Hours before Ashton Jeanty, a running back with Sonic the Hedgehog speed, was selected by the Las Vegas Raiders with the sixth pick at Thursday’s first round of the N.F.L. draft, he clomped onto the red carpet in a pair of never-worn-before Crocs with shimmery Swarovski crystals across the toe.
The crystaled clogs were teased hours earlier on Crocs’s Instagram, accompanied by a droll caption: “yes, they’re real Swarovski.” Per the Crocs website, the Liberaced clogs aren’t available until May 6. Yet, if ever there was an occasion to introduce them, it was draft night.
In recent years the N.F.L. draft has mutated from an annual ritual with all the theatrics of a plumber’s convention, to a runway show for the freakishly fit.
It’s now taken on a new dimension in the post-N.I.L. era (referring to name, image, likeness, the 2021 change in N.C.A.A. policy that allowed college athletes to earn money). To watch the N.F.L. draft now is to detect just how adept these barely-20-somethings are at personal branding. If Deion Sanders (whose son Shedeur became the story of the night, falling out of the first round, well below his projection) was ahead of his time when he was drafted in 1989, challenging the league’s conservatism by wearing blocky sunglasses and several gold chains, that look-at-me tendency is all too pervasive now.
Today, college players that ascend to the N.F.L. enter the league with an acute understanding of themselves not just as players, but as brands — with all the promotional value that comes along from that.
“Every player is now realizing and learning that they’re their own big machine,” said Kyle Smith, the N.F.L.’s fashion editor, who helps the league and its players build relationships in the fashion industry. For top prospects, Mr. Smith said the draft “is the first time that the public really gets to see them and obviously they use fashion to express who they are.”
Often, that expression came through literally: Matthew Golden, who went to the Green Bay Packers with the 23rd pick, was Mr. Midas in a golden “G” necklace and a rococo-gilded suit as abashed as Versailles wallpaper. As he told a reporter from GQ, “My last name Golden, it just made too much sense to me.”
There was a “read my chest” theme emanating from the many players who brandished Hershey’s-bar-scaled gold chains etched with their nicknames. If nothing else, the pirate’s bounty of gold at the draft reflected the staggering amount of money sloshing around the college ranks, likely shepherded by the N.I.L. adjustments.
The evening’s self-marketing maestro was Shemar Stewart, who went to the Cincinnati Bengals with the 17th pick and wore not only a snowball-sized chain depicting an irate gorilla, but custom smoking slippers with the same menacing simian logo. A quick Google reveals that same emblem sitting at the top of his website: It is evidently never too early for a defensive end to mint his own Jordan-like logo in today’s N.F.L. If Mr. Stewart works out in Cincinnati, expect to see much more of that logo.
Occasionally, something more personal peeked through amid all this cocksure branding. There was something touching about Tetairoa McMillan, the Hawaiian wide receiver who went to the Carolina Panthers with the eighth pick, tossing a lei over his Joker purple suit. Will Johnson, one of just two players invited to attend the draft in person who did not get selected in the first round, showed off a ring made by his mother that he said contained the names of his deceased family members.
Within the cavalcade of tailored suits, Abdul Carter, who ended up being selected by the New York Giants with the third pick, stood out in his obsidian thobe, a traditional ankle-length garment. “Just paying homage to my religion,” Mr. Carter told a reporter on the carpet. “I wouldn’t be here without being a Muslim.” (Though it was his father’s oversized Adidas chain that really went viral online later in the night. The younger Mr. Carter has already landed a deal with the German sportswear company.)
The night though was conspicuously light on big luxury brands Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton, a signal that the globe-stomping industry remains oddly bearish on the N.F.L.’s marketing potential. Instead, the name mentioned most during the N.F.L.’s red carpet coverage was Brian Alexander, a Washington, D.C., tailor who has found his niche producing custom suits for football players, but who doesn’t have much of a profile beyond the sporting world.
“Some brands are really waking up,” said Mr. Smith. “Some brands, you know, take a little bit more time.”
Mr. Alexander is then at least partially responsible for the amount of achingly shrunken suits that hit the stage on Thursday. The fear of stumbling back into tarp-sized suits, a la say, Eli Manning at the 2004 draft, has players parking themselves too far in the other direction. And if fulsome pants are returning to fashion, that message certainly didn’t reach the draft, where bare ankles remained the norm.
There were also suits of shocking colors. The jolt from one of them was delivered by Travis Hunter, a player who hopes to break convention by playing offense and defense in the N.F.L. He tore onto the carpet in the exact shade of a Pepto Bismol bottle and told an interviewer before the draft that he didn’t want to pick a hue that might’ve hinted at his eventual destination later in the evening. The Heisman Trophy-winner was selected second overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars, his flamingo jacket pairing well with the teal brim of the team’s cap.
The strongest message of the night, though, was one made by doing the least. Cam Ward, the quarterback who, as predicted, was selected by the Tennessee Titans with the first overall pick, entered Lambeau Field humbly in a tan, single breasted suit with a white T-shirt underneath and a slight chain around his neck.
When you go first, who cares what you wear?
