We already knew that the NFL was ushering in a new age of the Pro Bowl by removing some of the more, well, traditional football aspects of the game.
In the interests of attracting notoriously skeptical football fans to watch what generally amounts to a glorified game of touch football played by disinterested (and occasionally hungover) participants a week before the Super Bowl in Hawaii, the league is allowing the players to select their own teams (with help from fans, because fan voting never goes awry!), using a shorter play clock and banning kickoffs and kneeldowns. So the Pro Bowl is going to feel a little different this year—but the Pro Bowl is also going to look like nothing you’ve seen on an NFL field…at least any field that’s not in Seattle.
The league unveiled new uniforms Tuesday—the Nike Elite 51 Pro Bowl Uniform, a full and rich name no doubt created to give this momentous innovation the respect it deserves— that, according to the release, are “a uniform system…built for the speed and energy of the all-pro event, and the heat of the host city.” In other words, they’re breathable. And bright. And there’s no denying they will catch the eye, then hold the eye, then mercilessly beat the eye into submission while silently commanding the eye to watch every minute of the Pro Bowl.
The Pro Bowl takes place in Honolulu on January 26, a week before the game that everyone really wants to watch.
(Don’t tell anyone else on the Internet, but despite the jokes, we actually kind of dig them. Hey, football is moving towards the future. Why can’t the uniforms stagger awkwardly into the next century, too?)
