Football Fans Had Quite the Reaction to the NFL's New 2025 Draft Caps

Caleb Williams rocks a Bears hat at his introductory press conference in Chicago last year. | David Banks-Imagn Images

Each year before the NFL draft, the league partners with New Era to create custom-branded hats—both for teams to give to their incoming class of rookies, as well as for public consumption.

And each year, like clockwork, the reactions from fans to said hats tend to be pretty negative.

While 2025 was no different, let's first take a look at all 32 caps—courtesy of The 33rd Team's Ari Meirov:

Here are the official 2025 New Era NFL Draft caps that players will wear once selected.

This year, each design features a franchise-specific pin on every cap. pic.twitter.com/3GRBWpisS5
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) March 28, 2025

As Ari notes, each team's design features a different pin that's specific to every franchise. Despite featuring a cool homage to teams' cities and roots, fans still weren't pleased with this year's output—which they can see in action when the draft begins on April 24.

Here's a look at some of the reaction across X (formerly Twitter). Drink in the bevy of criticisms from a variety of different teams' fans for yourself:

How do these get worse every year?
— PickensBurgh🫡 (@PickensBurgh) March 28, 2025

Another year ..another God awful draft day hat design by @NewEraCap. https://t.co/D8swrKogWG
— VikingNations (@VikingNations) March 28, 2025

Who on earth okayed these designs.. these are horrid https://t.co/k2vLJClVBp
— MoreForYouCleveland (@MoreForYou_CLE) March 28, 2025

https://t.co/CcNqkq2pXP pic.twitter.com/OTBipg9Zdx
— ＫＯＫＡＥＡ (@dannykaea) March 29, 2025

Is it their goal to make the draft hats ugly every year? https://t.co/vdaiSBZNYE
— Tyrone Billums (@Buffwagon819) March 28, 2025

Why have these sucked every year recently? https://t.co/06KFj0qBLt
— ya boy JoeyK (@ScooterMcgilli1) March 28, 2025

The NFL hasn’t had a good draft cap in a minute https://t.co/Fyw4HqyOar
— Louie DiBiase (@DiBiaseLOE) March 28, 2025

These are DISGUSTING https://t.co/t3iCDdByDe
— WE HIRED OUR GUY (@ChaseKirsch) March 28, 2025

These look like the hats that you'd see with 97 pounds of dust on them at the gas station. https://t.co/XGuOIs996H
— Lowry (@ImMikeLowry) March 28, 2025