Skip to content
 

Going for the (Red and) Gold

splash_sf


By Phil Hecken

Welcome to Super Bowl Sunday. That’s really all that needs to be said. Now, it’s just the countdown until kickoff. There might be a few minutes of pregame somewhere.

Yesterday, we took a look at the uniform history of the Baltimore Ravens (and a fantastic job was done by Timmy Brulia and Rob Holecko from the Gridiron Uniform Database). Today, it’s time for their opponents, the San Francisco 49ers.

Unlike the Ravens, who were “born” in 1996, the Niners have been around a bit longer, and as such, they have a more intricate uniform history. Rob handled thumbs and inline images (click to enlarge), and I filled in the hyperlinks. Now, let’s take a look at that now as the boys from the GUD take a look at the…

49ers Through The Years
By Timmy Brulia & Rob Holecko

images

1946: The 49ers (or as most newspapers referred to them in the day, the Forty-Niners) began play as members of the All-America Conference. Their original colors were red and white. They wore plain white leather helmets, a plain red jersey with white numerals with a semi-block font, white pants with a thin red side stripe, and solid red socks. They also had in their closet a white jersey with red numbers in the same semi-block font, with red northwestern stripes on the sleeves. The socks were solid white to start, but then they wore white socks with the red northwestern stripes on them.

1947: The jerseys and socks stayed the same, but gold was added to the helmet and the pants. The Niners added a red stripe to the crown of the helmet, starting at the front and ending in the black. The gold pants had a thin red side stripe. The Niners did wear the 1946 white ensemble for a home game with the New York Yankees on September 21st. Don’t ask why, because I have no idea.

1948: The Niners, apparently not sure yet of their identity, switched to silver helmet and pants from gold. All other trim remained the same. The back numbers had larger fonts from the front numbers.

nfl_g_jperry_sy_600

1949: The Niners, from what we can gather, wore their red jerseys for the full season. In fact, there is no visual evidence that they would wear white jerseys again until 1955.

1950: The 49ers join the NFL along with their AAFC brethren Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts. The red center stripe in dropped and the silver leather helmet is now plain. A red helmet is worn for a night game against the Yanks in New York. A set of triple white stripes are worn on the sleeves and socks for games against the Rams.

1951: The silver helmets are now made of plastic (the 49ers are one of the later holdovers in the change from leather to plastic lids). The triple white stripes on sleeves and socks are now a permanent feature.

1953: The Niners open the regular season in red helmets with a thin silver stripe. The pants are now white instead of silver, with the same thin red side stripe.

1955: For the first time, black is added to the uniform. The Niners outline the numbers in black drop shadow. Black is also added to the white pants to create a red-black-red stripe combo. And for the first time since their AAFC days, the 49ers wear a white jersey (with white socks) for a game at Washington. The triple stripe pattern has the outer stripes in black, with the middle stripe in red on sleeves and socks. [Here’s what must be a training camp photo — note the lack of drop shadow numbers — PH]

1956: For the regular season, the 49ers go plain. The red helmet with the silver stripe is dropped in favor of a plain white helmet. The red jersey now resembles the 1951-1954 model (with a slight font change). The pants, while still white, now feature a thick red side stripe. The socks are unchanged. White jerseys are not worn. While most other teams in the NFL adopt the new-fangled TV numbers, the 49ers are not among them.

1957: Gold helmets and pants, not seen since the AAFC days, return. The pants are stripeless. The red uni is unchanged. With the NFL now requiring all teams to have a white set of jerseys as well as dark jerseys, the Niners bust out a jersey with a triple sleeve and stripe combo of outer gold stripes and an inner stripe of red. The white socks feature the same stripe combo, with and added crew sock with a thick red edge.

628x471

1958: The 49ers finally add TV numbers to the sleeves. The home red unis are unchanged. The whites now have a thick red shoulder stripe and solid red socks are worn with the white combo.

