Engineered From Inside Out

Added on 04 April 2012

In NFL (American football) news, Nike have replaced Reebok as the official supplier to the league. Unlike in the UK, where each team goes to a sports company for a deal and produces a new strip every other year for commercial purposes, the NFL does a deal with a manufacturer who then supplies each team with the same product. They like uniformity in their uniforms.

Curiously, given that America is ruled by unbridled capitalist thuggery, in changing from Reebok to Nike, for the most part they haven't actually changed the strip. It looks more or less the same, meaning that anyone with their #10 Tiquan Underwood jersey, won't actually have to go out and buy a new one just to be trendy. Which is the opposite of what happens in the UK.

Anyway. Nike issued copy to go along with their new uniforms, and it is so utterly preposterous that it almost makes ridicule redundant. The wording on the Patriots uniform page begins:

The New England Patriots have chosen to take full innovation minus Flywire technology in the neckline in order to stay true to their design aesthetic. While the Patriots look will stay true to years past, the new Nike Elite 51 Uniform was designed and engineered from the inside out, focusing on creating a system where the baselayer, padding, jersey and pant work in concert. A few of the new innovations include increasing sleeve articulation for better range of motion and integrating new four-way stretch fabrication to provide a streamlined shrink-wrap fit.

It continues at some length, defying the fact that they're talking about a strip for men to play sport in rather than a rocket ship that will fly to Mars in less than 12 hours, using words like thermoregulation, lockdown, hydrophobic, Nike Pro Combat Hyperstrong and deflex, then finishes with information on the "aircraft-grade aluminium D-ring belt".

Holy all kinds of fuck. Really? A belt that's so strong it would hold together an aircraft? What would happen if they didn't have such a belt. By thunder, their trousers would fall down?

I wonder if Americans read that shit and think, 'Holy crap, that's some fucking uniform by the way, we are going to be so great next season playing in it, (even though all the other teams are going to be hydrophobically thermoregulated).' Or do they read it and think what all right-minded men would think?

As Boromir said: The world of men will fall, and all will come to darkness.

This is why. Shit like this.