The NFL is taking a very odd approach to the Pro Bowl this year. The uniforms for last season’s Pro Bowl were announced with a lot of fanfare way back in October of 2013, nearly four months before the game itself. This time around, with the game coming up this weekend, there’s been no news about the unis, but the league was selling merch with the same highlighter colors used in last year’s uniforms, so I assumed they were sticking with the same uni designs.
As it turns out, they’ve kept the same color scheme but essentially flipped the home and road designations. Here’s a comparison of last season’s designs and this season’s, which were released yesterday (click to enlarge):
As you can see, they’ve made small adjustments to the pants striping, the panels just above the armpits, and a few other details, but for the most part it’s just a home/road flip of the previous year. Which is to say, it’s still really fucking ugly, although the lack of mono-charcoal makes it an improvement over last year’s.
One interesting thing about the two sets of mock-ups: They both show helmets from the previous year’s Super Bowl teams — 49ers and Ravens for last year’s mock-ups, Seahawks and Broncos for this year’s. Ah, but why did the uni numbers in the mock-ups change from 56 to 55? Those Swooshkateers — so inscrutable!
They’re once again indicating the player’s number of Pro Bowl selections (or maybe how many players had to beg out of the game for this player to get his roster spot) by putting stars above the NOBs. They also did this last year.
Meanwhile, take a look at the cleats — is that a neon camo pattern inside the Nike logo? Sigh (click to enlarge):
Whatever you think about the designs, it’s odd that they didn’t unveil them until a few days before the game. Similarly, as I noted in yesterday’s Ticker, they also waited until this week to announce that they’re narrowing the Pro Bowl goalposts. Almost feels like someone in the league office suddenly snapped to attention this week and said, “Holy shit — totally forgot that the Pro Bowl’s this Sunday! Quick, issue all the press releases!!”
(My thanks to Phil for his assistance with this piece.)
Click to enlarge
T-Shirt Club update: Quite a few people emailed or tweeted yesterday to say that they’d received their January shirts from the Uni Watch T-Shirt Club (including Jeff Stumm, who took the photo shown above and says the shirt “looks even better in person” than he’d expected). If you want to share photos of yourself wearing your shirt, let’s have ’em.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it earlier this week, the February design is now available for purchase. Full details here, or just go straight to the ordering page.
Mike’s Question of the Week
By Mike Chamernik
With Paul writing about the Pro Bowl today, I thought I’d ask you folks about that. Do you watch the Pro Bowl? If so, do you watch the entire game or just check in for a quick peek? Do you make any pools, games, or other side activities to create a vested interest in the game? Ever attended in person?
My favorite Pro Bowl memory is when Sean Taylor lit up that punter. Other than that, I’ve never watched the game myself, other than brief snippets while changing channels. It’s really weird seeing all the players other than Taylor perform at quarter-speed.
PermaRec update: The teen-aged Manhattan Trade School student shown at right was advised to take legal action against a former employer who refused to pay her a week’s wages. Get the full story on Permanent Record.
Uni Watch News Ticker
By Mike Chamernik
Baseball News: A few new number assignments for the Mariners (from Tim Dunn). … Pete Rose wore a pocketed BP jersey and a mesh cap on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1989 (from Patrick O’Neill). … New uniforms for the Nashville Sounds. … We’d previously seen the Nationals’ 10th-anniversary patch, but here’s our first look at it on a jersey. … Max Scherzer will wear No. 31 for the Nats (from David Goodfriend). … The Cardinals released their promotional schedule (from Sean Kautzman).
NFL News: These NFL helmet space heaters are pretty neat (from Jon Solomonson). … The restaurant Tilted Kilt found a way to get around the copyright restrictions of advertising for their Super Bowl parties (from Dane Drutis). … Not only did Brad Johnson alter footballs prior to Super Bowl XXVII, but he also, according to the second paragraph of this story, “changed his socks and shoes every quarter, and over the course of a game he replaced everything but his pants. Johnson always sweated profusely, and he liked the clean, dry feeling.” … Markus Kamp lives outside of Seattle and near a skate park that has graffiti walls. Before the NFC championship game on Sunday, he painted a 12th Man flag in Seahawks colors on one of the walls. “Painting 8′ x 11′ concrete walls with any degree of detail or accuracy is trickier than it may seem, especially with no available power near the walls, meaning images can’t simply be projected and traced,” he says. “It ends up involving a mix of freehand (e.g., the green stripes in my 12 flag this year) and homemade stencils (my 12).” His neighbors made this Seahawks logo, and Markus and his neighbors had a similar project last year. … The Bears say they will not wear mono orange (thanks, Michael Hersh). … A Seattle-area woman received a Seahawks bag for Christmas, but it had a Patriots logo on it, too. … A Boston bakery is selling Deflategate cookies.
