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Good morning, and happy post-Thanksgiving! Lots of throwbacks around the NFL yesterday. Let’s start in Indy, where the Colts wore their 1956 throwbacks for the first and only time this season. Lots of people probably didn’t notice, but I enjoyed the sleeve stripes, sock stripes, and rear-helmet horseshoes. Lots of additional photos here, here, and here.
In other news from around the league yesterday:
• The Browns wore their white throwbacks while the Ravens wore their mono-black alternates, creating a white-vs.-black matchup:
• The Giants were another team wearing throwbacks (for the second consecutive week, oddly):
• Speaking of the Giants, here’s something that isn’t new but that I’d never noticed before: They routinely cut the red helmet stripe as it crosses the cutout on Riddell SpeedFlex helmets but don’t cut the stripe on Schutt F7 helmets:
• In yet another Giants development, they retired Michael Strahan’s No. 92 at halftime (interestingly, only one other player — a replacement player during the 1987 strike — has ever worn that number for the Jints):
Note that they gave Strahan a current-template Nike jersey with a captaincy patch. Obviously, Strahan never wore that template during his career. Moreover, he only wore the captaincy designation during the NFL’s Reebok era.
Also, note that Strahan’s former teammate Jessie Armstead wore a No. 64 jersey with Strahan’s NOB. That’s because Strahan was initially issued that number as a rookie in 1992 but changed to a different number because he didn’t like the way 64 looked:
#fbf fact: I was #64 as a rookie and changed to 92 after seeing a pic in the paper. Didn't like how 64 looked so I asked what was available! pic.twitter.com/LAFTNfDps5
— Michael Strahan (@michaelstrahan) August 18, 2017
So Strahan was into uni aesthetics from the start of his career!
• The Bengals wore their orange alternate jerseys:
As reader/commenter Tom Juettner points out, this was the first time the Bengals wore black pants with orange socks since 2005, and the first time they’d done so while wearing an orange jersey since 2004.
• The Panthers wore their blue alternate jerseys:
• Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks’s nameplate was coming loose:
• Two teams wore white at home: the Dolphins, plus the aforementioned Giants. (If you toss in the Cowboys and Saints from Thanksgiving Day, that means four home teams wore white this week.)
(My thanks to Jamie Burditt, Chris Sadeghi, and @r_v04 for their contributions.)
Walking the walk: Celtics center Enes Kanter wore “Freedom” as his NOB during the 2020 NBA bubble games, and he also has a history of inscribing “Freedom” on his sneakers (all shown above). Now he’s making it official by legally changing his surname to Freedom.
This presumably means that his NOB will change back to “Freedom,” although it was still “Kanter” last night (as you can just barely see on the right here).
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’Tis the Season, Part One: Hanukkah began last night, so the Tugboat Captain (who’s back from the sanitarium and has regained most of her taste and smell, phew!) made latkes and I dressed accordingly.
Yes, it’s true — I wore a shirt that includes a bit of purple. It’s a Hanukkah miracle!
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’Tis the Season, Part Two: With Thanksgiving now over, it’s time for a longstanding Uni Watch HQ tradition: the hanging of the plastic mistletoe that I bought for $2.99 at the now-defunct Woolworth’s at Herald Square in 1993. This marks the 29th consecutive year I’ve hung the faux ’toe, which, as always, will remain in place through the 12th day of Christmas. Let the Yuletide necking commence!
ITEM! Two-day merch and membership sale: Since most of the retail world is offering discounts today, I figured I’d do the same. For today and tomorrow, you can save 20% on anything in the Uni Watch, Naming Wrongs, and Uni Rock shops by using the checkout code CYBER2021.
In addition, for today and tomorrow, the price of a Uni Watch membership card will be $20, instead of the usual $25 — a 20% discount. That goes for gift memberships as well.
My thanks, as always, for considering our products.
