New Era Releases Saints Draft Hat, and It’s Terrible

New Era unveiled the hats for the upcoming NFL Draft, and most of them are bad if not outright terrible. The Saints, however, may have the very worst hat in the league.

That “Who Dat” was not put on the front is inexplicable, inexcusable, and downright negligent on New Era’s part. Who Dat is THE phrase most closely associated with the Saints #brand, and New Era dropped the ball worse than Tom Brady’s dropped pass in this past Super Bowl.

Instead New Era went with “Big Easy Football” a phrase I’ve never associated with in my life and I assume nobody else who follows the Saints has. A hat with “Big Easy Football” and the Saints’ fleur de lis is what I’d expect to find at a bootleg sports shop, not from the official hat provider for the NFL Draft.

But wait! New Era doubled down and defended the Big Easy Football tagline. From their official website, New Era says that “Big Easy Football” is “celebrating the rally cry that unites an entire fandom.” Except no, it literally isn’t. Noooooooobody thinks of “Big Easy Football” when they think “Saints rallying cry.” The Saints already HAVE a rallying cry and it’s done literally before every home game:

The hat does have “NOLA” on it and it’s, mercifully, in Saints gold which, okay fine. But the NOLA is on the inside of the cap and can’t be seen when worn.

Also, it looks like the Big Easy Football slants upwards a little? It doesn’t look like it’s a perfectly straight line which adds to the overall awfulness of the hat. The font itself is...not great either.

Really, if New Era just changed the Big Easy Football to Who Dat, the hat would be fine. All the other teams’ hats are going to be gray with the phrase in their respective team color, and they all have a secondary phrase inside of the hat. Just get rid of the Big Easy Football, which nobody ever associated with the team says and put, I don’t know, the single most recognizable phrase attached to the New Orleans Saints?