Being someone that has dreadlocks
Originally posted by Phins34
Ricky Shaving his head has to be one of the dumbest moves he could have done. Though having them or not won't affect his performance on the field. What it will affect is his marketablility. There are only a very few people in the NFL that any average person could recognize without their helmet and uniform on. Michael Vick, Brett Favre, and Ray Lewis are on this very small list. Ricky WAS on it. He will lose a lot of money by doing this. Since the NFL makes you wear a helmet and uniform it makes it hard for companies to want you to be their sponsor because many people wont even recognize who it is. As you may have noticed Ricky Williams did a lot of endorsements last year from video games to commercials. He won't be able to now because he will be unrecognizable to the non NFL fan. Jamal Lewis set the 2nd highest NFL rushing record last year and I gurrantee probably not one non NFL fan could recognize who he is without all his crap on. You do not see Jamal endorsing any video games or commercials (and he had one of the greatest seasons of all time). This was a really dumb move for Ricky, because no he just blends in with everyone else in the NFL, no matter how well he may perform on the field he will not make nearly as much money as he could.
And has cut my dreadlocks at least three times before I finally let them grow for the past 7 yrs... I don't think you begin to understand the spiritual side of cutting your off you hair. It goes alot farther or deeper than just money, though you make some valid points about his financial future and recognizabilitys running the way he does, he'll be marketable, dreadlocks or not. Besides it's f#@king hair, it can grow back. The Edge cut his and it's growing back.
It's well known that the NFL doesn't want to promote individuals and the helemts hides people's identities, but you fail to realize, one's personality also affects his appearance or how a person is percieved In the short list of athletes you mentioned, Ray lewis is more infamous than famous IMHO. Hell he was superbowl MVP and Disney world chose not to use him as the endorser. He's wroth with scandal, aside form his superhuman defensive ability. Jamal Lewis, seems to be more aloof and self effacing so like Marvin Harrison they quietly can shatter the record books, but not be recognized, because they dont have all those on or off field antics to make you famous or infamous or stick out insomeones mind. RW IMO, will always be recognizable because of his extremely quirky personality, the wedding dress debacle, the draft debacle, and most importantly his support and openness about depression and Paxil.
Hell endorsing Paxil alone or any other anti depressant prescription drug will net him millions, because the Pharmecutical companies have much more money than Nike to spend..trust me, he'll always be approached to endorse the drug he's using because of his status and his community activities like Pop warner football and so forth.
In terms of if he suffered a career ending injury...well chances are he won't be getting too much endorsements dreadlocks or not, after he leaves the game unless he went into broadcasting (which we all know he wont)...Just remember all the Bo Jackson hype, he was the biggest thing since slice bread in the NFL, hell he disappeared off the face of the earth shortly after his career ended with that injury and his nike endorsement was up. So point is, irregaurdess of his hair, if RW suffered a sever injury that ended his career or affected his playmaking ability, it would most certainly affect his endorsements. That's the way of business
