For a viewer who has never played or been around that much football, the uniforms and equipment may look a little funny. But everything a player wears is for safety and athletic purposes; with the exception of branding items.
Notice those big bulges in the pants on the thighs, knees, hips and tail bone? Those are all pads to help minimize pain because those can possibly be frequently impacted areas. These areas need some extra protecting while still allowing the athletes to be very mobile. Those pads are required on all levels of tackle football
For the upper body, there are shoulder pads, that not only cover just the shoulders, but the chest and upper back. Most contact comes from or to this upper body section caused from blocking and tackling. Though they look bulky, they are very flexible and with newer technology they are getting smaller while staying safe.
The helmet, probably the most important piece of equipment, protects the head in many different ways. There is a lot of impact that comes to the head in football even though you are not supposed to aim at someone else's head or use your own to hit anyone. The helmets keep heads safe from cuts and stuff, but more importantly from hard its that will cause damage. Yes, concussions occur often, but without helmets everyone would have a concussion every week... Okay, maybe not the kicker. So they do a really good job of preventing most concussions. In fact they even have special helmets that are specialized to help prevent concussions more than regular helmets because some players have higher risk of getting concussed.
Along with those very important and mandatory articles of equipment, there must be mouth pieces and cleats. Moth pieces are self explanatory, they protect your teeth and tongue. Cleats are the type of shoes worn by football players so they have proper traction on the grass or turf fields. On cleats there are groves that stick out the bottom of the shoe that sticks into the ground so players don't slip.
Other equipment are for personal use and are not really mandatory. Things like rip-pads, forearm pads, shin pads, gloves, towels, or bands are all up to if the player wants to wear them or not. Also, there are some branding and advertising being done when players wear extra stuff.
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