ASHBURN — From one of the first few moments when Daron Payne arrived at the Redskins’ facility more than a year ago, cornerback Josh Norman coined a nickname for the defensive lineman. It’s not one Payne particularly thinks is fitting, either.
Norman appears proud of it.
“His nickname, he will tell you, is Ferdinand — like Ferdinand the bull,” Norman said with a laugh. “You think I’m playing, but it is. Like a bull in a china shop, how he just squeezes through those little holes.”
“You know him,” Payne said. “He’s weird.”
The story of Ferdinand, as the classic goes, involves a gentle bull who would rather smell flowers than fight in the ring.