Hockey News: During the NHL all-star festivities this weekend, team mascots will face off in a hockey game along with broomball, dodgeball and other competitions. … The Islanders will wear 1972 throwbacks for their last game at Nassau Coliseum on April 11 (from Phil). … New Atlanta Flames-inspired jerseys for the Gwinnett Gladiators. … Here’s a ranking of the worst to best NHL All-Star jerseys throughout history (from Phil). … Lakeville North high school in Minnesota has a very Nordiques-esque logo (from Tris Wykes). ”¦ Here’s a rare sight: Cooperalls vs. Cooperalls! That’s from a 1980s game between the Hamilton Steelhawks and the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (from Leo Strawn Jr.). ”¦ Pink in the Rink jerseys upcoming for the Toledo Walleye. ”¦ Anyone know why the Sharks wore white at home last night against the Kings? Interestingly, the band Metallica was on hand for the game, and the Sharks gave the band members custom jerseys, but those jerseys were black.
NBA News: Rapper Wale said he and Kanye West may be designing a new Wizards uniform (from Phil). … Here’s another piece on what NBA jerseys would look like with corporate sponsors on them. … An Oregon supermarket has a really cool Blazers soda display (from Rick Rutherford). … When I was in grade school, my friend showed me a video game he got from the Philippines. All I remember was that it was an American video game that was reproduced by some Filipino company, and that the company’s logo was the Indiana Pacers’ logo with “Players” as the wordmark. I haven’t been able to find which company this is, if they still exist, or why they chose the Pacers’ logo, though.
College and High School Hoops News: Fordham will wear throwbacks tonight to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the school’s Rose Hill Gym (from Phil). … The Walsh (Colo.) Eagles have purple jerseys, but not in the way you might think (from Jeff Braun). … North Carolina wore white-and-pink shoes last night, and coach Roy Williams and his staff wore sneakers with their suits (from Phil). … From yesterday’s comments: St. John’s and Marquette went gray-versus-blue last night.
Grab Bag: Italian club S.S. Lazio has a retro kit (from Phil). … Cincinnati will become an Under Armour school this summer (from Phil). … Press conferences in Hong Kong can be ad-filled events (from Chris Wheeler). … Here’s a history of Mazda’s logo. … “In a recent NTFL women’s match between Nightcliff and Waratah, the umpires wore different colours,” says Graham Clayton. “The field umpires wore orange and grey, while the boundary and goal umpires wore lime green and black uniforms.” … Have you ever noticed that Google Maps displays a shadow behind the pop-up bubble in satellite view? ”¦ Tennis player Varvara Lepchenko was spotted wearing Nike and Under Armour simultaneously at the Australian Open (from Kyle Ferramola).
Last night was Metallica Night in San Jose, so the Sharks may have gone white at home for the special occasion. Or maybe just to flip the script.
Why were they given black jerseys? It’s metal; the first big mainstream album was The Black Album; pretty much every time James Hetfield is spotted at a Sharks game he’s wearing a black jersey.
Or…why not.
Seems like your second graf argues against the first.
Yeah, it does. Spitballing before coffee.
For the record, San Jose was wearing its white jerseys because the Kings plan on wearing their special white jerseys from the outdoor game when the teams meet in Los Angeles on April 11. The Sharks will wear their black jerseys that night and this was the tradeoff.
Source: link
Ah, excellent info. Thank you!
Makes sense
Can’t decide if the “Natinals” in the ticker is a typo or a call-back to this: link
Ha! Wish I could say it was intentional, but it’s a typo. Will fix.
QotW: I usually turn the game on and let it serve as background noise while I’m doing other things. So I usually only see bits & pieces of it. It’s always been such a joke of a game that you can’t take it seriously, and football players just “having fun” isn’t as entertaining as a real game… or even other sports all-star games. Personally I think they should bring back the skill competitions they used to have during Pro Bowl weekend and just scrap the game entirely.
I think they should get rid of the game and put the players into competitions by position. I’m thinking something like the old SuperStars specials they ran…or maybe even like Battle of the Network Stars. Hell, I’d take Circus of the Stars.
