The NFL has gained quite a reputation in recent years for its emphasis on what many people believe to be petty, unnecessary rules.
So much so, that it has earned itself the moniker of the N.F.L. – the No Fun League.
And you know what? Considering their rather draconian policies on what accessories players can wear alongside their uniforms, I’m inclined to agree that these guys have gotten a little bit carried away with all of the rules and regulations they continue to subject the players to.
Especially when you consider some of the rather aggressive fines that players can get tagged with if they violate any of these ticky-tacky rules.
So, without further ado, let’s check out 10 accessories that the NFL has banned—in some cases for no good reason!
10. Foreign Substances
As much as the NFL and even some of its all-time legends like Jerry Rice, try to downplay it, foreign substances, in Rice’s case, the adhesive add-on, Stickum, have long been a part of the NFL’s tradition.
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Most of the substances that fall under this umbrella policy have followed a fairly similar pattern… Players are looking for a competitive advantage. Usually, something to get a better grip on either the football or the opponent… OR something that makes them harder for their opposition to grab.
The substance starts to get some notoriety and more and more players start using it until it hits a sort of critical mass and the league wises up to it.
Then, it becomes a game of cat and mouse between the officials and the players. The players find new ways to hide their usage—and the refs key in more and more, looking for the telltale signs that a foreign substance may be affecting the game they are officiating.
There are quite a few different substances besides just Stickum that players have used over the years…
A lot of players use Tuf-Skin—a spray used by training staffs to make sure that pre-wrap adheres, to get an added grip during wet conditions.
Joe Montana said that some of his linemen back in the day used to spray themselves with silicone so that opponents couldn’t easily wrangle them.
Other players would use Vaseline… and A LOT of it on their upper bodies—seeking the same effect.
Among the banned foreign substances these are the more innocuous options… Some players really went rogue back in the 70s and 80s by lining their gloves with Kevlar, the same material used in bullet proofs vests, to give an extra pop when they clubbed at an opposing player in the trenches.
Okay—that one I can see why the NFL had to drop the hammer one!
9. Hard Objects
Sometimes, the NFL likes to get ahead of these kinds of things… and make one rule that is going to cover a plethora of perceived transgressions that players could commit.
And that is exactly what the league did with its “hard objects” ban.
While this sounds extremely vague—the reality is that this was done intentionally by the league—and the rule has done exactly what the NFL wanted it to in.
Take the now infamous Odell Beckham Jr. Richard Mille incident.
The oft-scandal embroiled wide receiver took it upon himself to wear a Richard Mille watch that reportedly sold for somewhere in the neighborhood $250 grand. Which, let’s face it, is a ridiculous a move to begin with.
And if that weren’t enough—after the league came down on him, OBJ decided to raise the stakes by wearing an even more expensive Richard Mille watch.
This one is believed to be worth $2 million dollars. Again… A preposterous move.
It does, however, seem that the rule worked as intended because this go around Beckham decided only to wear the watch during warm-ups, avoiding another penalty.
The utility in this rule for the NFL is that it doesn’t just prevent players from wearing flashy watches on the field and potentially muddying the waters for their existing league-wide sponsorship deals, it can really be applied to anything that the league deems troublesome in that vein… Like a big chain with one of those over-the-top pendants that some players like.
We may not like it, but the NFL does deserve some props for its lawmaking abilities.
8. Custom Shoes
The NFL is all about uniformity. It wants its players to get in line, follow the rules, and reflect the “values” that the league likes to project.
And for some reason, the powers that be have decided that wearing custom cleats was a huge risk to the league’s ability to control its players and thus, it decided to implement strict rules around the footwear that players could use to accessorize their look.
The NFL is—to its credit—starting to get a little bit more progressive with these rules… Perhaps sensing a changing in the tides of public opinion.
In 2017, they did away with the rigid rules around colorways and design guidelines to a slightly more lax ruling.
And in a rather hilarious half-measure, they also acquiesced to allow the players to wear completely customized cleats… but only during the warm up for the games.
And, of course, the cleats still couldn’t have an unlicensed branding on the or “objectionable” designs, which, again is an intentional vaguery used by the NFL to crack down on actions or things it doesn’t like without real cause.
Like I said though… The NFL is getting a little bit more progressive in this arena and has made Week 13 “My Cleats My Clause” week, which according to the league’s site is an opportunity for:
“NFL players reveal their passions beyond the game and wear their hearts on their feet through My Cause My Cleats. Players have the opportunity to pick a cause that is important to them and represent their chosen organization on custom designed cleats.”
This is a huge step in the right direction… now all we need is the league to come to its senses and let players accessorize like this every week, because in addition to the players supporting and driving attention toward a lot of great causes, a lot of these designs are absolutely fire!
7. Bandanas
While it may seem absolutely ridiculous… which, frankly, it is… The NFL has decided to ban its players from wearing bandanas during games.
What’s crazy about this, is that back in the day, the league had already cracked down on bandana usage, by mandating that any players that wore them had to ensure that they matched team colors.
