What's in a Name?

I suggested in my live game blog from Arizona State that, given how impressive A.J. Green has been so far, he really needs a nickname.

Virtually all the wide receivers have nicknames among teammates -- my favorite being Kris Durham's "White Lightning" -- but even when I talked to them, there was hardly a consensus on a moniker for Green, which leaves me wondering what Tony Wilson has been doing all this time.

In any case, I'm still taking suggestions from fans on a good nickname for Green, but here's what some of the Bulldogs had to say...

Wide receivers coach John Eason: "All the boys just call him A.J. We've got to work on that."

Tavarres King, Green's fellow freshman, said Green is occasionally called "Jizzle" as in "A-Jizzle," but I feel like the Snoop Dogg stuff is sort of played out.

I also learned that King's nickname among teammates is "Chicken."

"My legs, my chicken legs," King said. "We all just kind of got nicknames by things we do on the field, how we look."

King did have one helpful suggestion, which he attributes to Wilson: "I think he calls him Hot Dog, just because of how he plays on the field."

Mo Massaquoi couldn't come up with anything, so he inquired with Matthew Stafford.

"I call him Slim," Stafford said.

"Slim, yeah, he needs to bulk up a little bit," Massaquoi responded.

Durham's contribution seems like a good one: "He's just phenom, man. He's incredible."

As for the man himself, Green said he isn't too concerned about having a nickname. Even in high school, he said, no one came up with anything that stuck.

"Nobody ever gave me a nickname," he said. "Everybody's just always called me A.J."