The Ticker
By Jamie Rathjen
Football News: The designer of this season’s Super Bowl logo has come out as transgender (from Fran Fried). … Left over from Saturday: The TV first down line was missing from some of the Michigan State/Penn State game because of snow (from David Dahl). … Reader Wade Heidt has Canadian college uni tracking in yesterday’s comments. … Also from Wade: The CFL’s Calgary Stampeders wore alternate helmet logos yesterday.
Hockey News: Maple Leafs C Jason Spezza’s 1,200th NHL game was last night, so to mark the occasion they had an artist who makes mosaics for sports teams out of Rubik’s Cubes make a piece based on Spezza’s face (from Andreas Papadopoulos). … The Junior A British Columbia Hockey League’s Vernon Vipers wore their ““BCHL 60th-anniversary throwback-inspired uniforms” on Saturday (from Wade Heidt). … New white jersey for Division III Williams College’s men’s team (from Andrew Ayres). … Someone photographed near President Biden, on vacation in Nantucket, was wearing the jersey of Finland’s HIFK (from Rob Yasinac).
College Hoops News: Milwaukee’s men’s team wore striped warm-up pants yesterday (from Bob Brainerd). … California’s men’s team’s jerseys have piping that only goes around half of the arms and neck this season, though last season it was also there but only around the arms (from Mac MacArthur). … Valparaiso’s men’s team played NAIA Trinity Christian College yesterday. Trinity’s team name is the Trolls and it has a logo to match (from @beardedup).
Soccer News: Thursday was also known in the rest of the world as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and the color for the UN’s campaign for it is orange. Germany’s women’s team wore orange warm-up shirts on Friday to commemorate the day. The German Football Federation also turned its logo orange. … In Italy, Juventus put an orange cover on every third seat in their stadium on Saturday to symbolize that one-third of women suffer from violence. … Also in Italy, Napoli are up to 10 different shirts this season after a blue version of a Diego Maradona-themed design was worn yesterday in Serie A. Some of the differences are just variations in accent colors (from Trevor Williams). … U.S./Portland Thorns midfielder Lindsey Horan is wearing No. 10 for the USWNT friendlies in Australia, which makes her the first USWNT player other than Carli Lloyd to do so since 2008. … New shirts for Japan’s J1 League’s Vissel Kobe and the J2 League’s V-Varen Nagasaki (both from Jeremy Brahm). … Speaking of the J1 League, new home shirt for Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo. … England/Manchester City striker Ellen White got a commemorative No. 100 shirt for 100 national team apperances (from Graham Clayton).
Grab Bag: The charity Stonewall UK’s Rainbow Laces campaign runs for the next two weeks, and participants this weekend included the Premier League, English Football League, England’s women’s soccer team, and Premiership Rugby. … England Netball has a new logo, and for a series starting yesterday the national team plans to repeat something they’ve done before by having each player wearing the name of someone they consider inspirational, most often a parent, below their crests. … Here is an older article on transit systems that use “M”-based logos (from @churchofbasebal). … With the New Jersey Devils wearing “Jersey” on their new jersey, here’s a really fun Twitter thread on self-referential uni elements (thanks to all who shared). … The pandemic has effectively changed the dress code for Capitol Hill staffers.
Proofreading: “Strahan was initially issued that number as a rookie in 1992 but changed asked…”
Thanks. Fixed.
Funny how Strahan didn’t like how the number 64 looked. Maybe he was influenced by how it looked on number 6 4 . . . J I M B U R T (see photo).
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Paul, are you selling those LA Latkes shirts? Or are those self-made? (asking for a me)
Sold them for a while, but no longer. Sorry.
Yesterday was the first time the Giants won wearing the throwback white uniform. They had been 0-6 dating to their debut in 2016.
Of course, they have lost almost every game since then, regardless of uniform!
“The Junior A British Columbia Hockey League’s Penticton Vees wore…”
Hi Paul, we need a correction in Hockey Ticker. It was their opponent the Vernon Vipers wearing the BCHL 60th anniversary throwback for the first time. Vees’ Twitter just has better photos so used that.
