The NFL Experience is a fascinating place, with plenty of football exhibits and artifacts and displays and other items of interest, in a venue that is decorated in a highly professional way, with lights and sound and full immersion in football.
This year’s version of the NFL Experience at the L.A. Convention Center had, among many other things, a series of lockers, one per team featuring one specific player. For the Saints, it was running back Alvin Kamara.
I noticed the Kamara locker last Wednesday, after he’d been arrested at the Pro Bowl for battery causing substantial bodily harm. I took a photo of it and sent it to my son with the message, “Awkward.”
It got more awkward.
Once someone realized that the NFL Experience had a Kamara display and once someone decided that, given the arrest, it probably shouldn’t, they revised it. In a fairly clumsy way.
As noted in a tweet that was re-tweeted by Saints defensive end Cam Jordan, they replaced the Kamara nameplate with a rectangle bearing Jordan’s name. Inside, they flipped the jerseys around, so that Kamara’s name wouldn’t be visible on either the black or the white one.
In the time it took to get the Cam Jordan nameplate, they probably could have gotten a home and away Saints jersey with “Jordan” on the back. Or they could have just removed the jerseys and left the rest of the stuff. Anyone who pays attention to football knows that Jordan doesn’t wear No. 41, and that Kamara does.
It’s fitting, in a way. The league often thinks it’s sufficient to hide any and all warts by expecting folks to pay no attention to them. Sometimes, however, they need to put a little more effort into it.