1959: Yet again, the Niners change helmet and pant colors, going from straight gold to straight silver. No change to the red jersey, but again a change is made to the white jersey as the thick red shoulder loop is split into two red loops, a la the Baltimore Colts.

1960: The helmet gets yet another tweak. Stripes are added to the helmet. A northwestern style of three red stripes amend the shell. All else remains the same.

bobstclair19531963

1962: At last, the Niners get a helmet logo! A large red oval, thinly outlined in black, with a white “SF” (the “S” in the upper left of the oval, with the “F” in the lower right of the oval) is placed on both sides of the helmet. The stripe pattern changes as well, from the three red stripes to a red-white-red combo. Jerseys, pants and socks remain as is.

1964: One more (and…last!) time, the Niners change metals. The drop the silver for good and change to gold for the helmets and pants. Stripes as on the helmet are added to the pants. And on the white jerseys, the shoulder loops are replaced by the same triple sleeve stripe combo (in red) found on the red jerseys. Fabric materials on the pants give the gold a darker sheen on the back as opposed to the front.

john_david_crow_1968_10_06


1969: The 50/NFL patch is worn on the left shoulder of both jerseys.

1970: With the merger with the AFL in full effect, the 49ers for the first time wear names of the backs (NOB) of their jerseys. They match the number color and are in a serifed font. The numbers themselves are a full block style than previously worn. Some players (notably Cedric Hardman) begin to wear white cleats instead of the customary black.

1971: For several early season games for this season and the two following seasons (red only in 1972-1973), the Niners wear jerseys hat have no sleeve stripes or TV numbers. This is the transition phase from durene jerseys to a lighter mesh-knit material.

1974: A change is made to the number font. And white cleats are predominate.

9t5Wh.St.4

1976: The white jersey is worn for all home games. In fact, the white jersey is worn for the entire regular season. Also, the pant stripes are widened noticeably. NOB are now sans serif.

1978: The numbers return to the block style.

8eca_2

1986: Well into the “Team of the 80’s” golden era, the Niners wear a 40th Anniversary patch, located on the left hip of the gold pants. Also, serifs return to the NOB.

1989: The 49ers add a black outline to the ‘SF’ logo on their helmets.

1994: The NFL’s 75th Season patch is worn on the left breast of the jerseys. Also, the Niners wore special throwback jerseys (paying tribute to the 1955 set) for most of the season, including the playoffs and in Super Bowl XXIX. Here’s a full game-by-game breakdown on what they wore and when during this Championship season.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

RackMultipart.10235.0_display_image

1996: Owing to the popularity of the throwbacks worn in 1994, the Niners make the first major changes to their togs since 1962. Starting with the helmets, the logo is tweaked to feature gold outline followed by a thicker black outline and the stripe pattern is changed to a thick red stripe flanked by thin black stripes. And the mask color is changed from gray to red. TV numbers are moved to the shoulders. And all the numbers are changed to a double outline; the white numbers on the red jerseys feature a double outline, a thin gold outline followed by a thicker black drop shadow. the red numbers on the white jersey have the same outline features. The NOBs also have the same double outline less the drop shadow. The SF oval logo is also superimposed over the triple stripes on the sleeves. The pants are changed from gold to white with a black-red-black stripe pattern. The socks are solid red. The red mentioned here is a deeper hue than previous years. To top it all off, there’s a 50th Anniversary patch on the left breast of the jerseys.

72496049_crop_650x440

1998: The NOBs go to a single outline, eliminating the gold outline. In the regular season, the pants are changed back to gold, with a northwestern stripe pattern, the outer stripes in black and the center stripe is a thick red. The logo is on each hip of the pants.

2002: The Niners wear an 80’s retro red uni for the November 25 game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

2005: From 2005-2008, the Niners wear their 80’s retro red unis for a home game or two each season.

2007: Black cleats replace white cleats.

