ClayNation: You down with L.T.? G.P? Yeah, you know me

Being a white guy and referring to anyone by their initials makes me uncomfortable. I always think it's the rough equivalent of being the suburban guy who started using the word "phat" back in 1995 or the current white guy who wears his baseball cap just a little bit askew into the neighborhood Macy's.

There's just something about it that screams "No one likes me and late at night I cry myself quietly to sleep after my 'best friend' didn't show up for our Xbox Live Halo 2 game."

"P.M." puts his opponents to sleep. (Getty Images)

Lingo has to have absolutely filtered down through the entire vernacular before I feel comfortable using it. That's why I'm always happy to use classic words or phrases like "homes-skillet," "booking," "fly" and occasionally, if the mood is right, "supa dupa fly." What can I say? Sometimes you just have to roll like that.

Right now there are three current NFL players who everyone knows by their initials: Terrell Owens (T.O.), LaDainian Tomlinson (L.T.) and Larry Johnson (L.J.).

This compares with a slew of NBA players who have all achieved a higher degree of self-marketing acumen via their initials. We have Kevin Garnett (K.G.), Allen Iverson (A.I.), Gary Payton (G.P.) and, of course, the grandfather of the initial era, Michael Jordan (M.J.). What's interesting is that not a single one of these initials actually has a double meaning. They're just random initials that somehow have caught on.

How is it that certain players end up being known by their initials and other players don't? For instance, why no Peyton Manning (P.M. -- he puts his opponents to sleep), Reggie Bush (R.B. -- get it, he's the running back, too), Jay Cutler (J.C. -- like Jesus, only with a better arm), Tiki Barber (T.B. -- his moves are sick) or Brett Favre (B.F. -- he's everybody's best friend, the Teddy Ruxpin of quarterbacks).

All of this initial business seems sort of like giving yourself a nickname.

Can you imagine if one of your buddies just started referring to himself utilizing only his initials? Wouldn't you make fun of him with every ounce of your soul? Yet, put him in pads or onto a basketball court and it's completely fine. Cool, even. And the weirdest thing about it all is that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to why a particular set of initials catch on and others don't.

"R.B." is a ... running back. (Getty Images)

Early in the season I saw a lot of people wearing "V The Quarterback" T-shirts here in Nashville to support Vince Young. This was, of course, an extremely clever play on the President's own extremely clever "W The President" campaign.

This single-initial business seemed pretty arbitrary to me. I could also be "C The Columnist" without too much thought. As catchy marketing slogans go "V The Quarterback" seemed about as effective as those Digiorno commercials featuring Steve Spurrier. After all, was Vince Young trying to somehow co-opt 1/26th of our alphabet and make it his own? Plainly, this was an overreach.

So somebody made the call that "V The Quarterback" was done for and everyone made the switch to V.Y. Which, somehow, has exploded all over Nashville. Not least because Vince Young has taken to referring to himself in third person initial.

After watching him play against the New York Giants, my friend Tardio (the guy who couldn't finish a daiquiri in Baton Rouge) called and said, "V.Y. was awesome." He just threw the initials out there like it was no big deal. This is despite the fact that in all the years I've known Tardio, I've never heard him refer to anyone by their initials. Ever. I couldn't even speak for a few seconds.

Finally I said, "Did you just call Vince Young, V.Y.?" Tardio acknowledged that he had. "Hey," Tardio said, "he deserves it."