‘Football is a priority’: How Adidas built its best NFL rookie class ever

PORTLAND, Ore. — Inside a building on the campus of Adidas North America headquarters one afternoon in mid-March, an elevator door opened to the sight of a pink fluorescent glow behind an illuminated, eight-word sentence mounted on the wall. The sign, in all bold, read:

ONLY THE BEST FOR THE ATHLETE AT SPEED.

Out walked John Miller, president of Adidas North America for the Germany-based, global sportswear company, flanked by a trio of physical specimens representing the peak of college football: Ohio State University stars Arvell Reese, Caleb Downs and Carnell Tate.

For the past few years, the Buckeyes standouts — each a projected top-10 pick in the 2026 NFL draft — played at one of the biggest Nike-endorsed schools in the country. Yet all three have switched it up, from the Swoosh to Three Stripes, joining a loaded roster of up-and-coming football talent Adidas has signed to endorsement deals before their professional careers start in next month’s draft.

The brand officially announced its 2026 NFL rookie class this week. It’s a group headlined by Heisman Trophy-winning Indiana University quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the presumptive No. 1 overall pick, as well as six top-tier wide receivers, continuing a growing trend of Adidas appealing to some of the league’s most elite receivers.

“This may –” Miller began, as he spoke to a group of media members at headquarters in mid-March, before immediately correcting himself. “Not may. This will be our best draft class ever. … We have 14 players under contract, both from universities that wear the Three Stripes and universities that don’t.”

Of the new signings, nine come from an Adidas-endorsed university. The five others previously played for Nike schools, including University of Southern California wide receiver Makai Lemon, University of Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq, and the three Buckeyes.

“Obviously, Carnell, Caleb and Arvell are here from Ohio State. I think that speaks volumes to the work that we’re doing from a brand perspective,” Miller said. “We’re going into universities that we don’t have day-in-and-day-out relationships with, and we now have some of their best — if not their best — athletes joining the brand post-college. We’re really excited about the offense we’re playing.”

Reese, Downs and Tate can all now share their thoughts on the new brand allegiance.

“It’s a great honor to represent Adidas and know that they chose us,” Reese told Andscape. “I don’t think people around me are going to be surprised when they find out, because Adidas is an elite brand and household name.”

“I felt like the brand matched who I am,” Downs told Andscape. “I’ve worn Adidas since middle school, so it’s something that I’ve been comfortable with wearing. I also know that they’re going to take care of me in terms of style and comfortability. I just had a lot of respect for the brand and felt like it was the best move for me.”

“I’ve honestly been blessed with the opportunity to join the Three Stripes brand, and to be a part of an amazing draft class next in line as one of the athletes Adidas has as a team,” Tate told Andscape. “It’s also great to be a part of the brand at the highest level with Arvell and Caleb — two teammates who helped me get here. It means a lot to us, and a lot to me that Adidas valued me enough as a person and player to be worthy of repping their brand.”

Adidas 2026 NFL Rookie Class

• Fernando Mendoza (QB, Indiana)
• Arvell Reese (LB, Ohio State)
• Carnell Tate (WR, Ohio State)
• Caleb Downs (S, Ohio State)
• Rueben Bain Jr. (DE, Miami)
• Jordyn Tyson (WR, Arizona State)
• Makai Lemon (WR, Southern California)
• Kenyon Sadiq (TE, Oregon)
• Jacob Rodriguez (LB, Texas Tech)
• Denzel Boston (WR, Washington
• KC Concepcion (WR, Texas A&M)
• D’Angelo Ponds (DB, Indiana)
• Jonah Coleman (RB, Washington)
• Elijah Sarratt (WR, Indiana)

“Football is definitely a priority for us from a brand perspective,” Miller said. “If you rewind to January and the four-hour Adidas commercial that we had between Miami and Indiana, then how we showed up at the Super Bowl with Bad Bunny. The juxtaposition between sport and culture that, as a brand, we navigate and toggle between very well.”

As part of the news, Adidas also announced a major renovation of the North America HQ’s Innovation Lab, which features four motion-capture areas, 24 force plates embedded in the floor, and 72 cameras. The sprawling space, occupying nearly an entire floor, allows the brand to observe, measure and track the movement of athletes, while designers and engineers interact with them to gain product insights in real time.

