The Big Game is this Sunday, and I’m not quite sure if an innocent little geek blogger like myself is allowed to use the words ‘Super Bowl’. Uh oh! I just said it! Ah well, hopefully this week’s List of Six can get the NFL on my side and there won’t be any lawsuits. Let’s talk about some football!

More fights should be decided by football

Specifically, let’s talk about superheroes with a penchant for football! That’s more my style anyway. But there’s one problem: there aren’t many sports-themed superheroes! When I tried to do a sports-themed list last year, I had to resort to skateboarders and a guy who throws javelins in order to reach six entries! But this year I went outside my wheelhouse and did some real digging!

So join me after the jump for six superheroes known for tossing around the pigskin!

6. NFL SuperPro

One of my duties as a geeky superhero blogger is to continuously remind people that NFL SuperPro exists. That the world could reach such glorious heights is a cause for celebration! NFL SuperPro (as you can see, only terrorists don’t say the ‘NFL’ part) is the gloriously synergistic work of both Marvel Comics and the NFL to create a brand-gilded superhero. He’s also got an insane origin story, in which a former football player turned journalist named Phil Grayfield is interviewing an eccentric football fan, only to be doused in mysterious chemicals, set on fire, and bonded with the eccentric fan’s NFL memorabilia. Then, as if ‘football powers’ weren’t enough, Grayfield puts on the eccentric fan’s NFL-themed super suit for added effect. That NFL SuperPro goes on to fight crime is a given.

5. Booster Gold

The superhero with endorsement deals

Professional athletes and superheroes have a lot in common: they both attain physical perfection, they’re both glorified for feats of strength and athletic prowess,  and they both dress in colorful uniforms! So it’s no surprise that there are several superheroes and villains who started out as athletes (both Bullseye and Boomerang started out as baseball pitchers). Booster Gold is one such hero, having been star quarterback at Gotham University – in the 25th century! Booster Gold is a time traveller, so it’s good to know that we’ll all still be playing and watching football 400 years from now (instead of Blurnsball).

But Booster was kind of a creep, and he lost his football scholarship when everybody found out he was throwing games for gambling. It’s OK though, he went on to steal a bunch of futuristic technology, travel back in time to the 20th century, and be welcomed as a member of the Justice League alongside the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman. So it worked out for him.

4. Cyborg

Not quite a man, not quite a robot

Victor Stone is another Justice Leaguer who started out as a football player. Vic was the star of his high school football team in Metropolis and was being courted by a ton of colleges, but Vic accepted only one call: the call of destiny. Oh yeah. Vic was in a horrible accident that left his body nearly destroyed, so his scientist father instead built for him a robot body, turning Victor into Cyborg! But rather than becoming some sort of robotic football player or robotic cop, Victor decided to throw his lot in with the Justice League, because why not? The Teen Titans didn’t need him anyway.

3. Bo Jackson from ProStars

Bo knows football, or so the saying goes

Now we’re going old school! Does everybody remember Bo Jackson, the football superstar from the early 90s who is sometimes credited as the greatest athlete of all time? Well did you also know he routinely fought crime alongside Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky? Oh yes, oh yes. They were the ProStars, a superhuman fighting force that consisted of the three athletes using their natural talent and super gear to battle the forces of evil. ProStars was pure Saturday Morning Cartoon silliness, but that’s exactly what I wanted as a wee little lad.

2. Captain Grid-Iron

Cheerleaders sold separately

Who do the G.I. Joes call when they need someone to quarterback their annual fish fry pick-up game? Captain Grid-Iron, of course! The Joes’ hand-to-hand combat specialist, Terrence Lyndon, just so happened to quarterback for West Point, and since I guess he didn’t have much else going for him, he decided to make football his theme when it came to being a G.I. Joe. You’ve got to have a theme when you’re a Joe. Lyndon didn’t go with his apparently infamous John Wayne impressions, because according to his Wiki, those impressions mostly just annoyed the heck out of the other Joes.

Fortunately, he did have football-shaped grenades, so all is right with the world.

1. Ish Taylor and the Guardians

Quality, corporate entertainment for kids

If you thought NFL SuperPro was the bee’s knees, then you haven’t seen anything yet! Behold, the NFL’s subsequent attempt to combine superheroes and football: NFL Rush Zone! This cartoon aired for three seasons on Nickelodeon between 2010 and 2014! This was a real thing!

Let me see if I can sum this up for you. Basically, all of the football teams in the NFL are based on squat, anthropomorphic aliens, called Rusherz,  whose home planet was destroyed by an evil alien warlord who wanted to claim the powerful core of the planet for himself. When the planet was destroyed, the core and the Rusherz ended up on Earth, where the core broke apart into 32 shards. Each Rusherz took up a shard and built a football stadium around it, creating the NFL in order to protect each individual shard. That the teams would then go on to play football against each other is just a side effect, apparently.

Revel in their very existence!

But we’re just getting started. When the evil warlord came to Earth to get the shards, these Rusherz decided to recruit a 10-year-old boy to be their Guardian, and Ish Taylor, who was always picked last to play football at school, suddenly becomes a football superhero, defending the shards at every stadium across the country. Future seasons would add more Guardians to the team, and more reasons why they had to keep fighting, until what I can only assume was a glorious series finale involving football.

I’ve never seen a single episode, but I can only assume that while the Guardians of the Core might be cool, they’re no ProStars. Not even their theme song measures up.

Honorable Mention: Leonardo

Teenage Mutant Ninja Football Turtles!

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