A fitting nickname can offer an NFL player something that a stats line or a highlight-reel play cannot — longevity and identity. I dare to argue that had Joe Namath merely been a Joe, instead of a Broadway Joe, his legend today would be far less. The "Broadway" reminds us of the girls, the fur coats and Namath's beaming smile.

Joe Namath was a short-lived, prolific passer with bad knees who won Super Bowl III; Broadway Joe Namath is a man much bigger than all of that — an icon, a legend.

First applied to some of the game's top college players of the early era — guys like Pudge Heffelfinger and the Galloping Ghost (Red Grange) — nicknames reached a pinnacle in pro football in the 1970s, with much thanks to "Monday Night Football," a merged league and increasing Super Bowl viewership. Since then, though, it has become a lost art, and in the past decade they've become nearly obsolete. Nicknames in today's game are reserved for only a few, and they rarely stick when applied.

If pro football does not miss the clothesline tackle or coaches wearing suit coats and fedoras, it ought to miss the added flair a good nickname can offer its select players.

• Consider the nicknames that defined toughness: Mean Joe Greene, Concrete Charlie (Chuck Bednarik), The Diesel (John Riggins), Ironhead Craig Heyward, Iron Mike Ditka, the Manster (Randy White), Hacksaw Jack Reynolds and Night Train Dick Lane.

• The nicknames that defined the game's great quarterbacks: Captain Comeback or Roger the Dodger (Roger Staubach), the Snake (Ken Stabler) and Slingin' Sammy Baugh.

• Nicknames tied to a player's off-the-field associations: The Minister of Defense (Reggie White), the Tyler Rose (Earl Campbell) and the Nigerian Nightmare (Christian Okoye).

• Nicknames to accent style and ability: Crazy Legs Elroy Hirsch, the Playmaker (Michael Irvin), White Shoes Billy Johnson, Golden Boy (Paul Hornung), Mercury Morris, Bullet Bob Hayes, The Juice (O.J. Simpson) and Sweetness (Walter Payton).

• And nicknames to accent personality or size: The Mad Stork (Ted Hendricks), Thomas Hollywood Henderson, the Bus (Jerome Bettis), Ed Too Tall Jones, the Refrigerator (William Perry) and Prime Time (Deion Sanders).

The nicknames of this generation lack imagination, and many are in sync with the abbreviated, social networking fad of the times  text-style nicknames like T.O., A-Rod (Aaron Rodgers) and A.P. (Adrian Peterson) which say nothing of the player or his ability/style. There are nicknames too tacky to last (think Calvin Johnson will want to be referred to as Megatron if inducted into Canton?) and ones forgettable or ridiculous (Chad Ochocinco is laughable, not colorful).

Nope, of the scant number of nicknames today, only a few will hold up over time, and stick to that player on his way into Canton. Randy Moss will always be the Freak, Tom Brady will probably always be called Tom Terrific, and fans will always know two-time Super Bowl-winning QB Ben Roethlisberger as Big Ben.