CALIFORNIA, USA — The NFL football season may be over, but let's remember all the pro football lore that remains for us to ponder until the next season starts anew.
Interesting nicknames have been part of the NFL since the beginning. Both individual nicknames such as Ed "Too Tall" Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, as well as group nicknames such as the Vikings' "Purple People Eaters" and the decimating front line of the L.A. Rams' "Fearsome Foursome" are part of the experience.
Even the ball has a nickname that may have you wondering why it's sometimes known as a "pigskin" since footballs are made with cowhide, not a pig's skin.
For some insight, we checked in with the Wilson Sporting Goods football plant in Ada, Ohio, where employees have been creating the official super bowl ball since Super Bowl I in 1967.
You have to go back to the 1860s when it's possible that footballs were made from the tanned hide of a pig.
Back then, though, it was the pig's bladder that helped to inflate the football, but pig skin is a catchier name than pig bladder, so that may have stuck.
The shape of the inflated pig bladder apparently influenced the shape of the current football, even though the balls are made from cowhide and now with a synthetic bladder, the developers of the game stuck with a "prolate spheroid shape" that's easier to pass than a round ball. That Wilson factory in Ohio made 228 "pigskins" for last Sunday's Super Bowl in Arizona.
Bonus fact: There were six balls specifically designed to be used for kicking only, so the game-winning field goal by Harrison Butker of the Chiefs was with a ball not used by quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
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