2009: The Niners return to the look of glory as they return to the 1964-1995 style. The helmet logo stays intact, but the stripes go from black-red-black back to red-white-red and the masks return to gray from red. The red jerseys (and red numbers on the white jerseys) return to a brighter red than the cardinal shade that had been in place since 1996. The 49ers wordmark is added and placed just above the front number. The numbers and NOB’s are again a single color rather than the busy double outline and the NOB’s have a serif. The triple stripe pattern attain a look of truncation, due to the modern day sleeve cut. The pant stripes change to match the helmet stripes.

The 2009 unis have been worn to date.

2012: Players given choice between black cleats and red/gold cleats.

68cf12d6bb333624250f6a7067001879

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Special note: In early 1991, the 49ers held a press conference and introduced a new helmet to be worn starting with the 1991 season. The helmet shell and stripes were to remain the same but the familiar red SF oval logo was to be replaced by a white stylized “49ERS” with black and red trim. There was such a howl and outcry from the 49er faithful that it was scrapped and the Niners resumed wearing the normal helmet without a hitch. This helmet is not included in the above timeline as it never saw action on the field of play.

. . .

Good luck in XLVII, 49ers!

SF_2b_GRGRB 1280X1600

[If you’d like to see the extended version of this post, with additional graphics and photographs, visit the Gridiron Uniform Database blog]

.. … ..

Thanks Tim & Rob! Great job (again) with the 49ers uni history. Like the Ravens yesterday, I’ll wish good luck to the Niners, but unlike the Ravens, I’ll be rooting for the Niners. Now…how many hours is it till kickoff?

Make sure you guys thank Tim & Rob down below and let them know what a great job they did with the history of the unis!

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

all sport uni tweaks

Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.

