PHILADELPHIA – Thursday night’s first round of the NFL Draft in Philadelphia will be the culmination of a long journey for 32 prospects, fulfilling their dreams of becoming a professional football player. These are dreams that started back as children, throwing the football around in the yard or the park with friends, and continued to grow more possible as they moved through the ranks of Pop Warner to high school to college ball.
For the 22 that accepted invites to come to Philadelphia, they’re on the precipice of hearing their name called and walking out onto the stage to make their first appearance as a member of their new NFL team. It will be a moment they’ve all been waiting for, but on one of the biggest nights of their lives, when the whole football world is watching, they have to make sure they’re looking their best for the moment.
Draft night fashion and style has become as big a part of the draft week process as anything for these prospects. These pictures of them on stage, holding up their new jersey, will be something they will want to keep forever and will be their first impression on their team’s fanbase, so they want to make sure they’re looking right, from head to toe. With team interviews and workouts pretty much over, draft week is all about media obligations and fine-tuning their look for Thursday.
This is something they take very seriously, and they don’t take the decision of what suit to wear lightly. The suit is where it all starts, and if you miss with that, you’ll be looking back at draft pictures for the rest of your life shaking your head. For former LSU running back Leonard Fournette, as of Monday, he was still weighing his options for his draft night suit. By Wednesday, most guys have their suit picked out but they don’t like to give much away.
Draft fashion is a game of showmanship, and you can’t let your hand be known ahead of time, because someone might try to one-up you or steal an idea. This is how you can tell who will be stepping out in something that pushes the boundaries a bit — even when they say it won’t be “flashy.” Former Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson and LSU safety Jamal Adams (a projected top-5 pick) insist that they’ll be dressed in something not too over the top, but offering a balance between flash and classic style.
“No no no, I wouldn’t say flashy,” Adams said after insisting he couldn’t give me a hint. “I would just say classy with a pop. Yeah I’m not really flashy, but I like to have a little pop to be a little different. It’s definitely a standout suit, but again, everybody’s gonna be dressed well and everybody’s gonna have a smile on their face.”
Watson gave a similar answer to Adams when asked.
“Yeah, I have my suit picked out and everything, and the shoes,” Watson said. “I’ve just got something classy and nothing too out there, but nothing too boring. Pretty right there stuck in the middle.”
But can we believe him? Let’s take a trip down memory lane to the 2015 Heisman Trophy ceremony.
That is Watson on the right, in case you did not know, and while he is absolutely pulling that suit off, I wonder if he would say that it’s “not too out there.” I have a feeling Watson and Adams will be stepping out in some fairly colorful attire on Thursday night, even if they want to downplay it. The reason I think that is, if they really were wearing something low-key, they’d just tell you. Take former Alabama defensive end Jonathan Allen, a projected top-5 pick. When I asked what he’d be wearing, he didn’t mind telling me, because there wasn’t a whole lot to tell.
“I’ve got a regular black suit with some pretty stylish shoes,” said Allen.
Ah, yes, the shoes. If you’ve watched the NFL Draft in recent years you know about the shoes. Those $7,000 Louboutin’s with the spikes on them. The Dante Fowler Jr. joints from 2015.
Look at them in all their glory. Before we move on with this shoe discussion, I do want to make sure you all know that Dante Fowler Jr. is the gold standard — no pun intended — for draft fashion. The shoes are just the tip of the iceberg. Look at this man’s suit.
The bow tie, the chains, the red piping on the lapels, and the shoes. It’s all just impeccable stuff.
Anyways, back to shoes. The NFL Draft is a big night for the players and teams, but it’s also a big night for Christian Louboutin, because his shoes are the shoe of choice from the vast majority of the 22 prospects that will hit the stage on Thursday night. After Watson tried to tell me he wasn’t going to be flashy, there was a funny exchange about the shoes.
RK: “So not the Louboutins with the spikes on them?”
DW: [Drops his head in silence with a smirk]
RK: “Ohhhh?”
DW: “[laughs] Yeah, I’ve got some of those. That’s why I said nothing too flashy.”
RK: “So keep flash to the shoes and classic with the suit?”
DW: “Yeah, exactly. Balance everything out.”
When Jonathan Allen mentioned he had some stylish shoes, all I had to ask was, “Louboutins?”
“Yeah. Red bottoms, you know it. Got to,” said Allen.
Even Leonard Fournette, who says he’s going to keep it “low-key” with his suit, said he’d bring flash with his shoes. Flash with the shoes almost assuredly means some red bottoms.
The shoes are critical to the draft night look, but guys also have to make sure they’re groomed right. This is where being a professional and not an amateur anymore becomes a great advantage, because the sponsors are always there to take care of you.
“So from head to toe, no earrings — that’s a college thing that I left out — and gotta have a clean cut, so Braun is going to hook me up there,” Jonathan Allen said. “They’ve got a new multi-grooming kit with all the tools and a beard trimmer that’s going to help me get my goatee right, and that’s something I take great pride in. Cause if you just have a raggedy beard it hurts your confidence — you understand you’ve got a beard yourself — gotta keep it trim and clean, so I’m going to do that soon enough.”
For Jamal Adams and fellow former LSU defensive back Tre’Davious White, they made sure to bring a little help with them from Baton Rouge to look right on draft night.
“We brought our barber out here from LSU, TJ Malveaux,” Adams said, while Malveaux cleaned up White’s cut on Wednesday. “He’s been cutting us since college and we feel very confident in him to have us right, as well as my family I just connected with at Head & Shoulders. They’re definitely going to have me prepped up and ready to go tomorrow night. So I’m just enjoying everything, soaking it all in.”
The NFL Draft is a lot of things. It’s the fulfillment of hundreds of dreams, for both the players and their families that have put so much in during this journey. It’s hope for teams that have long been mired in mediocrity or worse that they’ll have landed their star for the future. It’s also a chance to show out, in your finest suit and, of course, some Louboutins.
