Who Is This For? This Stranger Things NFL Shirt Is Breaking My Brain

On most Saturday mornings, before I sit down to pump out some magic like this article you're currently reading, my wife and I run an errand.

Sometimes we go to the grocery store, sometimes we go out for breakfast, and sometimes I get her to go with me to Guitar Center so I can noodle on some Telecasters I have no intention of buying.

But, on this particular Saturday, that errand was a trip to Target, and when I walked into this store, I thought I had walked into some kind of post-apocalyptic retail wasteland.

There were so many bare shelves picked over by marauding gangs of bargain-hunters hoping to snatch up whatever crap no one wanted for Christmas.

As my wife looked around for her stuff, I did what I do best: wander aimlessly.

READ: DELIGHTFUL DEREK TURNBOW IS THE REAL MVP OF STRANGER THINGS 5

This wandering brought me toward the electronics, and as I was passing the section of over-priced vinyl records (seriously, guys; go to a record store or an antique place and you'll save a ton on those), something stopped me in my tracks.

A shirt, which shamelessly mashed together two things that had nothing to do with each other — the NFL and Stranger Things — and did so in the laziest way imaginable.

The shirt mash-up that no one asked for. (Photo Credit: Matt Reigle)

There it was. A shirt with nothing more than the NFL shield and the words "Stranger Things," but not even in the font the show is famous for. Just whatever generic font was going to be cheapest to produce.

I stood there, mouth agape, staring at this, while some idiot flipped through records nearby and kicked the tires on a $45 re-issue of Journey's Greatest Hits compilation.

Who was this shirt for, and why did it exist?

I get that Netflix was promoting the NFL game they streamed on Christmas, but it still doesn't explain who is supposed to buy this and why.

Are people really looking for ways to commemorate the two NFL games they watched on Christmas Day 2025? Is the Venn diagram of people who love Stranger Things and the NFL — not a specific team though, just the league; Rob Lowe-style — really that big?

It can't be.

I get people like Stranger Things, even though I quit watching partway through season 2. I just got sick of them reminding me that it took place in the 1980s. 

It's the ‘80s. We know! There doesn’t need to be an ET: The Extraterrestrial poster in every f--king shot.

But people like it enough to buy anything with the words "Stranger Things" on it?

As I stood there, I racked my brain for any reason a person would spend north of $40 on this shirt, and I could only think of one.

Imagine, if you will, some kind of family gift exchange. There, you draw the name of a second-cousin between the ages of 12 and 16, whom you don't really know that well.

So, you go up to his mom and ask what kind of stuff he's into.

"Oh, usual stuff," She says through a mouthful of meatballs that have been vibing in the Crock-Pot for hours. "Doing that ‘6-7’ thing, TikTok, that creepy ‘Skibidi Toilet’, Stranger Things, oh, and he's been getting into the NFL lately."

So you hit Target the day before you have to give this little hellion his gift, trying to remember what it is that his mom said he liked.

Then you see this shirt in the distance — like a mirage in the middle of the Sahara — and it covers two completely unrelated bases: Stranger Things and the NFL.

Shopping done.

It's the only logical explanation for why this garment exists.

The only one.

After what felt like several minutes — and for all I know, it may have been — I finally snapped out of my shirt-induced stupor thanks to a tap on the shoulder. 

It was my wife, reminding me that we needed to grab dog poop bags.

I did exactly that — after a detour past the PlayStation games, TVs, and Lego Formula 1 car sets — but I'm still haunted by what is easily the most nonsensical shirt I've ever seen in my thirty years on this Earth.