What does an octopus have to do with the NFL?
A casual conversation during the Super Bowl introduced me to a frivolous football term.
Last week the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, the NFL’s equivalent of the Grand Final.
The Eagles, who set up the 40-22 win after dominating the first three quarters, claimed their second Vince Lombardi Trophy, having defeated Tom Brady and the New England Patriots 41-33 back in Super Bowl LII.
Every year a group of friends and I take the day off and watch the game together. Sometimes we watch it at a pub in the city, sometimes we sit and watch it at someone’s house. It’s a nice tradition we’ve had for the last decade.
And while I like to think I have a reasonable level of knowledge and understanding about the game of American football, one of my friends introduced me to a term I hadn’t heard of before while we were watching: an octopus.
Now, I obviously know what an octopus is in real life – but I hadn’t heard about what it means in a footballing context.
This article from The Sporting News explains things pretty clearly:
“In football terms, an Octopus refers to when a player…”