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Ben Baby
Those who won a major award at Thursday night’s NFL Honors in New Orleans received extra jewelry to show off their big accomplishment.
The winners of the eight major awards were each given a custom necklace to commemorate this season’s achievements. Leo Khusro, a jeweler who has worked with Thursday’s nominees and winners for years, created the custom chains.
The front has the acronym of the award, while the back has the name and jersey number etched on it along with each player’s accomplishments. The lone exception was the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, which had an extended voting period.
Khusro told ESPN that the NFL reached out on the collaboration to give this year’s winners a gift that goes beyond the trophy case.
“They decided to do the necklaces for these guys so that they can wear them in the games, they can wear them throughout the season, they can wear them in the day,” Khusro said. “It feels nice to have it.”
The jeweler has a long history with some of the winners and nominees who were recognized on the NFL’s biggest awards night.
Khusro made a piece for Denver Broncos cornerback Pat Surtain II, this year’s Defensive Player of the Year winner, that resembled a PlayStation controller when Surtain was drafted back in 2021.
Read more: How a college dropout became a go-to jeweler for NFL draft prospects
He has also done extensive work for Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who became the second player to win multiple Comeback Player of the Year awards. Khusro made multiple necklaces for Burrow and also did the work on Burrow’s custom black Cartier Santos piece.
Each chain for this year’s NFL Honors is 18-carat white gold with VVS-quality diamonds that were handset. Some of them also have extra unique features.
The chain that Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell won for Coach of the Year featured a whistle on the bail that connects the necklace to the pendant. The block “O” on Burrow’s “CPOY” chain has two arrows that resemble the reverse card from UNO.
Making the eight pieces for this year’s NFL Honors required a tight deadline. Khusro said he had six days to finish all the necklaces in time for Thursday’s red-carpet festivities ahead of Super Bowl LIX. During the phone calls with the league, he said, there was also the idea of adding the names and accomplishments on necklace pendants.
That meant signing a nondisclosure agreement to keep the names private and not revealing the winners when he was with them at last week’s Pro Bowl Games in Orlando, Florida.
But Khusro was more than content to keep the secret.
“It was such a beautiful thing to see the person in front of me that I’ve known for so long has won an award and it was just like, ‘I don’t want to ruin that moment for them,'” Khusro said. “So I didn’t say anything.”
