"Let's Ram It!" and 25 years of other immortal NFL songs

Super Bowl Sunday is much, much more than a single football game: It's a cultural touchstone and magical night of television where the hours of pre- and post-game coverage, half-time show, and coveted multi-millionaire commercial spots are just as important as who wins the game. It also used to be about the songs it inspired. The 1985 Chicago Bears showed the world how shuffling and staying out of trouble could be a transcendent moment, and how rapping can bring people closer together while celebrating a team. What's more, the team has reunited for a Boost Mobile Super Bowl commercial that will air this Sunday during the game. Before those hotly anticipated 30 seconds, though, The A.V. Club takes a look back at the enduring tradition that has made hardcore fans and teams alike take up instruments and goofily flaunt their stuff with questionable choreography.

1985-86 New England Patriots, "New England, The Patriots, And We"
Most inspirational lyric: "Now it's the Bears, the big wind from Chicago / The Super Bowl awaits / They may be monsters of the Midway / But they've got a different gate!"
Eventual record: 11-5 (Lost Super Bowl XX)

While the Super Bowl Shuffle achieved immortal status once the Bears demolished the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX, few remember this rebuttal from  New England, recorded shortly before their team really let them down. The video for “New England, The Patriots, And We” starts with an anchor pointing a toy pistol at a stuffed bear, promising his team will “bury the Bears,” then flashing the peace sign. Cut to a recording session, where a totally vanilla contemporary pop group, the generically named Studio Soundtrack Singers, leads a long list of local personalities into a series of lame, pseudo-macho assertions. (“We’ll hang the Bears from the Liberty Tree.” Do they mean that literally?"). Sadly, most of “New England, The Patriots, And We” consists of the masses bobbing up and down in a half-hearted attempt at rhythm while repeating a chorus set against a beginners-level piano progression, possibly a rejected Billy Joel demo. Best unintentional laugh: Local chefs present a crudely shaped cake that’s supposed to resemble a Patriots helmet, and for a split second, it's briefly covered by a headshot of one of the female singers back at the studio. What technical wizardry!

1985-86 Seattle Seahawks, "The Blue Wave Is On A Roll"
Most inspirational lyric: "We work as one because we're a team / And now we're reaching for a dream"
Eventual record: 8-8 (Missed playoffs)

The '85 Seahawks know the power of a well-written song. This jazzy anthem is impossible not to enthusiastically bob your ahead along to, and it manages to instantly snap the team out of what seems like another stupefying and crushing defeat out on the field. "Hey, what's going on in here, man?" linebacker Michael Jackson asks his hangdog teammates before assuring them that "everything's gonna be alright." This is back when Michael Jacksons of all stripes were boastful of their name—Jackson is cheekily credited as performing "as Michael Jackson" afterwards—so when he busts out singing, it's hard not to be affected. A cross between the music being piped over a Bennigan's commercial, "Yakety Sax," and the demo button on a keyboard, it's largely a showcase for the team's off-the-field hidden talents: There are impressive vocal harmonies, a saxophone solo worthy of Saturday Night Live's ending credits, and a healthy dose of blooper-like sound effects and even an old lady getting in on the action by intoning the song's title. This is a team with a sense of humor, but that might ultimately be its problem: Maybe they should be, you know, practicing instead of singing.

1986-87 Los Angeles Rams, “Ram It”
Most inspirational lyric: "If you do it just right / You can ram it all night!"
Eventual record: 10-6 (Lost wild card round)

In this six-minute clip purporting to be a music video, listeners are bombarded with the words "ram it" precisely 91 times. Why is this so long? Well, because everyone on the team must contribute a couple of lines. Why 91 times? Because the Rams' designs on doing a techno opera on computer chips in the mid '80s were dashed by Kraftwerk who later shelved the project completely. Instead, we're left with a repeating guitar riff probably played on a keyboard, the requisite saxophone solo, and 91 opportunities to snicker at the song's title. Like when defensive back Nolan Cromwell declares, "I like to ram it as you can see / Nobody likes ramming any more than me." Still, The A.V. Club remains skeptical on Cromwell's passion for ramming.

1986-87 Cleveland Browns, "Masters Of The Gridiron"
Most inspirational lyric: "Do you realize / That all the dreams you had are heroes / Right before your eyes / Now you watch the great ones fall."
Eventual record: 12-4 (Lost AFC Championship game)

Technically not a rally song, this 18-minute short film starring the Cleveland Browns as medieval warriors fighting the Bears and Rams clans deserves to be canonized for its bewildering bliss. The plot: Browns center Mike Baab is knocked out during a game, sending him on a dream-like quest with his Browns teammates to capture a "great ring" and use as many lazy puns as possible ("From the plains of Passrushin' ... and the hills of Linebacka"). At one point, footage of Michael Stanley lip-syncing his Phil Collins-esque tune "Hard Die The Heroes" is interposed with a Samurais-Browns fight scene, and the director suddenly cuts to a shirtless man grappling with a black bear. Just think if that scene went awry: "Uh, coach, it's a long story, but your starting middle linebacker had been mauled to death by a bear."

