Injuries & Oddities: The “Not All NFL Player Commercials Suck” Edition

By Ha Kung Wong

Twitter: @FBGarbageTime

Hey everyone!

So last time we covered a whole bunch of injuries, and I know there are a whole bunch more, including to such high profile players as LeSean McCoy and Kelvin Benjamin.  But we’re going to look at that later in the week.  I think I owe you a little more nonsense, so today, we’ll focus on a few Oddities instead.

And what’s odder than NFL players in advertisements?  OK, so perhaps it’s not that odd, but lets face it.  Other than Mean Joe Green tossing his jersey to the kid in the tunnel after drinking his Coke (notwithstanding the crazy bad music in the background), most NFL players in commercials are forgettable, and deservedly so.

For instance, check out this ad for Pizza Hutt with Joe Flacco, where Joe shows off his inability to act like an actual human being:

And that’s not even the worst Flacco commercial, as we see in this awesome ad for Mother’s restaurant where Flacco shows us his inability to have any inflection in his voice:

But enough picking on Flacco.  That’s just too easy.  Heck, Flacco isn’t the only NFL player to do bad commercials.  This one goes all the way back to the 1980’s where Boomer Esiason, Eric Dickerson and Warren Moon rapped about Diet Coke.  I kid you not.  Just think about that for a second.  Someone thought it was a good idea to have NFL players rap about a diet soda.  Prepare yourself, this one is a doozy…

And I love Brian Urlacher, being a Bears fan and all, but I have NO idea WTF is happening in this Vitamin Water commercial.  I mean, the person who came up with the idea for this commercial MUST have been someone’s mentally unstable cousin or something.  There’s no other explanation for why it exists.

I mean, if you’re going to put actual bears in a commercial, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.  Urlacher showed us the wrong way, but Ray Lewis showed us the right way:

OK, enough of the history lesson.  You’re probably wondering what NFL player commercials look like today.  And I’m happy to report that three awesome ones JUST came out this past week.  So behold, my favorite new commercials starring NFL players!

1) Justin Tucker – Baltimore Ravens Kicker – Carbiz

Oh do I love this one.  I always thought that Mathew McConaughey was a little douche in those Lincoln commercials, and apparently, I wasn’t alone.  Heck, even South Park made fun of him.  But no one does it better than Justin Tucker, kicker for the Baltimore Ravens, as he does a spot-on impression of McConaughey in this commercial for Carbiz:

2) Rob Gronkowski – New England Patriots Tight End – SportsCenter

Sure, Rob Gronkowski is generally entertaining all the time, but he’s particularly good in this new commercial for SportsCenter where he shows off his new ring…

3) Victor Cruz and Odell Beckham Jr. – New York Giants Wide Receivers – Foot Locker

Oh, we’re all laughing at it, but we know that, deep down, Victor Cruz really IS thinking this.  I particularly like the end…”Victor is the best…”

OK, that’s it for this Injuries & Oddities.  We’ll get back to a few more injuries next time.  Unless more great commercials come out.  In which case, we might be watching a few more commercials.  Just sayin.