Media MonsterNFL

Will Nike Radically Redesign The NFL’s Uniforms Next Year? It Looks Like It

by Dan Fogarty | 10:37 am, September 14th, 2011

2011 represents the last year that NFL uniforms will be made by Reebok. It might also be the last year that NFL uniforms look the way they do.

Starting in 2012, Nike takes over as the league’s official outfitter, and some have wondered if the company will radically redesign pro football’s uniforms. A new trailer, released by the company yesterday, has us thinking they will.

Narrated by Michael Irvin, the minute-plus clip touts Nike’s revolutionizing of high school and college uniforms. The video references utilitarian, material changes that will make the uniforms “faster and stronger.” The real question, though, is about design. Will we see new colorways? You have to assume we will, because Nike isn’t paying to outfit the most successful pro sports league in the country just to make slight alterations to the type of polyester used. They need to leave their mark, like they did with the college unis they unveiled yesterday.

Let’s talk about those college uniforms for a second. They looked an awful lot like those supposedly fake Pro Combat mockups that were uncovered last summer, the ones that had dramatically different uniform designs for all 32 NFL teams. Which makes us think that those uniforms may not have been fake at all, but actual mockups that Nike may have tried to cover up by saying they were fake. Conspiracy theory!