And so, lets begin:

~~~

We begin today with Bert Ayres, who new looks for the Titans of Tennessee:

12-1211_Tennessee Titans (Home) - Bert Ayres

12-1211_Tennessee Titans (Away) - Bert Ayres

12-1211_Tennessee Titans (Alternate) - Bert Ayres

Mr. Hecken :

I’m not going to dance around it, I hate the Titans uniforms. Even their font makes me upset, so I’m trashing their current concept and going with something closer to the old Oilers look. I ditched the dark blue and made the red more prominent. I also don’t like their current helmet logo, so I’m removing the Tennessee state flag logo from their sword graphic and going with that.

Bert Ayres

. . .

Next up is Kyle Hardee, with a new set of duds for the Dolphins:

Dolphins New Unis - Kyle Hardee


Dolphins Concept - Kyle Hardee

Phil,
I decided to take on the Miami Dolphins. I think the current uni is almost perfect so I didn’t stray too far from it. I have a logo change that was actually rendered by Mike Pister and it is basically a another modernized version of their current logo. I did the uniforms myself.

-Kyle Hardee

. . .

And we close today with Josh Escobar who has a concept for the Buffalo Bison(s):

Buffalo Bison - Josh Escobar

Hey Phil,

Josh Escobar again, this time with another throwback for the Bills but as the 1946 Buffalo Bison. I sent my last pic of the giants concept and appreciated the positive feedback. Thanks.

Josh Escobar
SF, CA

. . .

And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Screen Shot 2013-02-02 at 10.15.56 PM

And in that other bowl…

Yes, the Super Bowl is today. No one in the world doesn’t know that. But an almost equally important bowl is taking place from 3-5 pm ET on Animal Planet — before that other game. What’s that?

The Puppy Bowl, of course.

Not only is it the cutest thing since the history of ever, it’s also for a good cause.

You may know the two hour show features dogs as football players, trying to score touchdowns on a 10′ x 19′ carpet, with the object of crossing a “goal line” with a plush toy.

Hilarity often ensues. Sometimes, new friendships are made. And sometimes, Tony Romo gets shut out again (ok, I’m pretty sure that last one is a photoshop).

Not only that, there is a “Most Valuable Pup” award, a water bowl cam, slow-motion cameras, hedgehog cheerleaders, a puppy hot tub and a blimp with a crew of hamsters. I mean, shit, who doesn’t love hedgehogs?

But none of that is why it’s great.

It’s great because the Puppy Bowl’s (and this is the IXth one of these, having been started in 2005), goal is to raise awareness of the need to stop animal cruelty and to adopt homeless animals. And while that’s not what UW is about, both of those are very worthy causes. Plus, it’s two hours of, to borrow a phrase from a guy who’s covered the game before, cutegasm. Who doesn’t enjoy a two-hour cutegasm?

So, instead of watching endless droning before the game about the storylines you’ve heard for two weeks…check out the Puppy Bowl instead. You can still watch the game and Beyonce at halftime…but the pregame goes to the dogs.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

And finally…

The First Washington, D.C. UW Gathering (Uni Watch Party), taking place at Hamilton’s Bar & Grill, is coming up this Wednesday, Feb. 6 at 7:30 pm. I’ll be making the trek down to D.C. along with Paul (well, we’re traveling separately) and looking forward to meeting up with all you fine D.C. (and hopefully surrounding area) readers. Don’t forget, along with your favorite jersey — make sure you wear your finest rups — Comrade Marshall will be considering everyone’s hosiery in the awarding of the *final* UW stirrup. The next day, Paul & I will be attending the Racist Stereotypes and Cultural Appropriation in American Sports symposium — sounds like it’s open to the public (and FREE!) so maybe we’ll see some of you fine readers there as well.

. . .

And that’s it for today — SUPER BOWL SUNDAY.

Go NINERS!

Everyone have a great day, enjoy the SB. I will catch most of you next weekend and see some of you Wednesday night.

Peace!

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

130129145952-puppy-bowl-9-2-horizontal-gallery

One For The Road

.. … ..

“(F)or the record some of us (speaking only for myself) wouldn’t hate the solid black no-stripe pant look if they wouldn’t wear it with black socks so they don’t look like damn ballerinas in leotards.”
–Rob Holecko

 
  
 
Comments (97)

    Well I mean it could be, but that would mean we would need to make a change to the database. Until we make that change, as far as the GUD is concerned the Colts wore striped socks in 1959, just as the NFL maintains the old Browns and the Ravens are separate franchises.

    Who shot Kennedy, again?

    The guys say that 1956 was a plain White helmet. If that’s the case then why is there a stripe on them?

    Note to Josh Escobar. I like you Buffalo Bisons drawings. The horns on the helmet look better than the Michigan wing that the Bisons used.

