“People want to sit down with the family and watch football,” National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell said Thursday night ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft. It is also increasingly common for people to want to sit alone or in groups and watch extraordinary athletes and physical specimens do nothing more physically demanding than walking a red carpet.
And, while the NFL has a long way to go before it can mount a real challenge to the style dominance of NBA tunnel-walk kings like Jerami Grant, Jared Vanderbilt or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, it was clear that the prospects in this year’s football draft Did some fashion homework.
The No. 1 draft pick, Caleb Williams, USC quarterback, was taken — to almost no one’s surprise — by the Chicago Bears. Mr Williams wore a sophisticated dark blue, double-breasted zipper suit from Chrome Hearts for his big night, worn over a dark blue T-shirt. It was a sleek tone-on-tone look that was only improved when he wore his new team’s logo snapback.
Or consider LSU star Jayden Daniels, who wore a beautiful dove-gray single-breasted suit, tieless, because he was selected by the Washington Commanders. A player known for his constantly changing hairstyles, Mr. Daniels completed his look by suddenly adding a Commander’s team cap to his current hairstyle, with a head full of lush twists.
Maybe New England Patriots pick Drake Mays wore a single-breasted suit with a skinny tie in a light gray color, not a look you’d ever see on social media entity LeagueFits, where, as Its author says, men who “used to go to war now post fitness checks before prime time games.” But he made a strong case for the value of playing conservative and sticking to his attire.
For this critic’s money, some of the more compelling looks of this evening in Detroit belonged to LSU wide receiver Malik Nabors, who lined his double-breasted suit with photo prints of “all the greats, all the guys who helped Malik What made” Malik Hai”? Marvin Harrison Jr., Ohio State wide receiver, who was the fourth pick and wore a gem-encrusted pendant with the gridiron image of his father, Marvin Harrison (19th pick in 1996), and who additionally wore sunglasses , a black suit, dark shirt and neckerchief; And, finally, 334-pound Samoan-American Oregon State offensive lineman Talisay Fuaga, who wore a print shirt and floral lei.
One impression on NBA tunnel-walk stars is that they rarely look as if they are wearing clothes they chose without the guidance of agents and stylists or were not paid to wear. In that sense, NFL Draft Night remained a strangely innocent affair.
Of course, on a publicity night for a billion-dollar business, there were inevitably abundant business connections behind this display of pomp. Still, compared to the most widely cross-platform events these days, and considered in light of an attention economy that often guarantees celebrities – newly appointed or otherwise – a fortune for each post, the draft It seemed almost strange. A good percentage of those selected in the draft did not even travel to Detroit to enroll. Like the rest of us, he too watched the commotion from home.