Doubt it is camo in the Nike logo on the shoes. It is probably just a colored chrome or very shiny material, and it looks like camo in the graphic representation/mockup.
Agreed. It looks like the same material that was used in the MLB All Star Game on some batting gloves.
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Just colored chrome. You can even tell in the reflections on the ground in the second image of the cleats posted that the colors are shifted from how light is hitting them.
yup, you can (could) buy the cleats on NDC, and it’s a shiny reflective swoosh, as is the cleat base.
link
Isn’t the swoosh heading the wrong way?
QOTW: I know I’ve never watched a full Pro Bowl, and can’t really remember the last time I made it a point to even watch some of it. But, perhaps I’m an oddity when it comes to sports fans: all-star games just bore the absolute crap out of me. I was big into baseball’s when I was a kid in the 90s, but nowadays I might watch an inning or two. Any other sport? Couldn’t care less.
Completely agree. The only moments that I can think of in the last 25 years of non-event all-star games are
1. Peyton Mannning going off on the Idiot Kicker, I swear the expression “liquored up” became a lot more popular as a result
2. US national anthem – NHL All star game – old Chicago Stadium, just at the time of the initial Iraq confrontation – 1990 ish?
3. Bud Selig – “no mah” decision and declaring a tie.
All three notable events are non-game events, which pretty much says it all.
#2 was 1991 at Chicago Stadium.
Like most of those heard from today, I don’t watch the Pro Bowl. Never did, actually. Back in the Paleolithic, when there were only a handful of college bowl games, all on or near January 1, I was a weird little addict who never missed the East-West, North-South, Blue-Gray games. No scouting combines in those days, and no easily-shared video tapes, so the players with pro aspirations — plus the players knowing it was their first and last time in the national limelight —- played hard within a framework of loosey-goosey schoolyard-style offenses. Very often a lot of fun to watch.
My big Pro Bowl experience happened on a January on Oahu about ten years ago. It was the week right before the Pro Bowl, and I was going all around the island talking with marine biology people. On many of the stops — and at all the stops at tourist-intensive places — gigantic stretch limos would appear, from which would emerge giant men in colorful outfits. Giant, giant men. They would walk around a bit — generally not too far away from the limo — and scan the horizon. Then they would get back in the limo and off they went. And, for whatever reason, my heart swelled with affection whenever I saw them.
From the late 1970s until its demise the Blue-Gray game was played on Christmas afternoon. Always found it to be a nice diversion.
QotW: When I was a kid in the 70’s I LOVED watching the Pro Bowl.
A: We weren’t inundated with sports coverage like we are today so….
B: You got to see players that you didn’t get to see on a regular basis (see item A).
C: I loved seeing the different helmets on the uniforms. A Redskins helmet on a blue uniform…Awesome in that setting!
Nowadays, I don’t watch it. My life has changed. TV has changed. Football has changed. The Pro Bowl has changed.
My memory is fuzzy, but I kinda-sorta recall they used to announce the HOF inductees at the Pro Bowl pre-game ceremonies.
Now you have to tune into The NFL version of the Oscars for the voting results.
OMG…Nike is the worst ever! And make sure you buy another Uniwatch t-shirt. Hypocritical much?
Don’t do this
Kek, don’t be one of my dittoheads!
This is still me we’re talking about right? LOL
Because a fun little program for the readers here that got such overwhelmingly positive feedback that Paul took our suggestions and expanded it from his original plans is totally the same thing as what that global corporate juggernaut out of Beaverton does.
Just another thought on the Pro Bowl itself….
I think back in the real olden days, a trip to Hawaii was an actual reward to the players–as well as the honor of being named to the PB.
Nowadays these guys can BUY Hawaii. That reward is moot (thus its removal from the thing). The players only care about being CHOSEN for the PB–not so much in the actual game. Football is a hard game to “exhibitionalize”. They’d almost be better off playing flag football since the fear of injury is such a high priority at the PB anyway. It’s weak.
My take on the Pro Bowl, and all professional All Star Games: stop playing them or just make it a skills competition. Players can still be chosen, given credit on their resumes and get a little plaque or a patch they can wear on their uniforms. The one exception I would have granted was for MLB as they still play the game like a real game. But with inter-league play, we all get to see players from just about every team anyway. Which used to be part of the allure and thrill of the ASG.
