DeAngelo Williams dyed his hair pink last season to honor his mother, Sandra, who passed away from breast cancer in 2010. Williams wrote about why the color pink was important to him in a story for MMQB, and even inspired Madden NFL 16 to include his pink-tinged dreads in the latest version of the game.
There may be no sane person in the world who wouldn't be touched by Williams' gesture. And yet, when he asked the NFL if he could wear pink throughout the 2015 season, he wasn't "able to do that," according to Lisa Salters on ESPN's Monday Night Football broadcast.
Currently, every team in the NFL is being made to wear something pink throughout the month October, which is breast cancer awareness month. The NFL apparently doesn't think that breast cancer deserves awareness in other months, or perhaps it simply knows October is the best time to hock pink memorabilia.
If the NFL flatly denied Williams the opportunity to honor someone important in his life, then it was incredibly stupid.