On their social media channels, Amazon revealed a new football that is being “engineered exclusively for Thursday Night Football.”
In collaboration with the NFL and Wilson, “The Prime Football” is elongated and is meant to be “faster,” “more aerodynamic,” and have “better grip” than the regular football.
Amazon is playing a game of “Schrödinger’s football” where we don’t fully know if this is legitimately going to be used on Thursday night Amazon games or if this is some sort of publicity stunt or product that will be sold exclusively on Amazon.
For many reasons, this football very likely isn’t going to be used in NFL games. For one thing, a league that issues fines to players who wear their socks too low having a different football for specific games sounds even more insane than it already is but it’s also a safety issue. Because as this clip from Russell Wilson shows, an NFL quarterback using The Prime Football might literally go through the body of a wide receiver. Okay maybe not, but it’ll definitely result in more broken fingers.
Anyway, reactions to The Prime Football have run the gamut on social media. From those who are openly making fun of the ball.
https://twitter.com/lukeknox/status/1564622882323533839?s=20&t=cZVvfxyW3X8ru5_GwJ2lIw
To those already assuming it’s a joke or at the very least asking if this is a joke.
To those who are downright rejecting it or may or may not actually believe this is true.
This is the stupidest thing ever. How is there a special football for Thursday games??? Completely different then a normal football… https://t.co/CyMgCNQUtU
— DJ Heer (@DJHeerMusic) August 30, 2022
At least we know every Week 1 game will have the regular looking football. For Week 2, when Amazon makes their regular season debut with the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs, we’ll wait and see if The Prime Football makes its debut as well.
[Photo: NFL on Prime]