So we were watching the pilots last night of Parks & Recreation and Southland (our guess is that the producers of each show already received a call from Rita Kierson advising them that NBC is passing), and we heard for the first time anywhere other than in NFL parlance a term that we’ve heard in NFL parlance for years.
The term in question is “slapdick.” As John Feinstein points out in Next Man Up, “Anyone who is anything less than brilliant at his or her job is, in the world according to [former Ravens coach Brian] Billick, a ‘slapdick’ — or ‘a slappy,’ for short.”
And it’s not just Billick. Everyone in and around the league is familiar with the term, and any non-slapdick knows how and when to properly use it.
So when one cop used the term “slapdick” while talking to another cop in what likely will be remembered as a slapdick show, we smiled with the knowledge that the term we first heard back in 2001 has finally left the NFL nest.
So fly, you little slapdick. Fly.