QotW: I will not watch the NFL Pro Bowl, but I will be glued to the TV for the NHL All-Star Game earlier in the day.
If there’s a good college basketball game on this weekend, that’s what I’ll be watching.
What’s the significance, if any, of the numbers 56 and 55 for the Pro Bowl uni models?
It represents the number of people who give a shit about the game. :0
I think you’re overestimating it. By a lot.
“… Here’s a history of Mazda’s logo…”
Thank you. Non-jock graphic-history items are a serendipitous pleasures of this place.
I was a bit of a Mazda enthusiast back before middle age required me to have a back seat in my car. And I’d never seen or heard of that second logo, the one with the lines based on the Hiroshima symbol. What a fantastic bit of midcentury design!
+1
Not being around Mazdas (don’t own one, etc.), I guess I just thought their logo was an “M” in a circle.
To be fair to you, Mazda’s current logo really is an “M” in a circle. Explanations beyond that are marketing BS. Which is fine and all – ever company does it – but it’s not wrong to see it as the “M” in a circle that it clearly is. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of Mazda badges modified to emphasize the “M,” such as:
link
I’ve heard that referred to as the “Evil Mazda” or “Evil M” logo.
As for the Pro Bowl I enjoy it. I often joke to friends that I’m the only guy in America that likes the Pro Bowl. It is great to see the best players in the NFL on one field. While I know the game doesn’t come close to the intensity of a regular season game, the unique quality of great players, different teammates, all the different helmets and the Pro Bowl uniforms make it exciting for me. In previous years when the Pro Bowl was played after the Super Bowl, I looked at it as one last game. Sort of like a bonus. Now it’s just an appetizer to get me pumped to watch the Super Bowl. I’ll be watching closely this Sunday!
It is great to see the best players in the NFL on one field
Except that many will be playing in the Super Bowl instead…
And that’s another thing. Years ago, you would sometimes even see players in the Pro Bowl who had participated in the Super Bowl just the previous weekend!
Now, you *might* see players from teams eliminated in the divisional round.
QOTW: No, I don’t watch the Pro Bowl and I can’t remember ever having watched it.
Not the same thing exactly but I used to watch the College All Star Game with my Dad and uncles every year. NFL champs vs. the best incoming rookies…that was fun.
Was about to say the same thing about the College All-Star Game. I’ve probably watched about a dozen plays from the Pro Bowl down through the years, but a dog-days-of-summer matchup b/w the defending NFL champeen & the best incoming college seniors? Must-see TV. I actually had a college all-star jersey growing up, those things were truly bad-ass:
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Wow, I forgot those games happened. It’s like a hypothetical discussion sprung to life.
It’s interesting that since the Seahawks are in the Super Bowl again, the uniform in the promotional image is actually impossible, as there won’t be any Seahawks playing in the Pro Bowl.
QoTW: like some of the other oldsters, I loved the Pro Bowl and the various college all-star games in the 70s and 80s. I think the last Pro Bowl that I went out of my way to watch was in ’90. The luster came off largely because in those days the game was taken lightly, but it still came across as a game. Now it’s more about the preening and posing and the self-absorbed media figures. /nowgetoffmylawn
Got the cleats, its just a shiny NIKE logo, no camo pattern in sight.
QOTW: I don’t make an effort to watch the Pro Bowl, but if I happen to go past it while changing the channel, I might stay on it for a little bit just for background noise.
I was actually talking to a friend about it yesterday, and we decided the Pro Bowl would be more entertaining if they played, like 7-7 or 8-8 flag football, but switched everyone’s positions. Linemen as receivers, punters as quarterback, etc. That would be fun!
“A couple of things Wale is passionate about is basketball and his hometown of Washington D.C”
Heh. Wale hails from the mean streets of Gaithersburg, MD, actually.
close enough.
Like a south suburb of Chicago?
As a former Gaithersburg denizen of 20+ years, whose daughter attended the same HS as Wale, I feel qualified in saying: Hardly.
I’ve listened to a lot of his music, in fairness, he is partial to the entire DMV. When it comes to sports though, he fashions himself a DC fan
that’s understandable. I don’t think I have ever go into anything about growing up on any kind of “mean streets” though.
If a women’s soccer team in Germantown, MD can call itself “Washington Spirit”, then I think Wale can claim DC his home.
Don’t fall for the Gaithersburg separatist propaganda: It’s a DC suburb. It’s actually kind of a close DC suburb, basically the next town over from Rockville. Gaithersburg has a stop on the Washington subway, fer crying out loud!
