NFL Hard Knocks 2013 - Recycling of Cincinnati Bengals game jerseys.

[scottishcowboy41]

I just watched the final episode of this year’s NFL Hard Knocks with the Cincinnati Bengals. It showed footage of nameplates being removed from all the game jerseys of the players who didn’t make the team during the final cuts to make the 53 man roster. As a collector of Cowboys game jerseys myself, this was uncomfortable viewing.

I know teams do this plate-change now and again and more commonly issue players with unused jerseys from previous years. For example a player could have worn a 08 tagged jersey in 2011. But in this Hard Knocks episode every jersey for every cut player had the nameplate removed so the jerseys could be recycled and used for future players that join the team.

Now these weren’t star players by any means, but surely you Bengals fans would have loved to have bought those game jerseys for your collections, even though they were just game used or game issued pre-season jerseys of the bottom tier players on the roster. Fullback John “The Terminator” Conner was cut from the team, but his game jersey would have been a nice addition to any collector of Bengals gamers. Or what about Aaron Maybin, an 11th overall pick by the Bills a couple of years ago, and a huge bust. I’m sure collectors of NFL gamers of former Penn State players would have snapped that one up. I sure did wince a bit as those CONNOR and MAYBIN nameplates were unstitched.

With the way the economy is these days, all businesses want to save money. So will this extreme recycling of game jerseys by the Bengals and other NFL teams become more prevalent in the future? I sure hope not! I know these were bottom tier players, but a game used jersey is still a game used jersey. I would have thought the teams would make more money selling these jerseys on via NFL Auctions, auction houses, companies like Steiner, the team Proshop or the team tent sale etc, than Nike would charge them to make new one’s etc.