I suck at naming fantasy teams. Every year I come up with a fantasy team name (last year’s were Babette’s Meast and Hot Carl Lee), and every year I discover myriad other team names that put mine to shame. This is disappointing, as 50% of the joy I derive from fantasy football comes from naming and drafting my team. Everything after that is almost a letdown. There are 10 to 12 teams in every league (or, if you happen to be Punter and lack the ability to count, 14). Chances are, my team isn’t going to be the one that wins. And, if I do happen to win, then I’m just another asshole who brags about winning his fantasy league. I fucking hate those people, and so do you. It’s all sort of downhill from the initial thrill of starting out the year. You Arizona Cardinal fans can surely sympathize.

Well, this year, the pressure was even higher to come up with an acceptable team name, because the good folks over at Yahoo! Sports have invited us to join their Blogger All-Star (oxymoron alert) League, which they’ll be covering from week to week. It features us, Will Leitch, MJD, and other assorted chronic masturbators. As such, we could not select team names that were dirty (Boner In Your Butt, anyone?), homophobic (Chris Simms Is A Fag!), or ethnically displeasing (South Carolina Cracka Ass Crackas). This, as you might guess, created an almost impossible challenge for myself and my KSK colleagues. It meant we had to come up with names that were actually clever. Not our strongest suit. In fact, it’s not even a suit we have in our wardrobe.

There are no real rules to coming up with a fantasy team name. They tend to fall into categories: Dirty, Film/TV/Music/Internet references, News references, Puns, and Potpourri. Names can overlap categories, of course. But, for this exercise, let’s tackle these one by one. It’s a fantasy name brainstorming session! Actually, since we’re dealing with my brain, it’s more of a brainfogging session. I’ll be assisted by some KSK friends, including flubby, who excels at this practice (his NCAA pool name this year? Octopussybasket.).

Dirty Names
Unusable for our Yahoo! League, but usable for the KSK keeper league. Dirty names never get old, because they are dirty. Sure, Space Dockers is not the most original team name. But hey, it’s space docking. It’s funny, because it’s horrible. Here were a few during my initial brainstorm session:

-Laser Rocket Cocks
-Fuck You Brandon Jacobs
-Penis Toaster
-TO Loves The Cock
-Cock Salad
-Ass Sashimi
-Angry Butt Pirates
-Strawberry Shortcakes
-Dildo Dishwasher
-Beaver von Bismarcks
-Carolina ‘Gina

None of these are good. In fact, they’re all horrible. I don’t know how you make a cock salad, and I don’t want to find out. I assume ranch dressing is used for symbolic purposes. Laser Rocket Cocks is almost acceptable, because it works in a football reference. But, overall, these are God awful.

Film/TV/Music/Internet References
Fact: Over 70 million fantasy teams last year were named Whale’s Vaginas. The problem with making references now is that everything has officially been referenced. Think that Krull reference was a great pull? Wrong. Lots of other people also grew up in the 80′s, too. Jagoff. Frankly, I blame “Family Guy” and “I Love The 80′s” for beating every possible reference available into the ground. Even Internet references like “Carl Mondays” and what not can get tired within 24 hours (especially in our hands!).

Still, that won’t stop millions from naming their team “Sexy Time Explosions” this coming year. And you know what? It’s still pretty fucking funny. Here were some from my discard pile:

-A Planet Full Of Unicorns
-Mischievous Badgers
-Sandy Sullivan’s Gaping Snatch
-GoLords
-Destiny’s Frankensteins
-Man Vs. Zakk Wylde
-Koolaid Maroneys
-Big Black Cocks With Pearly White Cum (this may also fit in the Dirty category)
-Pumps And A Bump
-Mary Worth’s Suicide Watch
-Spidermanbearpigs
-The Ambiguously Gay Uffords

As you can see, it’s hard not to spruce up some of these references with salty language. Additions like “gaping snatch” are always an improvement. And look, a Hammer reference! But not a reference to when Hammer was popular, but to his ill-fated gangsta makeover! It’s doubly ironic! Koolaid Maroneys makes me happy, and any chance to make fun of Ufford is always time well spent. Otherwise, some of these names are about as funny as a new Deadspin commenter.

