The weirdest thing Donald Trump is 100% right about

I completely agree with President Trump.

(audience gasps)

Sorry. He’s right. American football SHOULD be called something else.

Now that the World Cup is underway, a months-old clip has resurfaced and gone mildly viral, thrusting his remarks back into the national conversation.

It was December 5, 2025. Trump was on stage at The Kennedy Center with FIFA president Gianni Infantino for the tournament’s group stage draw. He had just received and (sigh) self-bestowed his FIFA Peace Prize bribe. Er medal.

In his acceptance speech, Trump eloquently rambled:

“When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, soccer in the United States … we seem to never call it that (football) because we have a conflict with another thing that’s called football. But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called … I mean, this is football, there is no question about it. We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff. It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it.”

I totally agree.

To be clear, this is not my hill to die on. That’s reserved for insisting that Beverly Hills Cop was never a good movie.

But if I’m being asked - and certainly it appears I’m not - my official stance is that American football isn’t football and shouldn’t be called football.

The exact etymology is a bit murky. But let’s dive in.

Centuries ago, the word “football” was sort of a loose term for games played with an inflated ball. In the 1600s, the English brought these games to the American colonies. Along with smallpox. Sort of like a bonus.

The games evolved, and in the late 1800s Americans were playing a sort of hybrid version of football and rugby. They didn’t put too much thought into what to call it.

“Football. Are we good with football?”

“Huzzah!”

By 1882, they added lines every five yards to measure first downs, giving the field a distinct layout that folks compared to a metal cooking gridiron.

The nickname stuck. But it was just a nickname.

It should’ve been THE name: Gridiron.

Today’s game is very much not football. In fact, over the course of three hours, an actual foot only touches the ball about 30 times.

Kickoffs. Punts. Field goals.

The occasional drunk Bills fan wandering into play and tripping over the ball.

That means we see just one lousy kick for every six minutes of TV time. By that measure, we might as well call it Taylor Swift Ball.

Gridiron is objectively a cool name. It includes the word “iron.”

Iron is tough. Iron is strong. Iron is the backbone of America’s industrial past.

Oh, we should definitely call it Gridiron.

But nothing else should change. I’m not some crazy anglophile.

For example, I’ll concede that the game must maintain the imperial unit of measurement. Yards are just too ingrained in the rules.

Though, just for the record, I do think America should be on the metric system. It’s better. I could go on and on. Seriously. Don’t get me started on the mathematical genius of A-series paper.

If we ever achieve the gridiron dream - we won’t - America should probably also change “soccer” to “football.” It’s not as falsely-descriptive as calling American football football, so there’s no rush.

But football is better.

The word “soccer” comes from Association Football, the formal name used in England by the Football Association in the mid-1800s. Then some college dorks at Oxford took “association,” cut it down to “soc,” and added an “er” at the end because (haha weeeee!) that was the fad at the time. Adding an “er” to things.

Life was different before memes.

But “soccer” and “football” were both used interchangeably. In England.

That is until the sport’s boom in America in the 1980s. “Soccer” started getting used more and more over here, and the Brits were like, “Oh, hell no.”

There was a gradual backlash against our perceived Americanism of the game and it firmly cemented the term “football” as a result. Over there. Across the pond. And pretty much everywhere else in the world.

“Football” is an objectively better word for the sport. Still, just to be clear, y’all are the ones who came up with “soccer” in the first place. Just saying.

But whatever you call it, enjoy the World Cup. It’s the greatest sporting event on the planet. Soak it up. And, in just a couple short months, we’ll all be ready again for our great American tradition.

Taylor Swift Ball!