Is anyone else tired of all these branding issues the NFL is having? Would anyone else just like to be able to watch people play football and, in the process of doing so, wear whatever they want, listen to whatever headphones they want, and enjoy whatever tablets they want?

Microsoft might be feeling that way, too, thanks to the latest episode in its technological partnership with the NFL. As we've previously reported, the two have worked out an arrangement whereby Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 tablets grace the sidelines for official use by players and coaches. Microsoft is also the league's official technology sponsor, which means that advertising for Surface tablets, and Microsoft, is a bit more prevalent.

You'd think that this might help some to realize that the Surface Pro 2 is not, in fact, an iPad. But it's not just the NFL announcers that have been struggling to get it right. The latest issue that surely has Microsoft executives scratching their foreheads comes from Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler.

According to numerous sources, Cutler referred to the Surface Pro 2 tablets as "knockoff iPads" during a weekly radio show the other day. While he went on to mention that they were working out great, he still had no idea who made the specific tablets and didn't even know what they were called.

Perhaps he was standing too far away from the special containers that house the Surface Pro 2 tabletsyou know, the fancy temperature-controlled cart that's blue and has "Surface" written on it in a pretty large font.

While the entire affair is a humorous deal for outsiders, it's probably not as funny for Microsoft, which spent an alleged $400 million or so for the NFL partnership only to find announcers, and now players, getting the name of its devices wrong. Worse, referring to them with the presumably hated name of a flagship product from Microsoft's big rival.

"Despite the majority of our friends in the booth correctly identifying the Surface on NFL sidelines, we're working with the league to coach up a select few," said a Microsoft spokesperson last month, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

The problem that persists is the power of Apple's marketingthe fact that the company has singlehandedly managed to replace the notion of a "tablet" with its specific product, the iPad, in a number of peoples' heads. While the distinction might seem pretty obvious to some, it's clear that others struggle with the concept. Worse, they do so in a pretty high-profile way.

For more, see PCMag's review of the new Surface Pro 3 and the slideshow above.

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