One of the great things about Halloween is that, no matter how old you are, or what you do for a living, you can still get into the spirit and have some fun with a great costume idea. Anyone who nails the right mix of funny or serious, and of impeccable or purposely shoddy design, can come up with a costume that looks great. This is true for little kids and grandparents, for teenagers and young professionals, even for NFL players.
This year, there's a pretty good mix of costumes floating around in the NFL universe. To help anyone out there looking for some last-minute ideas, we've created a guide to some of the best and worst disguises your favorite players came up with.
Let's start off in St. Louis, where Rams punter Jonny Hekker combined his pre-existing look (shaved head and some facial hair) with a leather vest, some knee pads, a championship belt, and a beer to become Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Staying with the Rams. Aaron Donald didn't come up with a costume of his own (at least not at the team's Saturday walkthrough), but one of the Rams' nutrition assistants dressed up as Aaron Donald.
It's not quite as good as Luke Kuechly's Cam Newton costume, but it's pretty good.
Speaking of the Panthers, below we've got Carolina's rookies in a delightful array of costumes. They've got Buzz Lightyear, Spongebob Squarepants, Mr. Incredible, Captain America, Superman, Captain Planet, a parrot, a jester, a hippo, and even the Panthers' own mascot.
The best one here is the Panthers' mascot. Some of these are too common (Buzz, Spongebob, Captain America, Superman) and some are too generic (parrot, jester, hippo), but the mascot hits the right mix of a recognizable design and an uncommon idea. Bravo.
Now we go to Philadelphia, where Eagles lineman Beau Allen dressed as an elephant.
He apparently wore that back in Wisconsin visiting the Badgers during Philly's bye, which is pretty brave. Minus points for not wearing it on the sideline, though.
Eagles linebacker Connor Barwin, meanwhile, is some sort of centaur but the head is of a cardinal rather than a horse.
I think. I don't know. Maybe he's just a dude without a shirt wearing a bird mask. Maybe he's somehow connected to the bird people from Season 2 of "True Detective." I'm not sure. I didn't really understand that show.
Next up, the Tennessee Titans' linebackers, specifically Avery Williamson and David Bass. It took me a minute to realize, but Williamson's rocking a pretty sweet Austin Powers get-up here. Bass is the guy in the bear costume next to him. Two unnamed (by the tweet) linebackers are dressed as some sort of scary skeleton monster and a nerd with a scary mask.
Austin Powers gets an A, the bear costume is OK and the scary skelton monster has a great makeup job, but the scary nerd is trying too hard. Pick scary or nerd. Don't be so indecisive.
Moving around in the AFC South we have Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt. While you might think that non-humans like Watt wouldn't dress up for Halloween because it is generally a human holiday, that's not the case. Watt went as Batman.
Real missed opportunity by the Texans' Twitter account not calling him "Wattman." Gotta take those plays on words when they're there.
This next one is not so much a costume as a Photoshop, but we're here to do the people a service so we'll show it anyway. It's Chargers receiver Keenan Allen, Photoshopped to be Count Keenan a.k.a. Count Dracula, I guess.
This would have been a solid costume if Allen had actually done it.
The kings of 2015 Halloween, though, resided in the AFC East. They were the Jets and the Patriots. In New York, D'Brickashaw Ferguson dressed as Magneto, while Buster Skrine went as Jets head coach Todd Bowles.
These are both excellent. Magneto is one of the most well-known characters from a wildly popular movie franchise (X-Men), but he's not such an obvious Halloween character like Wolverine is. Recognizable but rare is a good combination. And Skrine's Bowles costume is perfect. Unless it's a Photoshop, which it might be. Can't really tell.
Up in New England, we're giving Julian Edelman extra credit for his Photoshop job rather than taking credit away. That's because he Photoshopped himself into one of Bill Belichick's hoodies.
Any time you can get away with cracking jokes at your coach's expense, and that coach is Bill freaking Belichick, you know you're secure in yourself and your place on the team. Points to Edelman for having the self-confidence to take that shot.
Running back Dion Lewis, who may or not be a wizard himself, dressed up as Harry Potter, also a wizard (I think -- I never saw any of the Harry Potters).
He also read a story. I think maybe it was Harry Potter? Who knows.
And of course, the Gronk. I actually thought that Rob Gronkowski's costume was just G.I. Gronk at first, but apparently he's the Master Chief from "Halo 5: Guardians" (that's a video game).
Here he is, in costume, on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It only took him some milk cartons, pipe cleaners, and $60,000 to make the costume.
Oh. One last thing. If you're looking for costumes for small children, it's always a good idea to go with Andy Reid or Mike Ditka.