But apparently, that wasn’t enough for the No Fun League… and in 2001, they decided to reopen the evaluation and ultimately ban them entirely. And this was a rather sweeping motion by the NFL owners, as the vote closed at 30 to 1.
There was some backlash about this decision at the time, as people, perhaps rightfully, believed that this was a culturally-biased move by the NFL that was trying to sort of white wash the perception of the league and its players despite the league being predominantly African-American.
As per usual though—the league won out and it was able to slide the bandana ban in without too much issue.
6. Custom facemask
About 5 to 10 years ago there was a big boom of NFL players wearing custom facemasks with all kind of awesome designs.
Like the Bane-looking design we saw Terrell Suggs wear in his return to action.
Robert Mathis and Darnell Dockett, were two other high-profiled players that wore these awesome masks during the stretch.
Unfortunately, the NFL did what it does best and nipped all that fun in the bud, banning the customer facemasks entirely—for really no reason other than trying to control the players and create a uniform… A.K.A boring look.
5. Custom Tinted Visors
The world of tinted visors is another right once enjoyed by players, even legendary ones like former Chargers running back, Ladinian Tomlinson, that the league has since disallowed its players from partaking in.
Nowadays, the NFL has decided that players are only allowed to wear these slick-looking visors if there is a medical permit.
Check out this ruling from the league’s operations site:
“If a player suffers from migraines or is sensitive to sunlight, he’ll need a medical exemption to put a tinted visor on his helmet as a replacement for the permitted clear visor. The restriction isn’t arbitrary; at times medical personnel need to see an injured player’s eyes without removing his helmet, and tinted visors interfere with that.”
I don’t know about you, but this feels like a stretch to me… How often do medical personnel really need to be able to see a player’s eyes without removing his helmet?
And even if there was an extremely dire situation that required them, you have to think that they would be able to find a relatively simple to way to detach the visor and inspect the injured player’s eyes…
The crazy thing about this one is that it honestly feels little bit counterintuitive to the whole player safety thing… Yes, a lot of the whole tinted visor craze was because players like the look, but at the same time, there is a practical application as it can really help guys see under bright lights or in intense sun.
Call me crazy, but I feel confident saying that giving players the ability to see when they are on the field might be important to keeping them safe out there!
4. Short Pants
Granted, this one sounds like a bit of an oxymoron straight out of the gates, but the NFL was swift in its ruling on its players wearing “short” pants.
And the players who violate this rule open themselves up to some rather hefty fines… Just ask Odell Beckham Jr. who caught a near $15,000 dollar fine after wearing “short pants” against the Seahawks back in 2019.
While OBJ may not be the most sympathetic figure out there, it is tough to see the rationale on this one… I mean, does the NFL really need legislate on the length of the pants that its players wear?
Give me a break, Gooddell.
3. Yeezy Cleats
Back in the beginning the 2016 NFL season, there was a sudden, but sizable movement of NFL stars that were rocking the new line of YEEZY cleats designed by the controversial rapper, Kanye West.
As it turns out, West decided to take upon himself at the beginning of the NFL season to gift a pair of his high-end cleats to a handful of notable NFL stars, like Von Miller.
DeAndre “Nuke” Hopkins, the then Houston Texans All-Pro wide receiver, was another one of the biggest names wrapped up in this controversy.
He wore the Yeezy 350 and the league decided that despite the cleats being remarkably close to a “solid base color” that the league requires, the NFL fined him $6K for black-and-white speckles that were featured on the colorway.
The end result of these fines was an unofficial ban on Yeezy cleats across the league, because as much as the players liked to wear these stylish kicks, they decided collectively that it wasn’t exactly worth six grand a week to wear them.
2. Tear away jerseys
Back in the 1970s, tear away jerseys were all the rage in the NFL… and for good reason—according to Kent Stephens, a curator and historian of the College Football Hall of Fame, who traced their original usage back to the University of Texas wayyy back in the olden days.
“The jerseys were surprisingly around for quite a while, but the earliest examples I have seen are from the University of Texas,” explained Stephens, “I think the reasoning behind them was clearly to give offenses an advantage. Being able to break away from tacklers clearly gave them an edge.”
Unsurprisingly, this effective hack made its way to the NFL shortly after… but after a few notable games were impacted by the jerseys, the NFL decided to take a look at banning them, officially doing so in 1979.
1. White Cleats
While the NFL has quite a few rules around what cleats players can wear—the white cleats ruling is one of the most insane ones.
Just ask former Green Bay Packers linebacker, Clay Matthews, who caught a tight $10,000 dollar fine in 2014 for wearing a pair of pearly white cleats on game day.
The crazy thing is that if you were just watching the game on TV, you probably wouldn’t even notice that Matthews was wearing anything even remotely close to being out of regulation… Look at this things!
But thems be the breaks when you step onto an NFL field… You are at the mercy of Roger Goodell and his power-crazed regime’s punitive measures.
