If the Super Bowl is the N.F.L.’s biggest stage, the Super Bowl tunnel is its biggest catwalk. And on Sunday, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs dressed for it.
Several hours before the teams took the field at the Superdome in New Orleans, photos were streaming in of the players in their pregame fineries. By 4 p.m. Eastern time, we’d already witnessed Saquon Barkley’s Canadian tuxedo, Jalen Hurts’s very “Joker” purple sport jacket and Travis Kelce’s Ron Burgundy-ed disco suit.
This season-ending outfitpalooza — the game before the game — reflects just how significantly the N.F.L. has become a league of preeners and peacocks in the past decade or so. It wasn’t that long ago that players, for the most part, had one outfit for game day: a suit. And often a baggy and sad suit at that. It was worn out of obligation more than expression.
Oh, how that has changed in recent years, as football and fashion have morphed from strangers to spouses. (This is, after all, a sports league with its own fashion editor.)
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A turquoise plaid suit passes for a calm outfit in today’s N.F.L., making Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes one of the more straightforward dressers on Sunday, though the Oakley-endorsed athlete also threw on his Robocop-like reflective shades.Credit…Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
In his entirely eggplant get-up, the Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts looks as if he were either lobbying to be traded to the Vikings or presenting himself as just a huge Prince fan.Credit…Philadelphia Eagles
Whatever ignited the tunnel walk revolution, it is now its own competition. Players now enlist stylists and cozy ever closer to brands, scrounging together the most “you can’t have this” ensemble for any given Sunday.
If you wagered that players would dial things down for the Super Bowl — lean toward something sober for the weightiest game of the year — you’d have lost that prop bet.
This year’s Super Bowl walk-up was a buffet of furs (maybe though, this was a nod to Broadway Joe Namath), spangled sleeveless suits and more Louis Vuitton duffels than the private jet terminal in Nice.
The temperature in New Orleans on Sunday? Oh, about 76 degrees. That was apparently frigid enough for Chiefs wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins to trot out a mob wife fur.Credit…Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
There is, evidently, no squelching the attention-seeking appetites that course through the league.
This is just how the N.F.L. is now. It is a league of dandies with biceps the size of bread loaves. The players in their Trix-hued suits and sprinkling of spangles walked down the tunnel on Sunday afternoon offering a fitting culmination to this year in pro football.
Some of Sunday’s other memorable looks:
Eagles running back Saquon Barkley takes home the title of most unexpected brand of the day: He’s wearing a denim set from Sassafras, a Japanese label that (no joke) is inspired by gardening. Quite a serene ensemble to wear before trying to make his way around 300-pound defensive linemen.Credit…Chris Graythen/Getty Images
Yes, Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith is wearing Chiefs red and gold (let’s call it reverse psychology dressing), but there’s also quite a lot else going on here, like leisure-suit flared pants and a band-collared shirt. The ensemble doesn’t all work. That buckle closure looks as if it were lifted from a roller coaster. But A for effort.Credit…Philadelphia Eagles
Chiefs wide receiver Hollywood Brown, dressed like a gothic version of 1980s Eddie Murphy, carted the unofficial bag of this Super Bowl: Louis Vuitton’s monogrammed-out duffel. These lavish sacks are less a functional accessory (Mr. Brown’s bag barely looks like there’s anything in it) than a way to broadcast that yes, you are one of the best compensated athletes on earth.Credit…Chiefs.com
Chiefs defensive end Charles Omenihu, in a rhinestone set by Miami tailors Duane & Johnson (I mean, come on, is this not what you picture when you think “Miami” and “tailoring”) is adhering to a new N.F.L. fashion rule: If your biceps are too big to fit into a sport coat, just lose the sleeves altogether.Credit…Chiefs.com
