By now, most people are probably well aware that the Lions recently signed a new right tackle. Ricky Wagner, formerly of the Ravens, will be taking over for the departed Riley Reiff. However, there’s one more important detail about the acquisition that Lion fans need to take note of: he really doesn’t want to be called ‘Ricky’ anymore. Just ‘Rick’. Apparently, an old coach started the Ricky thing a while back and he can’t stand it.
Rickrolled
On the surface, this is a great business decision. Having a name like ‘Ricky’ puts you at an
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immediate disadvantage when it comes to being taken seriously as an adult human. Think about all of the famous Rickys that you know. Davis. Martin. Vaughn. Bobby. I rest my case.
Ricky is the guy who hangs around in town after graduating high school, who still sags his pants and hits on all the sophomore girls well into his twenties. Meanwhile, the composite sketch of a guy named Rick would yield an affable carpenter who wears perfectly fitting jeans and gives you a fair price on your deck repairs. I can see why Wagner would feel that the time to make a change is now. After all, would you really feel comfortable entrusting your 100 million dollar investment to a guy named Ricky?
A Risky Move
For the reasons above, I’m all for Wagner choosing to officially drop the Y from his name. However, I hope he’s aware of the risks involved with publicly announcing that you don’t want to be called something. In my experience, the #1 deciding factor in determining whether a new nickname sticks is that the recipient doesn’t want it. I’ll give you a case study to illustrate my point.
In college, my friends and I got really into the show Entourage. As anyone who has ever watched Entourage with their college buddies can attest, we inevitably had the “Which character would you be?” discussion. The guy who got stuck being Dom was so hurt by the outcome that he nearly punched my friend Nitch through a window. With that, a nickname that naturally would have died out after 3 days has now lasted nearly a decade.
Be careful what you wish for, Rick. Would you rather have everyone call you Dom?
Joey and Joe
I vaguely remember a game early in Joey Harrington’s career, right at the point when he was beginning to lose the benefit of the doubt as the franchise QB. Fox must have sent their lowest level broadcast team that day, because the audio was all off and the announcers were terrible. Anyway, the color commentator spent literally an entire quarter rambling about how Joey Harrington needed to drop the Y from his name and start going by ‘Joe’.
This was supposedly the solution for Harrington to finally get some credibility around the league. Forget winning a few games now and then, just be Joe. The guy also felt that Harrington should change his number from 3 to 7 for some unexplained reason. Joe Harrington, #7.
Joey never got around to changing his name or number, and maybe that stubbornness was part of the problem after all. I also remember him getting a ton of heat in Detroit for being ‘a wine drinker’ and not ‘a beer drinker’. The subtext was that his beverage choice meant he was soft and not blue-collar enough to truly lead an NFL team or something.
As long as you can get the offense into the end zone, you can drink piss on the sidelines for all I care, but apparently this stuff matters. After his four years in Baltimore, Wagner apparently understands this, hence the name change.
In Conclusion…
Guys named Rick are solid beer drinkers who know their limits. Guys named Ricky pound Jaeger bombs and pass out on the couch with WWE on in the background.
Welcome to the Lions, Rick Wagner. Take care of Stafford, and I’ll call you whatever you want.
*Rick Astley, Leach, James, and Mahorn all approved this message. In my mind they did, anyway.