Now, if Wale had grown up in Damascus, or even Frederick, it might be another story.
Actually, Shady Grove metro is in an unincorpor- [slaps self]
True! Gaithersburg’s donut shape is one of the most interesting things on a DC-area map. Manassas also has a hole in its center on the map, but that’s really just a set of Prince William County buildings, not unincorporated land that the town fathers forgot to annex. Or whatever the story is behind the Shady Grove exclave.
The donut hole is entirely unrelated. That’s federal land that houses NIST. Which is also interspersed with abandoned Cold War missile silos – there was one in my old neighborhood as well as another adjacent to a nearby shopping strip.
The Shady Grove Metro stop is in Rockville, though I suppose you could argue Derwood. Where it’s not is in Gaithersburg.
My OP was more that Wale is hardly “street,” but rather from an upper middle-class DC suburb located in one of America’s wealthiest counties. Which itself abuts the wealthiest areas of DC itself. Though to his credit he mostly soft-pedals notions of his “hardness.”
And FWIW, I’ve never heard a person from “the DMV” refer to it as “the DMV.” Except to snort at someone for using the phrase “the DMV.”
With the imminent destuction of the Browns’ identity by Nike and now the news that U of Cincy is switching to Under Armor, it’s going to be a rough year for me, aesthetically.
Too bad you feel that way. As someone who has no emotional connection to either team, I say the changes have the potential to be improvements. Cinci’s uni set is fugly, although moving to UA doesn’t make me very optimistic about it getting better. On the Browns front, I’ve always hated their uniform set and particularly dislike the inclusion of shit-brown/no stripe pants. As far as I am concerned, the Browns’ set can only improve, although their colors lend themselves to a bad look (i.e., brown as a primary color). I get the whole “tradition” argument about them, but when the traditional uni looks bad, why stick with it?
I give the Pro Bowl a “hey how about that?” approach. I’ll check in on it (was lucky enough to see that Taylor hit during one of those remote flips). My wife seems to enjoy it because she loves the NFL, but I think even she has cooled on it in recent years.
MLB and NBA are must watch for me. Baseball was my first love and there is still something about that game, and not the crappy “Now It Counts” stuff either. As for the NBA, I enjoy the creativity and playground aspects… and of course the shoes!
NHL… while I love the skills Saturday, the game itself is normally tough to watch. If I want that much scoring I’ll go with Indoor Soccer or Lacrosse!
One thing I’d love for the NFL/Nike to do once this Team Carter/Team Irvin thing is played out, is go back to the AFC/NFC set up and do a retro or fauxback complete with helmets for the conferences and do color-on-color blue and red.
I know, I know… one helmet rule and all!
Back in the day, they would just paint the players’ regular helmets with the AFC/NFL colors for the Pro Bowl.
There’s no reason they can’t do that now, because it’s the last game of the year for everyone involved.
Really??? I didn’t know that! I feel cheated because I didn’t look for that last time I was at the HoF and took note and photos of Dan Dierdoff’s extenda-mask (due to an injured jaw I believe?)
Yup. Here’s one example, with the repainting noted in the explanatory text:
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More examples:
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link
link
Awesome, thanks so much for posting. So was the gold NFL a pre-merger thing?
Descriptions (but not visuals, alas) of all the Pro Bowl helmets/unis are here:
link
Learning is fun, because knowledge is power!
The gold helmets were introduced in 1966 and ran until the merger, with blue/white/blue Braisher stripes for the West and red/white/red for the East.
I love link – they didn’t bother to remove one of the Packers logos before painting it gold.
The Flames had all red uniforms. link
I’m glad the WWE has had their Royal Rumble on the same Sunday as the Pro Bowl, it’s a much more entertaining fake sports event.
Sometimes I wish we had a facebook like button on posts here. This would earn one.
Not really news but how gorgeous was that Penguins-Blackhawks game last night?
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Watched it on tv and the colors were just delightful.
I found it quite appropriate that the Penguins would break out their Pittsburgh Gold thirds against the Blackhawks. After all, prior to its reintroduction this season, the last time that design was seen on the ice in a game that counted was at Chicago Stadium on June 1, 1992, when the Pens completed their sweep of the Hawks for their second straight Stanley Cup win.
I’m probably in the minority on this, but if you put Tampa’s helmet on the NFC uniforms, that set would be infinitely better than what they have now.