News References
Current events in sports or other news are always a good foundation for naming teams. Especially if it refers to an athlete or coach who is in trouble. It’s an enjoyable way of laughing at another person’s personal anguish. Why, I just spent an hour today trying to think of every possible name involving the word Ookie. And any reference to a coked-out Lindsay Lohan is guaranteed to remain current. The problem, of course, is that most news references can grow old before the end of the year. Don’t believe me?

-Smoot’s Fingercuffs
-Scooter Labia
-Britney’s Flobee
-Mitt’s Massholes
-Joslyn Morse’s Manpussy
-Virginia Gameness
-Ookie Monsters
-The Killing Of A Chinese Ookie
-Ookie Blaylocks
-Fortune Ookies
-Ookie Cutters
-Ookie Monsters
-Ookie Wilsons

Fred Smoot and Scooter Libby jokes. Man, do those topics have legs! Especially in a keeper league! I liked “The Killing Of A Chinese Ookie”, but Yahoo! wouldn’t allow names longer than 20 characters. Buttfuckers. I use the word “Manpussy” any chance I get, but that was out. As you can see, I went a bit overboard on the Ookie references, which brings us to…

Puns
Fantasy team names bring out the aspiring New York Post headline writer in all of us (my personal favorite Post headline, regarding a scam at Ground Zero: “Ash-Holes”). Puns are considered hacky, lame, and the refuge of a shitty writer. Which is why I thought of hundreds of them. I’ll only list a couple here to spare you the pain.

-Otis Spunksmeyer
-Goodell Ship Lollipop
-Schorno for Pyros
-The Cunt of Monte Cristo
-Tits Ahoy

I write ad headlines for a living. If it weren’t for puns, 99% of all advertising would cease to exist. As would shitty, horrible team names like these.

Potpourri
Freed from confining genre names, random names allow you to come up with shitty names or in-jokes that have nothing to do with much of anything. GO WILD!!!!

-Body by Mangini
-Bong Hits For Satan
-The Winking Nipples
-Maraschino Jeff Garcias
-Dan Shanoff’s Shaved Back

Body By Mangini was a personal favorite of mine, since it made fun of Eric Mangini (he has tits!) and myself (I do too!) simultaneously. Pot jokes always get a good reception. People love substance abuse. I have no evidence that Shanoff shaves his back. That was all through the power of my imagination.

As I said, many of these categories overlap, which is how I came up with my final team names.

KSK League: Brian’s Dong

Yahoo! League: BradyQuinn Handparty

Brian’s Dong is a combo of Dirty Name, Movie Reference, and Lame Pun. But I liked the fact that it represented the gay porn name for some old football weepie I never watched. Starring Gay Sayers!

Yahoo! has accepted the latter name for now. No one can resist a tribute to this photo:


And the Borat reference, while tired, was fitting. EXTREMELY fitting. So it had that going for it, which was nice.

But names are in the eye of the beholder. You may like the name Brian’s Dong. You may prefer Pan Down For Reggie Bush. Regardless, the important thing is that YOU like the name you picked for your team. After all, you’re the only asshole on Earth who cares about it. Until Week 10, when Larry Johnson tears his patellar tendon.

So happy naming to you, fair fantasy players. I hope you come up with something better than the shit I came up with. I’m quite certain you will. Your names welcome in the comments.

And if you’d like to know the names of the teams in the KSK Keeper League, here they are:

-Brian’s Dong
-My Hot Babysitter Raped Me
-Mattoon Green Wave (Hey Leitch, try something new for once)
-No Poon For Plaxico Tax
-We Are The Diamonds, We Come From Glasgow
-Cum Dumpsters
-Birmingham Church Fire (from UM, an inspried choice)
-Canada Roughriders
-Al Harris’ Fruit Bowl
-Gaza Striptease
-Gabelicious
-Misconstrudas
-Mr. Irrelevant (Way to make an effort, Mottram)
-Cleverly Named Team (from DJ Gallo. There’s a reason he gets paid to make jokes and I do not.)