(Photo: Nike)

There had been some concern among fans that Nike was going to redesign every team’s uniform to look like the Oregon Ducks, but in general the changes are barely perceptible.

The biggest change across the board is to the collar, where Nike added their “Flywire” design which supposedly helps keep the collar flat against the pads, and some teams have included a two-tone color scheme to go along with it.  There are some other updates to the construction, fit, fabric and color shadings that I’m sure are huge differences to the uni-geeks over at Nike, but nothing the average fan would really notice.

The fine folks at uni-watch.com have a detailed team-by-team breakdown of changes to the uniform, and you can VIEW UP-CLOSE PHOTOS OF ALL 32 NEW UNIFORMS HERE.

It turns out the Packers, Raiders, Eagles, Falcons and Panthers passed entirely on the opportunity to update their unis, essentially rejecting Nike’s proposed modifications. But the Seahawks decided to go for it, re-vamping their color scheme to include neon green and updating the helmet logo for a completely new look. You can check out more detailed photos of the Seahawks uniform at this gallery, but it’s not nearly as bad as some people are making it out to be (photo below).

(Photo: Nike via ESPN.com)

Lastly, if you’re really into uniforms, the Giants posted a neat video with equipment manager Joe Skiba giving an inside look at the changes to the team’s uniforms, including an infomercial-esque test of the materials’ waterproofing properties.

Cam Rodgers (Photo: Dan Hicks via Twitter)

In case it slipped your mind (it almost did ours), the NFL’s finest players – minus the Giants and Patriots, of course – have gathered in Honolulu for a week of golf, beach time, goofing off and some half-assed preparation for the 2102 edition of the Pro Bowl.

Everyone knows the Pro Bowl is a joke as far as professional sports all-stars games go, since nobody – including the players – cares about the outcome, and therefore nobody really tries. And ever since they got rid of the NFL Skills Challenge in 2007, there’s even less of a reason for fans to tune into the week-long all-star festivities. I mean, has anyone ever gotten a decent explanation for why they stopped doing skills competitions? Instead of a half-speed football exhibition, wouldn’t it be far more compelling to watch these all-stars compete for the title of NFL’s fastest man, strongest leg, best hands, biggest arm, etc? Does anyone genuinely think there’s any more risk of injury here than with the game itself? Hell, I even tuned into the NHL’s All-Star skills competition yesterday just to check it out, and I don’t watch hockey at all.

But I digress. If you’re so inclined, the game itself starts at 7pm ET tonight, and you can watch all the non-action live online.

In the mean time, here are a few Pro Bowl links that caught our eye this week:

• Our banner pic (above) is Aaron Rodgers rocking his Cam Newton look earlier this week in Hawaii, from NBC’s Dan Hicks’ Twitter. Oh, and these are the shoes Cam is rocking this week
• The Jared Allen Experience gives you some insight into a Pro Bowl practice through the eyes of one of our favorite NFLers. Allen was not only mic’d up, but wearing a helmet cam for the day, and has plenty of fun with his fellow NFC elite while making sure not to work too hard. Best moments: Allen imitating the “Wide Nine” stance of Eagles DE Jason Babin, and jokingly asking Clay Matthews “How’d that Super Bowl run work out for you?” Matthews reply: “Shut up.”
• Nike released their brand new Vapor Jet gloves just in time for the Pro Bowl, and also in time to leak the Panthers new logo
• In an effort to increase the social profile for the game (and in stark contrast to their regular season policy), the NFL will allow players to use Twitter during the Pro Bowl game … but only from computers located in designated areas on each team’s sideline. 
• Speaking of the NFL Skills Challenge, here are Ben Roethlisberger (2005) and Ken O’Brien (1991) competing in the QB Challenge from back in the day. This wasn’t actually a Pro Bowl week event, but was cancelled at the same time as the Pro Bowl Skills Challenge in a sweeping ban of all skills-based competitions by the league back in November of 2007. Yeah … after watching those, I guess it wasn’t that exciting after all. Even with the dramatic music.
• And last but not least, here is the biggest hit in the history of the Pro Bowl: Washington’s Sean Taylor destroying punter Brian Moorman on a fake punt:

VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

We’re not likely to see any hitting like that tonight.

In the mean time, making fun of Favre will be our modus operandi around these parts. Let’s face it, you’ll be getting more than your share of genuine Favre hysterics/worship elsewhere over the next 6 months. And fortunately for us, someone went out and made this parody of the famous LeBron James “What Should I Do?” Nike commercial, featuring a pretty good Favre doppelganger. It covers all the basics, from dong shots to the retirement fake-outs, along with this mantra from the ole gunslinger: ”completions are way more awesome when you force ‘em through triple coverage! Remember that!”.

just to clarify, the artist renderings of NFL uniforms floating around ARE NOT from the league or Nike. stand down

Apparently, folks on the forum equipped with the Pro Combat template made their own designs for fun … because that what Internet geeks do.  Gotta’ hand it to them for doing such a good job, and regardless, we still find the designs interesting.

Chiefs looking very Florida St. (Source: lulzimg.com)

ORIGINALLY POSTED 11.18.10: Nike will serve as the designer of NFL uniforms beginning with the 2012 NFL season.