“It’s a little hard explaining what I want to designers and engineers in their verbiage,” Arizona State wide receiver Jordyn Tyson, a projected top-15 pick, told Andscape. “Adidas takes a lot of seriousness in the details, from foot scans to walking tests. It’s very cool, and I appreciate them for it.”

At the entrance of the lab hangs the edict — ONLY THE BEST FOR THE ATHLETE AT SPEED. — of Adidas’ innovation team. Nine of the brand’s newest signings had the opportunity to wear-test the next generation of 3D-printed Adidas football cleats, which are still in development, and to give feedback.

The process is part of Project R.A.P. (Radical Athlete Perception), a new brand platform also officially announced this week. It is geared toward making sportswear products primarily inspired by athletes’ articulation of how they feel while moving.

“I really love Adidas cleats, which I’ve been wearing since I was a kid,” Denzel Boston, a wide receiver from the Adidas-endorsed University of Washington, told Andscape. “I haven’t worn any other brand of cleats. I’ve always been an Adidas guy. Having those cleats on just feels like home to me when I’m on grass and turf.”

It’s up for Adidas in football right now, and the brand is deploying a specific strategy to lure top talent to endorse the Three Stripes, now as early as high school. According to the brand, this year’s rookie class features the most projected first-round picks Adidas has signed ahead of the NFL draft.

“As a category, we always talk about how we want to be the fastest brand in football — and we want to do that by fusing speed and culture,” Aaron Seabron, general manager of Adidas’ U.S. Sports and Creation Center Portland, told Andscape. “With speed, all the guys in our class this year are super fast, super explosive athletes. And in culture, they’re guys who are driving the conversation in and around the sport because they have vibrant personalities.”

If there’s one position in football where speed and the potential of maximizing it through on-field product are most enticing, it’s wide receiver. And no footwear company boasts a better collection of receivers who have transformed into NFL stars than Adidas.

The brand’s list of wideout endorsers includes All-Pros Tyreek Hill and Amon-Ra St. Brown, 2024 Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, and Rome Odunze, who, in 2023, became the first college receiver to sign a name, image and likeness (NIL) deal with Adidas.

During his senior season at the University of Washington, Odunze began sharing performance insights with Adidas’ innovation team. The conversations ultimately led to the design of a brand-new cleat, reimagined for speed, under the marquee Adizero line, which is marketed as the lightest in football.

Earlier this year, Odunze, now entering his third year with the Chicago Bears, headlined an unveiling of the cleat, the result of three years of close collaboration with Adidas designers and engineers. Dubbed the Adizero Horizon, it made its on-field debut during the College Football Playoff on the feet of Indiana wideout Elijah Sarratt, one of the prospect signings in this year’s Adidas class.

“When we start to build any draft class, we say, ‘What wide receivers can we land?’” Seabron told Andscape. “They are the ones who make the biggest plays, and more often than not, the ones with the biggest personalities. If you also think about our Adizero product, we believe that light means fast, and [we] make a really lightweight cleat that fits wide receivers and how they play the game.

“We think the receiver position embodies speed and culture the most.”

Adidas’ 2026 NFL rookie class features the six receivers, each with different sizes and skill sets, and all projected by analysts to be drafted in the first two rounds.

“All the receivers the brand signed are guys with first-round talent — literally,” Texas A&M wideout KC Concepcion told Andscape. “So, I’m just blessed and grateful to be considered in such a special group. As a kid, you always dream of stuff like having a shoe deal. I’m excited to represent the brand as one of the top athletes in this class and just give back to the youth.”

Unlike the debate of which school in college football should be considered “WR-U” — Wide Receiver University — there’s little question that Adidas is the marquee brand tailored to the position.

“I think Adidas exemplifies the wide receiver position,” Tate told Andscape. “A lot of elite NFL receivers wear Adidas, and it seems like the group has only continued to get better and better with each and every draft class.”

Tate, who’s projected to be a top-10 pick, extends the trend of first-round wideouts from Ohio State signing with Adidas, joining New York Jets star Garrett Wilson and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Emeka Egbuka.

“When my time at Ohio State concluded, I went directly into wearing Adidas,” Tate told Andscape. “Because I pretty much knew where I was going to go before the season ended. So, I’ve been training in Adidas cleats since right after our last game.”

