JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — A new season means a new contract and new name for one Jaguars star. Linebacker Josh Allen announced he’s changed his name to Josh Hines-Allen on Tuesday.
Jacksonville Jaguar fans may need to do some jersey shopping.
“Requests for Josh Allen jerseys toward the end of the season was insane," said Mathew Smith. "We were getting probably 15-20 calls a day.”
Smith says he sold out of 220 Josh Allen jerseys over the course of last season, so he ordered 144 more, set to arrive just in time for the new season start.
The only problem – those jerseys became vintage overnight, as Allen changed his last name to Hines-Allen to honor other athletes in his family.
“We’ve heard nothing about this happening," said Smith. "First thing this morning, we contacted Nike for our August 15th shipment of Josh Allen jerseys and said, ‘Hey, we need to make sure these have the appropriate name on the back and we also need to bump our numbers up.”
Smith is optimistic that shipment will arrive with the new name on the back, and he’s not too concerned about any of the 220 customers who just bought his Allen jerseys last year coming back to return them.
“There probably will be one or two," said Smith. "We want to make everybody happy, but if you own an Allen jersey, you own a piece of history.”
Within hours of the name change news coming out, Smith was already getting calls about both the old and new jerseys for number 41.
“He’s got a new contract, a new name to be able to add a little extra sauce on there," said Smith.
Hines-Allen is already planning a jersey swap event in September so that way his fans will have his new last name on their backs when they’re filling the stands at Jags games this Fall.