A better look at the Vernon Vipers white and navy entry with a look at the crest.
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The Vees just happen to wear their Penticton Knights throwbacks in the game. They are unrelated to the BCHL 60th anniversary uniform program.
Fixed.
The Bengals combination was also the first time wearing the black pants with orange socks since 2005. First time they’ve gone orange/black/orange since 2004.
Thanks, Tom — I’ll add that to the text.
Let’s hope they keep that combo in the current rotation.
Stiped warmup pants always look good. Indiana high schools have been copying the ones IU wears for ages. My high school, last time I went a decade ago, wore blue and gold stripes. They really do look good in all colors.
Striped warmup pants were fairly generic in the 1970s; I don’t think IU was the first to use them, but they were among the earliest adopters and have kept using them after they fell out of style. Which of course influenced Indiana high schools to keep using them. I remember even Kentucky had them in the early to mid 1970s.
According to the great The Gridiron Uniform Database and its White at Home data, Sunday marked only the third time the Eagles have worn green at the New York Giants in last 60 years:
10/12/80 Giants Stadium
11/26/67 Yankee Stadium
I seem to recall they wore green against the Giants in New York in 2018 and 2019.
Just looked it up. Verifiable pictures of both games in NY, Eagles in green. Yep.
Name changes like this bring up World B. Free and Meta World Peace
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Lloyd Free’s surname (and thus his NOB) was already “Free.” He only changed his first name.
Yes, back when I last watched the NBA in the 70’s and early 80’s, I remember the interest when he changed from Lloyd to World.
The article on Raisch’s Super Bowl design shares a link to her logo and it’s got an orange-shaded set of Washingtonia (not sure about the species) palms indicative of LA in the roman numerals. Is the NFL switching back to individually designed SB logos?
Since they’ve gone away from the individual designs it seems they have gone to a pattern of a standard template, with the focus on the Lombardi trophy, that lasts five seasons. Each modified slightly to show some sort of local recognition, either the shape of the stadium (first template) or in the accent colors (second template). This appears to be year one of the third template design, in which case there is a bit more color involved now.
RE: Superbowl logo designer.
Odd that they even still acknowledge the designers for these. I know they change ever so slightly now, but have basically been doing some form of the same template for a while now. Definitely as more of design-via-committee feel than from an actual person. Though this one has incorporated a little bit more uniqueness as compared to the past five.
Always wonder “what would you have designed if the NFL didn’t force you into this template?”
I was shocked to learn they’ve been using different designers for this reason.
I had never seen the 77 Ways to Design the Letter ‘M.’ Thanks for re-posting/including it in the ticker! I like how it provides such an expansive way to visualize a letter/logo/design.
Regarding the Trinity Christian Trolls logo mentioned in College Hoops News, that’s their old logo. It was replaced in 2017. link
The Boston Globe has an article on the slowness of efforts to replace the state flag (with indigenous person imagery)
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I’m sure it wouldn’t take them long to find some solid amateur designs they could run with.
“Thursday was also known in the rest of the world as the International Day for the Eliminiation of Violence against Women”
– I assume it should be spelled “Elimination,” unless this is one of those color/colour examples where they spell the word differently in Europe.
Thanks. Fixed.
Glad to hear Mary is back home and regaining her senses as she recovers. Continuing to send well wishes for a full, 100% recovery.
Always interesting to see if someone is a “stringy and crispy” latke person or a “ground up and smooth.” I am a defiant stringy and crispy, my mom is a soft and my wife makes fun of me for having to make separate batches. Chag Sameach Paul!
I bought a Latkes tee for a friend. The ordering process was sublime.
Really cool shirt!
I so look forward to Paul using the term “necking” each year.
Non uni related naming wrong:
I Still Call It “Let It Be”
Bengals new duds are better than corresponding versions of their last sets, but they really did look like a ridiculous Halloween Spiderman out there yesterday. The orange jerseys are awful. Black over white, white over white. That’s all they need.