These unofficial and rumored concept sketches for some teams around the league.

What are your thoughts?

49ers
Colts 1/Colts 2
Cardinals
Chiefs 1/Chiefs 2
Bills
Bears
Bengals 1/Bengals 2
Cowboys
Jaguars 1/Jaguars 2
Eagles
Giants
Steelers

Steelers don't look so intimidating all of a sudden. (Source: lulzimg.com)

CONTINUE AFTER THE JUMP FOR THE REST OF THE FAKE UNIFORM DESIGNS

Falcons
Titans
Seahawks
Vikings
Raiders
Saints
Redskins
Jets
Patriots
Lions
Rams
Bucs
Browns
Dolphins
Panthers
Ravens
Texans
Broncos

Wait, is this Denver or Boise? (Source: lulzimg.com)

As we all know by now, one of the great actors of our generation, Dennis Hopper passed away over the weekend due to complications from prostate cancer.  He was 74 years old, and Hollywood isn’t likely to see another talent of his kind any time soon.

Best known for his roles in Easy Rider, Blue Velvet, Apocalypse Now, and Hoosiers, Hopper also made his mark on the NFL with a series of Nike Commercials in the mid-90′s, playing the role of the “Crazed Referee”. The Bruce Smith commercial above might be the most iconic of the series, but do you remember this classic with Sterling Sharpe?

“Choo-Choo! Choo-Choo Baby!”

“Marbles is a game”

Hopper was even able to make corporate shilling cool. RIP Dennis.

In news that made our inner child jump out of it’s seat, Nike is set to release a new series of sneakers in tribute to Bo Jackson. And what better way to immortalize the greatest 2-sport athlete of our day than by capturing him at the apex of his career … namely, as the unstoppable force that Jackson was in the old-school video game, Tecmo Bowl.  Behold the former Raider in all his 8-bit glory!

From First Cuts:

To start the Bo Jackson series, Nike is set to release two sneakers inspired by Bo’s appearances in classic video games. Dubbed the “Tecmo Bo” pack, the pack features two colorways of the Nike Air Trainer TW II, a Black and a Grey (the Grey is not pictured), that are both inspired by Bo’s days on the gridiron as an L.A. Raider. The tongue on the sneaker features an 8-bit version of Bo from the classic Tecmo Bowl NES video game.

The shoes are set to hit stores in August, but are available at select retailers now.  We make no apologies for our love of old-school video games here at ReadandReact, and this item has shot right to the top of our Xmas list. Glad to see the design wizards up in Beaverton are letting their geek flag fly.

Dewey Hammond vs Larry Fitzgerald

Blogger & YardBarker Editor Dewey Hammond was kind enough to stop by ReadAndReact to respond to our post from last week – Blogger Used by Nike to Pimp New Shoes – where we called into question the credibility of his “un-staged, spontaneous” footrace with Larry Fitzgerald.

It was a classy move by Dewey to take the time to respond, and we want to give equal time here.

So here’s his response, in its entirety:

Those (Nike TR1) banners were there for an event with local college kids at UC-Irvine. They definitely had nothing to do with me racing Larry. It was an afterthought at the event, and it happened only because I was talking smack all day with Larry, and it wouldn’t have happened had Larry not pulled rank and basically said he appreciated Nike’s concern, but he was racing, because “that’s what I do, and I’ll race all day long.” I appreciate your cynicism, though. I’m sure I would have thought the same thing had I not been there, but it was an “un-staged, spontaneous moment,” and maybe the reason many bloggers aren’t questioning that fact is because there were 30 other bloggers/reporters present for the race, and if you still don’t believe me that it was spontaneous? Well, I don’t really give a fuck one way or the other. Later.

As we said in our reply to Dewey’s comment, he’s right, our cynicism is fairly well built-in at this point, especially when it comes to a behemoth company like Nike.  And we apologize for questioning Dewey’s integrity. But we felt some skepticism needed to be injected into the conversation.  If we’re wrong, we’ll happily admit it.

Hammond vs Chestnut

It turns out Dewey has a long history of this sort of thing, including challenging competitive eating champion Joey Chestnut to a beer chugging competition … and winning! (video after the jump).  Moral of the story, here:  Dewey cleary has WAY more access and blogging experience than we do, so we’ll just bow down to the master here.  Mad respect, my man.

After the jump, in case you missed it, the video in question

Dewey Hammond defeats Joey Chestnutt in Beer Chugging Contest

This blogger challenges Larry Fitzgerald to a footrace, and shockingly loses twice.  In the second race, he gives up his Nike Trainer1 shoes (“which aren’t even out in stores yet!”):

In his original post, blogger Dewey Hammond claims that “the Nike folks in attendance tried to put a stop to it” … which must have been what they were doing when they set up all those Nike TR1 banners along the race course.  Please.

Obviously, this is a viral marketing ploy by the folks from Beaverton, and a pretty great one at that.  They got all of us sucker bloggers to post this video all over the web, getting all sorts of free subtle publicity for their newest shoe.  Pretty sneaky, sis.