The brand already has another Buckeyes phenom locked and loaded in Jeremiah Smith, a rising junior who’s considered the best wide receiver in college football. In July 2025, Smith — a unanimous 2025 All-American and two-time Big Ten Receiver of the Year — officially signed with Adidas on an NIL deal.

“It’s huge for us to land a partnership with someone like Jeremiah early, because he’s been familiar with our products for so long,” Seabron told Andscape. “He’s somebody who played at Chaminade-Madonna Prep [Fla.], which is an Adidas high school; played with South Florida Elite, which is an Adidas 7-on-7 team.

“So when we had the conversation with him about joining the brand, it’s not like he had never played in Adidas. He just didn’t end up at an Adidas university. But he’s had a lot of experiences in our product on his journey through the sport.”

Adidas’ early signing of Smith shows the depth of the strategy behind the brand’s commitment to building in football.

“It’s about being present at all levels of the sport — grassroots, high school, collegiate and pro — and we’ve been investing in grassroots for 10-15 years,” Seabron told Andscape. “Our sports marketing team always talks about, ‘Identify and follow,’ and those guys do a phenomenal job of getting in the locker rooms and understanding guys who are open to the product or have had experiences with the product.”

Inside the Innovation Lab on Adidas’ pro day, Mendoza sat in a chair on turf, with pairs of brand-new cleats — in different silhouettes and colorways — lined up in front of his socked feet. Gold hang tags with black analog script adorned each model, seemingly indicating Adidas had made those cleats for Mendoza — and Mendoza only.

Crouching before the reigning Heisman Trophy winner was Laura Rondinone, a manager of athlete product excellence for Adidas, who essentially acted as a translator as Mendoza articulated what he wanted from his footwear.

Mendoza, who is 6-foot-5, 236 pounds and has 9 ½-inch hands, picked up both a left and right cleat before beginning to simulate exactly how each foot moves during the follow-through of his throwing motion.

Each drag of his trail foot, as Mendoza carefully explained, caused so much friction that the material, on both the toe and medial side of certain cleats would wear down rapidly, leading to discomfort.

The question became how could Adidas resolve that small yet recurring tendency. An hour or so later, a team of engineers sat down with Mendoza with a potential solution.

“Fernando is not only a special talent, but a special person,” Seabron told Andscape. “The interactions I’ve had with him match everything you see in the interviews on TV. He’s the kind of person you’d want your daughter to date, or if you had an open role on your team, you’d want to hire. He’s a phenomenal human being with phenomenal leadership qualities.”

Last December, after signing an NIL deal with Adidas to finish his time in college and carry into his NFL career, Mendoza officially announced the partnership on his personal LinkedIn page. Given Mendoza’s business-minded persona, the brand agreed to and planned the entire announcement rollout campaign for the world’s largest professional networking platform.

A few weeks later, Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy, a year after Hunter, who joined Adidas ahead of the NFL draft last year. By mid-January, Mendoza and the Hoosiers hoisted the CFP Trophy, having defeated the Miami Hurricanes and their star defensive end Rueben Bain Jr. Soon, both Mendoza and Bain Jr. will be drafted into the NFL, repping the same brand that sponsored their respective college teams.

“It’s huge that Fernando is from one of our partner universities in Indiana,” Seabron told Andscape. “He’s our second straight Heisman Trophy winner. From Travis to him, then, hopefully — knock on wood — Jeremiah next year.”

The president of Adidas North America made that proclamation a little more boldly while closing his remarks on the brand’s 2026 rookie class.

“Fernando is an elite-level individual, even if you take the quarterback out of the equation,” Miller said. “He’s our second consecutive Heisman Trophy winner, and I like our odds next year with Jeremiah Smith.”

Adidas Football keeps winning, and doesn’t plan to stop anytime soon.

“We’re hungry but humble,” Seabron told Andscape. “We have had success in the category, but I can remember being at the brand when we weren’t that big in football, at the infancy of making Adizero the lightest cleats in the sport. We’ve been on a trajectory, and now that we’re at a certain place, we don’t want to plateau here. We want to keep going.

“What we want to see from Adidas Football, first and foremost, is we want to keep partnering with athletes who not only perform on the field of play but also drive culture and personality off it. I think you see that from the guys in this class.”

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