This week, the Cold, Hard Football Facts acknowledged Peyton Manning’s best performance and paid homage to the 10 greatest games of Tom Brady’s career. Well, those aren’t the only leaders in their field who will be honored this week. Today in the Frankie Five, we salute the official haircut of the Cold, Hard Football Facts: the Mullet.  
 
Long maligned as a passing fad or fashion faux pas, the Mullet has persevered through the decades. Joe Namath’s mutton chops and Holly Golightly’s beehive bouffant have come and gone. The Mullet continues to strut proudly through society, with no sign of shame or self-awareness. Whether adorning the toothless heads of hockey stars or hiding redneck domes in honky-tonk roadhouses, the Mullet works harder than a day-shift stripper at your local gentleman’s center for performing arts.  
 
It’s only fitting that the Frankie Five, your cultural tour guide to the gridiron lifestyle, salutes the men who taught us that it might be all business up front, but it's a party in the back.
 
Herewith is a whole lotta love for Five Great Mullets and the men who made them famous.
 
5. Jaromir Jagr

Hockey had seen its share of Mullets before Jaromir Jagr came along and redefined the sport's honorary haircut. Notice the curls up front? That's an unusual variation, like playing "cowboys and Pakistanis." We don't know of any scientific connection, but we believe that Jagr's superior strength and hand-eye coordination is a byproduct of having worn his Mullet so proudly. We also believe that someday we'll leave our mother's basement, so take that with a grain of salt. 
 

4. Richard Dean Anderson
We admire RDA's fine plumage not just for it's flawless appearance, but also for the great publicity it afforded other Mullets nationwide. When MacGyver graced the small screen, Mullet aficionados were no longer viewed as inbred, hillbilly douche bags with no appreciable skills … Nope, we learned that those inbred, hillbilly douche bags can hotwire a truck or build a landmine with a tube sock, some chewing gum and a buffalo nickel.
 
3. Billy Ray Cyrus  

There was ample internal debate amongst the trolls as to whether to include Billy Ray on the list of magnificent Mullets. Most of us think Billy didn't believe in the magic Mullet mojo and wore it only to advance a stumbling country music career and to heal his achy-breaky heart. In the end, his own take on the traditional form was so exhilarating that he could not be excluded. Seriously, look at that thing. It's the centaur of mullets: part man, part giant tarantula glued to his cranium and part horse with the flowing mane of a thoroughbred out the back. Anyone who steps up proudly and screams "It needs even MORE party in the back!" cannot be ignored.
 
2. Patrick Swayze

Before anyone gets the idea that we're too Swayze-centric around here, we'll say on the record that the reports of Swayze's involvement in the writing of this column are greatly exaggerated. He's just a damn good dancer and, dare we say, a revolutionary Mullet master. He takes something ordinary and makes it his own: one part feathery pompadour, one part ass-kicking Road House warrior. In fact, when discussing Swayze's Mullet style, it should forevermore be referred to as a "Swullet.”
 
1. Kurt Russell

Russell gets the No. 1 spot on the charts and in our hearts, and he is the first annual Frankie Five Lifetime Mullet Achievement Award winner. Russell has proudly sported his magnificent Mullet for parts of four decades – and no Mullet maestro has perservered in the face of greater odds. Jagr, for example, grew up in some eastern European shithole. The Mullet is all he knows. Russell grew up on the silver screen, in a city where trends come and go like beer cans at the Cold, Hard Football Facts cardboard-box world headquarters. Yet Russell’s Mullet remains as iconic as the Hollywood sign in the hills above L.A. His commitment is legendary. It reminds us of our own proud commitment to poor hygiene and internet porn.