    FYI-Buffalo teams have used “BISONS” as a nickname forever. Baseball, hockey or football, it’s always with the “s.” Those of us here in Western New York don’t give it a second thought. To us the name “BISON” seems out of place we’re so ingrained with “The Herd” (colloquial reference) being the “BISONS.”

    The guys say that 1956 was a plain White helmet. If that’s the case then why is there a stripe on them?

    That looks like a Colts helmet that Phil linked to.

    link

    That photo is taken from this forum (which should be familiar to most of us — scroll down). The picture is ID’ed as “12/16 BAL at SF” — I tried (as best as possible) to ensure the season I was linking to was the season being described. Rob is correct that some of the players are on the Colts (hence the stripe).

    I probably should have used a photo like this (Packers vs. Niners) which more clearly shows the helmets.

    The shot of Raymond Berry against the Niners may show him with no stripes on his blue socks, but trust me, the Colts HAD stripes on their socks. In looking at a couple of online pics from the 1959 NFL Championship game with the Giants, the stripes on the Colts socks were set unusually low and in some cases were totally covered by the white sannie socks.

    No changes to the GUD are necessary. For the 1959 Colts, anyway.

    Ist link under 1964 says access denied, 2002 link says GUD page hasn’t been created yet, Guy who’s covered it before PB IX link is 404.

    Ist (1st?) link under 1964 says access denied

    Apparently too many of us from here went there, and the third-party website that Phil hotlinked to has blocked access.

    2002 link says GUD page hasn’t been created yet

    My bad. That was my fault.

    Guy who’s covered it before PB IX link is 404.

    Not sure what you’re referring to here. Pro Bowl 9?

    “Guy who’s covered it before PB IX link is 404.”

    ~~~

    Did you try it again? That’s a link to Paul’s post on ESPN from 2011. It works for me.

    link

    “Ist link under 1964 says access denied”

    ~~~

    OK, substituted another link.

    Love the entry today. I love looking back through a franchises uni-volution. I really dig the helmet on that Titans concept, question for Bert, but is that blue supposed to be so Dolpins-like? Or more Oilers? Finally I love those Bills as Bisons concepts by Josh (beautiful work, I assume you are an art professional?).

    I was away from my computer yesterday and a post on those comments wouldn’t likely get the broad reading so…

    “The Gridiron Uniform Database really needs to use a number other than “11″ for its sample graphics. You get no feel for what a team’s number font looks like. At least use two different digits! What they should really do is have 12 on the home jersey front, 34 on the home back, 56 on the road front, 78 on the road back, and 90 on an alternate so that you get to see every digit.” – Mark in Shiga, yesterday.

    As we state in the “About” portion of GUD, several factors led to us using 11 throughout the site despite wanting to show some variety. It was a conscious decision and not laziness as some tend to think.

    1) Spacing. Not so much for the torso numbers (front/back) but for the TV numbers. With the wide variety of fonts used through the entire history of the NFL spacing numbers of varying widths would look awkward on the shoulders were we to have “12” with a 1 on one sleeve and 3/4 of the 2 showing on the other. Also, namely on modern Rams’ jerseys, trying to place wider numbers inside the curved Ram horn on the shoulders was a difficult/impossible task on our 2D template. We tried. Using 11 alleviates that problem.

    2) Research. We have every jersey from every team for every season all the way back to 1931 – and some beyond that. That is around 4000 different jerseys. Consider, in trying to locate an image of a 1927 Cardinals jersey with a 3 and a 4 you would need to find 2 photos that show those specific numbers instead of only needing to find the 1. Doing what we did cuts the research in half. In most cases, some teams got photos in their hometown newspaper perhaps only once all season. Football simply wasn’t baseball back in the old days.

    3) Continuity. We can’t win. If we had placed 34 on jerseys, viewers would be upset that it wasn’t showing 82 instead for a particular year.

    Definitely. In fact, that very concept is still mentioned in our original “About” that’s still on the site as something we want to add. Thing is, there are other projects and additions to the site that we felt had to have a greater priority like when we added the Pro Bowl section months ago. Stuff his happening but we don’t want to put things up half finished. I wouldn’t have liked the reaction we’d have gotten if we only put up the first 30 years of the Pro Bowl instead of the entire run.

    Yeah but you don’t get to see the Bears round numbers; specifically. I would have chosen 22, 33, 55, 66, 88 or 99. It can always be updated, of course.

    Rich Eisen (@richeisen) tweeted photos of the end zones this morning around 8:40am. The Ravens’ end zone is definitely purple.

