Plenty of NFL teams have established iconic gameday traditions, whether it be the Minnesota Vikings’ “Skol” chant, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ terrible towels, or even the Green Bay Packers’ cheese heads. The San Francisco 49ers have added a pregame tradition of their own more recently that will continue ahead of Sunday’s NFC Championship game bout with the Detroit Lions.
What Is the 49ers’ Bumpboxx Tradition?
The 49ers’ tradition began midway through the 2017 season when then-chief of staff Nick Kray felt the team needed a way to get more energy as they walked down the tunnel before games. NFL insider Adam Schefter did a deep dive into the tradition that he released Sunday.
He initially got a Bluetooth speaker to play music, but it was not loud enough. Instead, the team needed to go louder and purchased a Bumpboxx to fill that role. It’s caught on ever since as a pregame tradition for the team, with stars Trent Williams and Deebo Samuel leading it this year.
Now, the team totes the nearly three-foot long, 18-inch tall, 30-pound behemoth of a custom boombox every time it goes down the tunnel.
“We go through our process, I say a few remarks to the team, and after we break it down, boom, you hear the music playing,” Williams said. “It’s kind of like, ‘Here we come.’ It’s electrifying, it creates unity — it makes us feel like we’re together.”
It’s a tradition that is intended to galvanize players before games and seems to have done just that.
San Francisco went 12-5 this season on its way to the best record in the NFC and, thus, the conference’s No. 1 seed for the playoffs, which comes with a first-round bye. The 49ers have gotten out to plenty of hot starts this year, particularly in their trio of 40-point games, alongside six other outings where the team scored 30 or more points.
“Getting the team hyped and getting ready to go out there and play a game,” Samuel said. “It’s just the energy that everybody has. We feed off each other’s energies getting ready to go out there and go play.”
San Francisco will aim for another strong start Sunday night when it squares off with the Lions for a spot in Super Bowl 58. Time will tell whether the 49ers are able to accomplish that again with the help of their new tradition, but the current players hope it’s a tradition that will outlast them for years to come.
“It’s something we’ve built here that’s becoming part of our culture,” Samuel said. “Hopefully, it’ll still be the boombox about 10 or 15 years from now.”
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