There are no NFC or AFC designations for the Pro Bowl anymore!
But your basic point is well taken.
D’oh! :)
QOTW: Wait there is a NFL All Star game and no one told me?
Ok I know that was a bit sarcastic but that’s what it feels like now with NFL TV subscription packages and streaming online services. The “every game, every week” has taken most of the luster off of it. Even if your living in another city and your favorite team, the one you grew up watching, is on the other coast you still see them at least a couple of times a year without any subscription thing.
I guess the follow on question would be, Why is the NFL All-star game kinda pointless were, tossing out the fact that these are in the middle of the season the MLB, NBA, and NHL All-star games seem to do ok. That can’t be the only reason.
I know the NHL did this, and fairly sure the MLB, the previous years Stanley Cup/World Series winners would play against a team composed of the rest of the league. Now if the NFL did that with the previous years Super Bowl winner, that is something I would definitely watch.
I love those Pocketed BP jerseys. Those were mostly (if not all of them) made by Majestic and marketed as “Gamewarmers”. They had a really short retail life, maybe only a year or so, but some teams used them for quite a few years. I remember the White Sox wearing them long after they were taken off of the retail market. Bill Henderson’s work shows quite a few of them.
The funny thing about the Pro Bowl is that, for all the talk about declining viewership and interest, it link, and they pull in 11 million viewers going up against the Grammy Awards. People love them some exhibition football.
I can’t get interested in the Pro Bowl myself – I think the NBA ASG is the most fun to watch since the 10 guys who start are likely to be pretty familiar guys, and baseball isn’t bad because it’s actually not that different from a regular baseball game.
About the Pro-Bowl jerseys – aren’t new designs created every two years, so each conference is home and away in the template? Maybe no need to re-introduce such a horrible set of threads, then.
the Pro Bowl is a draft now, so conference colors aren’t necessary.
My first reaction is that the Pro Bowl uniforms look like Nike’s going for a Civil War (Oregon/Oregon State) look.
Those mockups of NBA jerseys with ads are probably not accurate. Wouldn’t most teams make a new design to at least include the team logo somewhere on the jersey (most European football clubs have a small logo patch on the chest). These mockups just replace the team name with a sponsor. I think that is inaccurate.
Dude, it’s Barstool Sports. It’s not meant to be taken seriously (or looked at all, if we’re being completely frank).
I work with someone that taught at Walsh last year. She says she thinks the “Purple” jerseys are practice jerseys. She really thought it was strange seeing kids she knows on a website like this!
I used to watch the Pro Bowl sometimes when I was younger.
When it was the weekend after the Super Bowl, there was a sense of “well, this is it for football, the last Sunday ritual for 8 months”. So I’d watch not because I cared about the game (who roots for a conference?) but because it was the last taste of the game until fall.
Then I realized that the football was terrible, the players didn’t care, the stands were empty, and it was all pretty sad.
I think this was a big part of it — one last ritual.
After the Super Bowl was over, and the hype had died down, the Pro Bowl served as an appropriately lightweight denouement of sorts. Moving the game to the weekend before the Super Bowl has been one of Roger Goodell’s most perplexing blunders; it’s as if he hasn’t a clue about who watched this exhibition or why.
The quality of play wasn’t usually so great, but I thought that it was entertaining enough to watch, most of the time. And before the uniforms became complete garbage (a number of years ago now, I guess), the game was something of an awkwardly-pleasant visual treat; all of the differently-colored team helmets paired with the bright blue and red conference uniforms.
It was a nice way to wrap up the season.
I avoid the Pro Bowl like the plague.
Just to add on the UNC coaches wearing Jordans, the colorway that they wore is coloquially referred to as “Columbia”, for the light blue on the Jumpman. The “Legend Blue” color is the correct Nike term, but the sneakerheads call it “Columbia”. That shoe is “special” because it was released just a couple of Saturdays ago.
QotD: Everyone says they don’t watch the Pro Bowl. But the numbers are always very high. 11.7 million people watched it last year. That number beats every other single major sports playoff games!
To answer the question, I do watch it. It’s still football, and nothing else is on to compete with it.
I posted above, but NBA Finals (18 million watched last year’s Game 5, 15.5 million average for the series) and the World Series (23.5 million watched Game 7, 13.8 million average) did better than the Pro Bowl. But absolutely – 11.7 million isn’t shabby at all.
