Cristiano Ronaldo made his debut in Italy yesterday with his new club Juventus. Serie A has been off of my radar since Parma Calcio's relegation to Serie D a few years back.
I don't want to debate whether Ronaldo made the right choice to go to Italy (he didn't) or who's better Ronaldo or Messi (Messi), I want to talk about the Juventus Jersey. It looked cluttered and I had no idea why. Once I did some research, I wanted to know if the Juventus Jersey example would work in the NFL (I already know the answer).
(1) The coccarda is the ornament awarded to the winner of Coppa Italia tournement. I'm confident that the winner of, say, the AFC, would probably NOT be down with wearing the national ornament of the United States the next season.
(2) I don't think that NFL players would be cool with an Addidas symbol so prominently displayed on their jersey. Not that they care about Addidas per se, but because they have their own shoe deals. The NFL rule is that an athlete can wear any shoe from a league-approved footwear brand, Nike, Under Armour, or Addidas. But Odell Beckham has a deal with Nike and Tom Brady has a deal with Under Armour for example, many athletes don't fall under the Addidas umbrella.
(3) The winner of Serie A gets a patch of the Italian Flag to wear the next season. Let's have the NFL mandate that the winner of the Super Bowl has to wear an American Flag on their jersey.
I wonder how that will go over?
Editor's Note: ^ Sarcasm ^
(4) The club graphics in the corner? I don't think players care where the emblem is, as long as it doesn't look bad.
(5) Jeep Sponsor. If players make more money, I think they would be alright with nearly any corporate logo as long as it didn't contradict one of their own sponsorship deals.
(6) On the right shoulder (not seen) is the emblem of the Champions League with the word RESPECT under it. There has been a plague of racist incidents in Europe and the Champions Leauge wants to fight racism with awareness.
Using the Juventus example, let's move the NFL logo from the neckline to the sleeve and every team that makes the playoffs gets a small patch underneath that says AWARE to raise awareness to various vague injustices in America. That way, the players don't have to kneel anymore....
I'm sorry. There's a knocking at the door....
There seems to be an angry mob with torches and pitchforks on my front lawn....
And then there's this (Added 8/25/18):