    I’m assuming it was supposed to be something closer like this:

    link

    Which is something I could get behind, but the helmet needs more color & contrast; the socks as well.

    As much as I like clean 1-color numbers, that might need some thick red trim to make it pop against the light blue.

    At 9:00am (CT) on ESPN2, Darren Rovell is having an awesome piece on counterfeit jerseys. Should be right up most of ours alley.

    I like the current 49ers uniform with the exception of the truncated stripes on the sleeves which looks awful. The team should just put the regular three stripes on the sleeves.

    I don’t usually comment on uni concepts but Kyle Hardee, if you’re out there I think your Dolphins concept is really, really good save the amount of navy. From a distance (or without my glasses on) the road uni looks too much like the Chargers roads. I’d tweak them like this:

    1. Reverse navy and aqua on road jersey,

    2. Swap navy and aqua jerseys as home and alternate,

    3. Carry sock striping onto navy upper socks (as you have on away pants), then

    4. Lose the away pants altogether.

    I’d go mono white on the road and at home during the early months of the season, aqua over white at home in the late months of the season, navy over white as a late-season home alt or a road alt when playing teams that wear white at home.

    I’m not a Dolphins fan, graphic artist or uni expert but I’ve always liked the team’s unique look. You’ve brought it up to date in a clean, consistent and coherent way. Great work!

    I don’t get the heavy use of navy blue. I counted 11 stripes on the road pants – that’s a lot of fucking stripes!

    I was on a forum once and a few Dolphin fans wanted Miami to use Navy more so than teal. I just put that together to see what it would look like. I personally like the teal better. As far as the stripes go on the navy pants… I didn’t take the time to recolor the stripes for those pants so I just laid down a solid wide white stripe and added the white pant stripes to it.

    I guess we’d better not talk about the SI Swimsuit Issue coming out a week from Tuesday. I’m picking Chrissy Teigen for the cover.

    We’ll leave that sophisticated reporting to the professional experts down at Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner & The Bleacher Report.

    In all seriousness, though, there are uniform aesthetic issues of the lingerie bowl that I would think would fall under the aegis of Uni Watch and should merit serious discussion, and would if we didn’t weren’t afraid to appear to be drooling cavemen oogling pretty women.

    That, and they occasionally have uniform malfunctions which I’ll refrain from linking to here, but can easily be found with a Google search.

    Hey, it is a uniform!

    You guys all know there’s lots of porn on the interwebs now, right? Didn’t think you needed the soft core stuff on UW.

    Yeah, but they’re not gonna discuss the merits of the width of the stripes on the Miami Caliente’s halter top, and whether the Jacksonville Breeze are going to go white at home.

    They are changing the name to the Legends league, and I believe they take their football seriously.

    I hope the Uni Watch gathering involves watching the USMNT in their first Hex qualifier game v. Honduras! I hope to see some nice US gear in the pics following the gathering.

    I’m into Bert’s Titans redesign. Looks sharp, and I agree that their current unis are among the league’s worst.

    But Josh Escobar’s Buffalo throwback? Well, that gives me a raging chub. I love the striping, and I love-love that helmet.

    Super job today guys. I always love uniform timelines or evolution.

    Here are a couple great pics of the 49ers from Hy Peskin collection.

    link

    link

    1957

    Locally, there seem to be loads of little outdoors pop-up vendor tents with 49ers merch. Don’t know if it’s legit or not. Seem to be @ Shell stations only.

    Got my lucky long-sleeve Niners T on.

    Nervous.

    I believe between the 1988 and 1989 season San Francisco also added a black outline to the SF.

    I didn’t originally add that to the chronology because the change was so minute as not to be noticeable, but if the eye is keen…then use it!!

    Thanks, EvanB!

    A weekend without My Little Pony (or whatever it is) links and we get puppy pictures. Great cause though.

    Anyone know why silver was used at times with the 49ers? I’ve never been able to find any discussion or reasons for it.

    Little known fact: Phil Knight’s father, Darkas, won the one-year uni contract for the 1948 49ers, forever altering the destiny of football uniform design.

    Damn the Knight family!!!!

    My first guess would be that it was a supplier problem, and that silver/grey was easier to get then gold, but they had gold in ’47, you would think they could get it in ’48, so makes me think it was a choice, but that makes no sense either.

    Every once in a while I go Googling for info, but never find anything.