I apologize. My numbers didn’t include the NBA Finals, or the World Series… just the other portions of the playoffs. My bad.
The numbers can be found here:
link
At least a couple of different new sources have this same error, but Brad Johnson actually played in Super Bowl XXXVII, not XXVII.
Good stuff, people. I won’t be watching the Pro Bowl this year either because, like commenter Josh above, I’ll be watching the Royal Rumble.
Other than the Pro Bowl being a joke, I do not watch it is because it is an indication that the current NFL season is coming to an end, depressing.
The Jeff said it perfectly, makes for good background noise.
QOTW: About the only time I would’ve ever had interest in the Pro Bowl was in the 1990s when Barry Sanders played. Even then, I can’t remember if he ever did anything noteworty; really, the only memorable thing I can think of is those bizarre mid-90s unis.
Really, the NHL All-Star Game was the only one I really considered appointment viewing (or recording if I was going to be away). I think the North America vs. the World format dulled my interest, though, as by the early 2000s I’d pretty much stopped caring about it.
QOTW: I could pretty much cut and paste my answer to this question from any number of today’s posts. I don’t pay too much attention to the Pro Bowl, but occasionally catch bits and pieces of it. Like The Jeff said, it’s not unusual for me to have it on in the background while I get other things done around the house.
I actually pay more attention to the Pro Bowl than any other all-star game other than perhaps Major League Baseball’s. I rarely watch even so much of a minute of the NBA, NHL, or MLS’s all-star game.
I did, however, ride my post-World Cup euphoria to engrossing myself in a good portion of the second half of the 2014 MLS All-Star Game. Unlike most all-star games, it was well worth my time thanks to the various story lines that emerged (the MLS All-Stars staging a stirring comeback from a 1-0 deficit to win, 2-1, against the powerhouse but largely disinterested Bayern Munich club; Landon Donovan announcing his retirement, scoring the game-winner, and being named MVP; Bayern manager Pep Guardiola acting like a petulant child after the loss and refusing to shake MLS manager Brad Porter’s hand).
But before I drift too much further off-topic, back to the question at hand: since I’ve missed more plays in Pro Bowl games than I’ve actually watched, it’s hard to pick out very many standout moments to serve as my favorite memory. I’d probably have to go with John Elway’s TD pass to Todd Christensen in the the 1987 Pro Bowl, which helped lift the AFC link over the NFC. It really wasn’t all that noteworthy of a play, but to a young Broncos fan still licking his emotional wounds after Denver’s Super Bowl loss to the Giants the previous week, it provided just enough salve to make the off-season a bit more tolerable.
The Baseball Hall of Fame has announced which cap insignias will be featured on each of the 2015 inductees’ plaques:
link
No big surprises. Pedro will wear a Red Sox “B.” The Big Unit will be enshrined as a Diamondback.
I can’t seem to find a video or even a stat list for this game anywhere on the net, but my favorite Pro Bowl would likely be the game after the 1992 season, where Steve Tasker just went on a rampage, winning the MVP award in an AFC overtime win.
Fun stuff.
Love the Lazio strip! I saw that on either Football
… Kit News or Football Fashion. Nice stuff!
I switched from safari to google on my ipad recently.
And reading today’s article generated 11 pop-ups (all of which were blocked).
Is that common?
When I clicked on the (fantastic) Sean Taylor/Brian Moorman video, I saw a logo for Super Bowl XLIX rendered in orange and italics. When did Super Bowl XLIX get a logo separate from the metallic gray, Lombardi trophy and stadium, generic one? Did I miss this?
Interesting to see in the Scherzer link to the Uniform Number history for #31 of the Nationals, that the Nationals show #8, 10 and 30 (and “CB”) retired for Gary Carter, Andre Dawson/Rusty Staub and Tim Raines. But as retired as “Expos” numbers. I guess the Nats didn’t feel the need to carry that history of the Expos over to them and keep 8, 10 and 30 retired. None of the people who hold/held those numbers today have anything like the career of Carter, Dawson, Staub and Raines. Too bad.
Regarding Cooperalls vs. Cooperalls, it was a common sight for junior hockey fans in the early 1980s. I know all Ontario Hockey League teams (like the Steelhawks and Greyhounds) were outfitted with them for at least a few seasons and while I don’t know for sure, I suspect the same was true for the Western Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
On this date in 1929, the New York Yankees announced they will be the first major league team to sew numbers on the backs of the team uniforms.