8 old-timey football terms that have become extinct

Did you ever see that movie Leatherheads? Of course you didn't.

Despite that movie's ruinous approach to old-time football, today we're traveling back to an era when leather helmets were all the rage. When William "Pudge" Heffelfinger roamed the gridirons of America as the first professional football player. When autocratic coaches prowled the sidelines, questioning the manliness of any player who refused to play through a compound fracture.

"Rub some of Doc McCullough's Miracle Tonic on it and move on!"

Fill up your rusted tin cup with some bathtub gin and prepare yourself for long forgotten football terms.

Grid Aces

Definition: a better than average football player

Pro Bowlers? All-Pros? No. Grid Aces.

Being an All-American prior to Word War II was football's highest honor. The professionals were left with terms like grid aces or football fandangos. Alright, that last one was made up but would you be surprised if it wasn't?

Lugging Leather

Definition: to carry a football

The decline in alliterative metaphors is an extremely troubling development. Where once, holding a child was called toting a toddler, now you'd simply say carrying a baby.

Steagles

Definition: a combination of the words Steeler and Eagle

Hey, the Steelers and Eagles once played as a single team during World War II. While the world was putting their petty differences aside to defeat noted war-liker Adolf Hitler, the Steelers and Eagles did the same during the NFL's 1943 season.

The Steagles played to a 5-4-1 record on the season so, while they had a less successful year than newly anointed Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, they were respectable.

Second-Story Worker

Definition: someone who passes a football

This is apparently someone who throws a football. It's a mouthful to say second-story worker every time the ball is thrown which is, most likely, why it was outlawed. Specifically, our forefathers had CBS Analyst Shannon Sharpe in mind when they moved on from this mouthful.

Flanker

Defintion: a deep-threat wide receiver

This doesn't go back that far and is still in use by fathers everywhere, describing which positions they played in their high school days.

A flanker is apparently what we today call a wide receiver. Who knew?

Wingback

Definition: some sort of hybrid running back-receiver-tight end

Much like the flanker scenario, you might hear this term thrown around if you head down to your local Legion on a Friday night. The stories are long and drawn out, but the beer is cheap and you can pick up some good old-time football terms down there. Bring a friend and tell the veterans "this one's a draft dodger" if you want to have some real fun.

Big chalk stripe

Definition: an endzone line

What we today call the goal line, the colorful folks of our past used to call the big chalk stripe. Due to the line being wider than the other lines on the field? It's unclear if big is referring to the actual physical size of the line, or it's importance to the game.

Hauling the mail

Definition: carrying a football

Let's take a moment to acknowledge the great postal workers across this fine country. Those mailmen and mailwomen are still out there, fearlessly delivering you garbage-bound flyer after garbage-bound flyer after garbage-bound utility bill. Let's give it up to all those brave workers, before their imminent replacement by the sentient postal-robots of our future.

Of all the terms on this list, hauling the mail should make a comeback.