A Perfect Way to Ring In the NFL Season

Pretty uni-notable photo, right? The see-thru jersey, the pants rolled up to expose those knee pads, the striped wristbands, the old Dungard facemask — good stuff.

That photo is from the archives of US Presswire, which is one of the wire-photo services, like Getty and the AP. I’ve featured their images in several previous posts, and now I’m happy to announce that Uni Watch and US Presswire have formed a partnership, which will make lots of their pre-1985 photos available to you without those annoying watermarks we’ve had to deal with until now.

Here’s the deal: If you look in the right sidebar, you’ll see “US Presswire.” Click on that and you’ll get a list of NFL teams; click on any team and you’ll be taken to a page of thumbnails. You can then click on the thumbnails to see larger images and captions, and you can refresh the page to see additional thumbnails.

Some of the photos, like the one shown above, are uni-relevant; others are just nice to look at. Either way, it’s a great resource for you to enjoy, and I encourage everyone to explore it. Other sports blogs may soon end up with similar interfaces, but Uni Watch is the first site US Presswire has chosen to partner with, and I’m proud to feature their material on the site.

We’ll be adding pages for the remaining NFL teams soon (well, except for the ones that didn’t exist prior to 1985), and then we’ll be expanding to include MLB, NHL, and NBA pages. Also, US Presswire is constantly acquiring new archival photos, and those images will be added to the photostreams as they’re acquired.

There may still be a few bugs in the system — duplicate images, a photo showing up on the wrong team’s page, etc. If you spot any problems, we want to know about it, so please feel free to speak up.

I want to thank webmaster John Ekdahl, who did all the heavy lifting at our end (I mainly just said, “Change this” and “Tweak that,” but he’s the one who had to do all the coding), and Nick Carter at US Presswire, who first approached me with this idea. Thanks, Nick — looking forward to more.

And in a nice bit of timing, all these newly available NFL photos coincide with my annual NFL season-preview column on ESPN, which is now up and running. Enjoy.

Guess what that logo means?: That’s right, boys and girls, still more FBS uni changes. Here’s the latest round:

• Maryland has changed its shoes and socks from black to white. And the socks are striped! (As an aside: Of the six FBS teams that have changed their shoe color this year, all have changed from black to white. Four of those teams have also changed their sock color from black to white. I’d say that qualifies as a pretty serious trend.)

• Wyoming has changed the message on its nose bumper from “Wyo” to “B.T.W.” (“Bring the wood”) and will also have a memorial decal with the initials of player Ruben Narcisse, who was killed in a car accident on Monday.

• Houston is now using captaincy designations.

• For this Saturday’s Oklahoma/FSU game, the Sooners will be test-driving a virtual I.D. bracelet embedded in their jerseys, designed to give critical information to first responders in case an athlete is injured. Details here.

• Yesterday I didn’t have a photo of Marshall’s coal miner memorial decal, but today I do.

My thanks to Bryan Stevens, Andy McNeel, Joseph Bias, Steve Hoyle, and Aaron Newman for bringing these to my attention. Greatly appreciated, as always.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Hey, look what’s getting a bit of media coverage. ”¦ Paul Bielewicz and Tyler Kepner have both noticed something odd about Rollie Fingers’s Hall of Fame plaque. Judging from the triangle shape on the cap, it looks like the artist used a photo from his Padres days and then changed to the logo to an A’s mark, resulting in a hybrid cap. Weird. ”¦ The Covington, Kentucky, police dept. is going back to its old badge design. “Turns out the company that made them still had the original die,” says Brandon Roberts. ”¦ The U.S. military is working on new uniforms for female soldiers (with thanks to Michael Hersh). ”¦ Remember Mark Penxa and his Stealing Signs illustrations? Mike Raymer liked them so much that he commissioned Mark to create these three illustrations. ”¦ Terry Bennett says he noticed that Andy Sonnanstine’s cap was sans squatchee the other nite. I did some quick photo research, and sure enough, Sonnanstine appears to eschew the button. ”¦ Schutt recently lost a copyright infringement case brought by Riddell, which has forced Schutt to seek bankruptcy protection. To soon to say what effect this will have, if any, on the company’s operations. ”¦ “I was struck today by the knee brace cover worn by a girls’ soccer player at Oxbow High in Bradford, Vt.,” writes Tris Wykes. “It’s a silky material with padding on the top and bottom. She said it’s to prevent her brace from cutting or otherwise injuring opponents. I’d never seen such a thing before.” ”¦ Ho. Lee. Shit. Is that completely magnificent or what? The player is Jim Bausch, from the 1932 Kansas squad. Anyone want to take a stab at colorizing him? (Big, big thanks to Warren Humphries.) ”¦ Reprinted from yesterday’s comments: New court design for UConn. ”¦ If you choose to believe the supposedly leaked images that began floating around the web yesterday afternoon, the Sabres’ road jersey will look like this (which is pretty much what everyone’s been expecting) and their alternate will look like this (which is a bit of a shocker, at least to me). No idea how legit these are, so your mileage may vary. Phil says he doesn’t like the alt, but I really dig it — hope it’s the real deal. … New mask for Kevin Poulin (with thanks to John Muir). ”¦ NHL.com is running a series in which they choose the best player by uni number (with thanks to Steve Johnston). ”¦ Non-FBS change: Youngstown State has switched from Russell to Under Armour, and has a much simpler uni as a result (as noted by John Daugherty). … Paul Wiederecht spotted a 1957 Cubs photo that shows the team wearing stirrups that don’t quite match up with Okkonen. Anyone know more? … Saw Shellac last night and thought, as I’ve been thinking for the past 20 years or so, that Todd Trainer is the coolest, most compelling dude on the whole damn planet. … Happy new year to all who’ll be celebrating at sundown.