1986-87 Los Angeles Raiders, "Silver And Black Attack"
Most inspirational lyric: "Matt Millen's my name, and I'm from Penn State / Those turkeys on offense are creatures I hate / I fight 'em, I chase 'em, I break up their blocks / Then I catch 'em, I hit 'em right out of their socks."
Eventual record: 8-8 (Missed playoffs)

A take on Stryper’s “Yellow And Black Attack,” the Los Angeles Raiders’ blatant stab at obtaining “Super Bowl Shuffle” glory shamelessly copies much of its Bears' predecessor—the beat-less shuffling, the guys wearing sunglasses in a dark room, the monotone singing. Thankfully, it does add the virtuosic guitar shredding that had been sorely missing from before. One by one, an endless stream of players steps to microphone so they can stumble through a verse, most of which can be paraphrased, “I am above average at my position” (“I’ve gone to the Pro Bowl most every year,” boasts defensive back Mike Haynes.) At seven minutes long, one expects the backup punter to show up for a moment of glory near the end. Two faces should be familiar to football fans: current FOX analyst Howie Long, in his second most embarrassing appearance behind spokesman for Radio Shack; and former Detroit Lions general manager/current ESPN analyst Matt Millen, at this point just a wide-eyed linebacker hoping to cripple an NFL franchise as fast as possible. (Or wishing he could play a vital role in expediting the collapse of the American auto industry, if you ask Lions fans.)

1988-89 Philadelphia Eagles, "Buddy's Watching You"
Most inspirational lyric: "Luis Zendejas. / I kick field goals. / Am I nervous? / Yeah, suppose."
Eventual record: 10-6 (Lost in division round)

Roughly three years after the Super Bowl Shuffle, this Eagles rap shows NFL songs beginning to evolve from Cameo knockoffs to Bobby Brown knockoffs. “Buddy’s Watching You,” which refers to coach Buddy Ryan (there’s no explanation as to whom Buddy’s creepily watching), spurns the fancy-pants videos of its predecessors by simply sticking to footage of the team in the recording studio, allowing their musicianship to take center stage. Hall Of Famer and ordained minister Reggie White uses the opportunity to draw parallels to his faith: “I hit quarterbacks like they committed sin.” And in the most pitiful moment of these generally pitiful videos, poor kicker Luis Zendejas is not only forced to admit he’s a nervous Nellie before a big kick, his overly stilted delivery implies producers told him, "Hey Luis, just slowly say the words and we'll put the beat behind it later in the mixing process."

1990-91 Miami Dolphins, "U Can't Touch Us" 
Most inspirational lyric: "Thank you for blessing me / With all those Dolphins and all that speed"
Eventual record: 12-4 (Finished 2nd in AFC East Division)

Though now impossibly dated, the Miami Dolphin's take on MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" was probably at the time considered borderline hip and only mocked by the team's detractors. After breaking formation at the start of the video as Cory And The Fins, rather than snap the ball, the team breaks out into song and does their best to imitate MC Hammer's dance moves sans parachute pants (instead donning obnoxious striped Zubaz pants) or actual dancing. They dutifully march in place while shots of the team pretending to play keytar and drums and whoever the singer is (clad in a white suit, bow tie, and no shirt for that extra dash of class) intercut throughout the whole thing. And while the song and music are both obvious nods to Hammer, they also manage to squeeze in a couple of LL Cool J lines too for good measure.

1996-97 Green Bay Packers, "Packarena"
Most inspirational lyric: "Every time they cross the goal line / they jump into the stands and its so fine."
Eventual record: 13-3 (Won Super Bowl XXXI)

Much like the Dolphins’ “U Can’t Touch This,” the “Packarena” draws from the hottest fad of that year, modifying the words to Los Del Rio's "Macarena" so that it's no longer about the seduction of a sassy Latino's flamenco dancing, and moreso about the seduction of safety LeRoy Butler's "Lambeau leap." Performed by a morning radio host, Packarena appears to be arranged through the wonders of MIDI, with stock audio clips of lineman crunching into each other. A duo of Wisconsinites spouts out the names of the key players with drunken gusto during a chorus that ends with "hut hut." As silly and tacky as Packarena is, at least it coincided with the popularity of the song it was parodying, unlike in 2008, when the Packers once again made the NFC Championship game and the radio station simply remixed the Packarena to fit the 2007-08 squad. Yawn.

2009-10 Minnesota Vikings, "Purple and Gold"
Most inspirational lyric: "The veil of the sky draws open / The roar of the chariots touch down / We are the ones who have now come again / And walk upon water like solid ground."
Eventual record: 12-4 (Lost NFC championship game)

In the midst of the unbridled anticipation of their NFC Championship appearance, Vikings' fans enjoyed this newly released fight song from Prince, which sounds suspiciously like a church hymn about an impending apocalypse. "Roar of the chariots?" The "elegant war?" Who, exactly, on the Vikings is walking on water? Maybe we're missing something—since Brett Favre can't manage to throw the ball to a member of his own team in the final seconds of championship game. Surely he's not capable of descending from the heavens, right? Aside from complicated, intricate funk-soul arrangements that suggest the next Vikings vs. Lions game will be as spiritual as a battle in Hades, credit Prince for finally introducing an element these NFL songs had been lacking—a vibrant flute solo that introduces the royal march of the drums and Prince's heavenly falsetto. Nothing says, “punishing blows to the quarterback’s vital organs” quite like the lithe toots of a woodwind.