For Dreadlocked N.F.L. Players, Hair Is a Point of Pride (Published 2022) (2024)

It wasn’t until his junior year of college, in 2015, that Aaron Jones decided to rebel and form his hair into dreadlocks.

He said his parents, Alvin and Vurgess Jones, had warned him that Black people had long been targeted for discrimination, ostracism or punishment in school and the workplace for wearing their natural hair texture.

But as Jones matured, his parents’ stance softened, and Jones, the star running back for the Green Bay Packers, has now grown his dreadlocks for eight years so that they reach his collarbone, the tips of the barreling twists dyed a dark blond. During the N.F.L. season, he visits a stylist once every three months to re-twist them, he said, and he moisturizes his hair daily at home.

“I just think your hair is part of your strength, and I like the way it looks on me,” Jones said in a phone interview. “You just have to express yourself and do you.”

Dreadlocks are nothing new in football, where 58 percent of the league’s players are Black and approximately 18 percent of players on active N.F.L. rosters — or nearly one in five players on every club — wear their hair dreadlocked or braided, according to an informal tally compiled from roster headshots from all 32 teams.

But N.F.L. athletes’ personal style is constrained by uniform policies that are more strict than those in other pro leagues. Players spend most of their games with their faces covered by helmets, so they are aware that their hairstyles are an effective way to showcase their individuality on game days, at red carpet events and on their social media pages.