No Cleats For You! NFL Uniform Nazis Nix Madden Tribute

Raiders receiver DeSean Jackson must've made the pregame mistake of bad-mouthing the NFL's lima bean soup, or maybe he compared Sunday's uniform inspector to Al Pacino. Whatever it was, it convinced the league's uniform Nazis to force Jackson to remove his pregame cleats, which honored the recently deceased John Madden, or be removed from the game himself.

Maybe he can come back and try again in one year.

In a since-deleted Instagram story, Jackson said: "@NFL hated on me and said if I didn't take my cleats off they was gonna remove me from the game!! I had these made for the legendary John Madden."

Jackson was referring to the cleats he had custom-made to honor former Raiders coach John Madden. The cleats featured Madden's name, signature, a Raiders logo, a quote from Madden, his birth and death years and a picture of the icon. They were silver and black, the Raiders' color scheme.

But the No Fun League wouldn't allow Jackson to wear the cleats during game action against the Colts (a 23-20 Vegas win), likely because they couldn't profit off of it. Had the league itself designed the cleats, you can bet Madden's mug wouldn't have just adorned Jackson's feet on Sunday, it'd also be on its way to the shelves of an athletic retailer near you!

The league is fine with players wearing any cleats up until the game starts, but by kickoff, players must follow their rules or it's "no soup for you."

"This is standard procedure," said NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy. "Players can wear specially designed cleats during pregame but wear their regular cleats during the game."

The NFL's uniform police could've looked the other way for this one occasion and acted as though Jackson had simply ordered the crab bisque without any hoopla.

Instead, they opted to tell Jackson and his cleats, "Adios, muchachos!"

 

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