!!" as the other teams best receiver streaks downfield. The "Ice Cream Truck Driver" is a reference to the nobodies the Bears find to play said defense. Often the Bears will give up a TD pass and you can't even find a defender on the TV screen when the ball is caught.
• "The Little Wrangler" - Brett Favre's junk. I wont expand on this one.
• "Jesus" - Of course, it's Vince Young. He can do everything. To hear it, he won the college football national title all by himself. He blocked, passed, ran, punted, kicked, tackled, coached. It was Vince against the world, and he won!
• "China Doll" - Dre applied this label to Matthew Stafford, the most brittle man in the league. Let's hope for those of you who drafted Stafford high, based on his impressive 2011 campaign he put up, that Stafford doesn't stand in any strong wind gusts or sneeze too hard. He will break.
• "It Was a Forward Pass" - Word assoctiation with Dre is fun! Any time I say "The Music City Miracle," Dre instinctively snaps back "It Was a Forward Pass!" I won that pick, he lost it, in one of the only times ever Dre had to use white-out (this was before computers) to fix a pick.
• "Bear Whispering" - My uncanny ability to pick to Bears, to cover AND win, games they have no business competing in. They pull this off once a year or so, so choosing the moment is key. Hint: it ususally happens in prime time, or on the west coast, but the Bears need to be heavy underdogs.
• "Squoosh" - Picking a team to destroy another well above and beyond the spread, or a "squoosh." Usually happens when we think a team will win by double digits. Often wrong.
• "Getting Cute" - Never offically a term of ours, but we use it ALL the time. "Getting Cute" refers to when we pick a team to win the game, but NOT cover a small spread (usually less than 3 points). These picks almost never come home, but something just feels oh-so-right when they do. Dre attempts this far more often than I do, by the way.

Tonight the IMLD crew will be compiling our annual preseason predictions, and this year there's a pick to go along with it, as the Giants and Cowboys kick off tomorrow night. Nothing says NFL like Wednesday......wha? Wedenesday? Really? I just hope that NBC doesn't brand this as a "Special Edition of Sunday Night Football."