    49ers in silver trim is one of those mysteries that maybe best unsolved.

    I mean, we all know about the 1849 silver rush, don’t we??

    You may be right, timmy b.

    My favorite 49er uniform is the 1955 red, white and black combo, drop shadow numbers, no gold or silver, I think the Rams and 49ers should play one of their games each year in the ’55 uniforms, Red v Yellow, alternate between cities each year.

    In my mind, the 49ers have had one of the best uniforms in NFL history, but the one thing that they lost in 1970 was their own distinctive number font, which they’d been using apparently since the mid 1950s (especially noticeable to my eye with the old 1s, 2s and 7s). The differences to standard block numbers were subtle, but for that period, the 49ers had a number style that set them apart and after that, their numbers just kind of looked like everyone else’s.

    HEY!!!

    has anyone yet realized these were the two surviving aafc franchises…?

    s.f. forty-niners v.

    cleveland browns (who moved to baltimore)…

    (baltimore was, btw, the home of the third aafc team to be absorbed into the nfl)…

    and, yes i realize the nfl doesn’t “recognize” the ravens as having once been the browns, even though the personnel, both on the field and in the front office, were the same when they arrived in baltimore as they were when the left cleveland…

    they were the browns, no matter what legal reason the nfl has for refusing to admit it…

    Not unless the 49ers (designated home team) decided to wear white.

    And the chances of that happening were somewhere south of “slim” and “none.”

    Also, Balto’s black jersey, er…shirts are their designated “alternates” which I do not believe are permitted to be worn during the post season.

    So, no, Baltimore could not have gone black on black.

    Did they make that rule after the Chargers wore the powder blue alts for a Wild Card game against Indianapolis a few years ago?

    I’m disappointed to see Ray Lewis wearing black cleats in the SB. I was looking forward to the reactions to the metallic gold ones we saw previewed.

    “so he can get a pre-snap read before the ball is snapped”

    As opposed to after the snap, right?

    Sports commentators are underpaid.

    The fake grass just contributes to the sterile quality of the game. It reminds me of the atmosphere of the Bengals/49ers SB in the Pontiac Silverdome. Or a Twins World Series game in the Metrodome.

    The best thing about the power outage has been not having to hear Nance or Simms.

    I agree it’s a bit grimmy looking – power outage or no power outage.

    What I don’t understand – a city like Atlanta, is already hearing that the Georgia Dome, a stadium built in the 90’s needs replacing, and yet this relic stadium – keeps getting Superbowls/BCS Championship game – is New Orleans really that interesting?

    Someone needs to take Phil Simms out to the barn, and put us out of our misery.

    Anyone else notice the SB logos on the field don’t contain the stadium silhouette, but the logos on the jerseys do?

    I was responding to old boys “if only” comment. “if only the Ravens could wear the best uni combo ever. Black hats and britches.”

    I enjoyed reading the 49er’s uni history today.

    Personally, I think that any team showing up at the Super Bowl dressed in purple and black should be made to spot the opposing team 10 points before the game starts.

    Logo stealing has reached the Super Bowl! NFL high school commercial they’ve shown twice has a team wearing Tennessee’s helmets.

    One really tiny detail missed on the 49ers 1994 uniforms is the NFL shield being added to the throwbacks. From my poor recollection, they had to get special permission to continue to wear the throwbacks for the rest of the season (as a good luck charm).

    At some point, the NFL shield appeared on the jersey (I have no idea which week). Probably a league request. Here’s a look at both versions:

    Without Shield:
    link

    With Shield:
    link

    If this is substantial enough to add to the database, hopefully someone can find out the week-to-week change to the shield.

    Correction to the above: It seems to be an inconsistency to the NFL shield being applied to the jersey. I see Super Bowl pics of players without the shield.

    Again, with shield:
    link

    Without shield:
    link

    Congrats to the Ravens and their fans! (You’ve saved me 30- and a trip over to Sports Authority!)

    For 1991:

    You also forgot to include the 49ers switched to solid red socks permanently for this season (likely a carryover from the abandoned “one-day logo” redesign, as documented in Paul’s article last year):

    link

    Since ’91 the only time the Niners wore striped socks was the throwback games in ’94 (though after week 9 they went back to solid red socks), 2002, and 2005-08.

    I was wondering about this! I know the Niners switched to solid red socks (losing the stripes) at some point in the 90s, but 1991 makes sense.

Comments are closed.