International Dance Day arrives on April 29. It is celebrated every year on that date -- the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre, the man who is considered to be the creator of modern ballet.
NFL players often perform a ballet of sorts upon reaching the end zone -- their touchdown dance. It has become a bit of a dance competition in recent years as the NFL now allows group celebrations again.
As we know, you can bet on if specific players will score a touchdown on the best sports betting sites, but instead of betting, let's simply look back at the top 5 most memorable endzone dances of all time.
Justin Jefferson, The Griddy
While Justin Jefferson popularized the Griddy in the NFL, it was actually started by a Louisiana man named Allen Davis back in the mid-2010s when the Nae Nae was all the rage. He showed it to his friend, then-LSU wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase, who then passed it on to his college teammate, Jefferson.
Jefferson first broke out the Griddy on the field in a 2019 game vs. Texas when he went off for 163 yards and three TDs. Partly because the 2019 LSU offense was a cheat code in and of itself, the dance caught on to the point where the video game Fortnite added it in 2020.
The Minnesota Vikings drafted Jefferson with the 22nd pick of the 2020 NFL Draft, and The Griddy made its way onto the NFL scene almost immediately. He had a monster debut season, breaking the NFL single-season rookie record for receiving yards with exactly 1,400, a mark that Chase broke again the following year. More importantly for Griddy fans, Jefferson scored seven touchdowns, and thus performed his famous touchdown dance for each and every one of them. Jefferson was subsequently added to Fortnite as a character soon thereafter on April 27, 2021.
Jefferson has continued to Griddy his way to the top of the list of NFL wide receivers, tallying 324 catches for 4,825 yards and 26 total touchdowns through three seasons. The Griddy is now a league-wide phenomenon with players of all shapes and sizes trying to match what Jefferson can do.
Ickey Woods, The Ickey Shuffle
Were it not for his famous touchdown dance, it is unlikely many would remember Elbert "Ickey" Woods.
He came into the NFL as a second-round pick of the Cincinnati Bengals in 1988 after a huge senior season at UNLV. Woods then rushed 203 times for 1,066 yards and 15 TDs in his rookie year and, alongside QB Boomer Esiason, led the Bengals to the Super Bowl, where they ultimately lost on Joe Montana's famous game-winning touchdown pass to wide receiver John Taylor in Super Bowl XXIII.
Unfortunately, Ickey tore his ACL in the second game of the 1989 NFL season and never regained his form. He only lasted two more seasons in the NFL, adding just 459 more career yards and 12 more TDs to his rookie totals.
While his on-field accomplishments were relatively pedestrian, the Ickey Shuffle lives on to the point where he appeared in a 2014 GEICO ad celebrating his number getting called in a supermarket deli line. Neil Patrick Harris even did the Ickey Shuffle in an episode of "How I Met Your Mother."
Ickey's famous touchdown dance started early in the 1988 NFL season. He told his mom he would do a special dance when he scored his next touchdown. He found the end zone in September versus the Cleveland Browns and did a very scaled down version that was panned by a teammate. Ickey then workshopped it and debuted what became the Ickey Shuffle, not once but twice on October 10, 1988, versus the New York Jets.
The NFL was not pleased, and soon made a rule banning excessive celebration. So, in order to keep the Ickey Shuffle alive, he moved his signature touchdown celebration to the Bengals' sideline. And the beat went on for the remainder of his NFL career.
Deion Sanders, High Stepping
Back in his playing days, Deion Sanders, also known as "Prime Time," was about as electric a player as the NFL had ever seen. He defined the term shutdown corner. Teams would often just not throw to his side of the field.
Despite playing on defense, save for a few snaps at wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys in 1996, Deion managed to find the end zone 19 times in his 13-year career. Whether it was a pick 6 or a kick return, Sanders always made sure to high step his way to the end zone -- sometimes with 20-plus yards to go before he actually hit paydirt.
Prime Time was that much faster than everyone else on the field that he could still outrun professional athletes, all the while high stepping.
Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, The Funky Chicken
Billy Johnson, also known as "White Shoes," had a relatively unremarkable receiving NFL career from 1974 to 1988, catching a total of 337 passes for 4,211 yards and 25 touchdowns. He added another eight kick and punt return touchdowns, which is really where White Shoes made his name.
However, he was most famous for his Funky Chicken celebration dance, which was based off a song by Rufus Thomas called "Do The Funky Chicken." It might not have literally been the first end zone dance, but Johnson's late 70s and early 80s dance moves were his most notable achievement in the NFL.
Joe Horn's Cell Phone Touchdown Celebration
While this isn't actually a touchdown dance, it gets a mention here due to just how memorable the touchdown celebration was.
In Week 15 of the 2003 season, the New Orleans Saints were playing the New York Giants on Sunday Night Football. The Saints' star wide receiver, Joe Horn, decided to hide a cell phone under the padding of the lower part of the goal post.
Horn famously told his mother that if he scored twice, "I'm going to get my cell phone out." And he did just that!
When the wide receiver scored that second TD, teammate Michael Lewis lifted up the padding, and Horn picked up his phone and called his kids. That amazingly included his then-four-year-old son, Jaycee, who is now an NFL player for the Carolina Panthers.
Horn got fined $30,000 for the stunt, and is perhaps most remembered for the cell phone celebration.
