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Uni Watch

All-Time NFL Great Gives Shout-Out to Uni Watch

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In today’s Ticker, I mentioned that former NFL defensive lineman JJ Watt thinks the Titans should not be allowed to wear Oilers throwbacks. He said that during an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show — and it turns out that he also gave a shout-out to Uni Watch.

The relevant exchange, which you can see on video above, played out like this:

Pat McAfee: You have an obsession with uniforms, right? You like uniforms.

JJ Watt: Oh, I’m a uniform aficionado, yes. I grew up reading Uni Watch in, like, ninth, tenth grade, I would always be seeing what’s going on, all the little intricacies. I love, like, all the little patches, the little details. Yeah, I’m very big on the uniform game. I love it.

Very cool! Watt was born in 1989 (as it turns out, his birthday is just one day after mine), so he would have been in ninth or tenth grade sometime around 2004, which is when I started writing for ESPN. The daily Uni Watch blog debuted in 2006, when he was still in high school. Really fun to know that he was Getting It™ way back when!

I thought it would be fun to interview Watt, so I sent him a tweet. I didn’t really expect to hear back, but he responded within minutes! Check it out:

What a swell guy! He didn’t really respond to my interview invitation, but it’s still really nice of him to reply.

It’s also cool to hear Watt mention that he’s into patches, because he’s among the relatively few NFL players to have worn the Walter Payton Man of the Year patch, and is also among the even smaller group of players who wore it for more than one team (once you win the award, you get to keep wearing the patch for the rest of your career, even if you change teams):

I’m sure the award itself, and the values it stands for, are more important to Watt than the patch. But it’s still cool that a uni-savvy guy has this distinction!

Thanks again, JJ. If you ever want to talk unis, you know what to do.

(My thanks to Austin Ratzki for letting me know about Watt’s mention of Uni Watch.)

 

 
  
 
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Comments (23)

    That’s pretty awesome. A buddy of mine ran in to him at a bar and JJ actually approached him because of his jersey looking shirt and said he was just a great guy to talk to for a few minutes.

    That’s awesome! I’ve known he’s a good dude for a long time, but to know he’s one of us makes him even more of a good dude.

    I wonder what Watt’s opinion on the Texas uniforms are, especially with the rumors of a redesign going around!

    He gave good answers about alternates va classic unis as well. Really fun to see uniforms discussed seriously on a major platform (even though mcafee is a hack).

    JJ Watt Gets It in more ways than one. Another point in his already burgeoning favor.

    So cool. Huddling around the one guy with the Eastbay magazine during computer lab class in 2006 is also a core memory of mine

    Us Wisconsin guys totally get it…
    It would have been awesome to see JJ wearing the green and gold sometime during his career! I’m pretty sure from an aesthetic point of view, JJ would’ve preferred to don the Packers beautiful uni set that over his Cardinals’ train-wreck of a uni set. Or the banal, ho-hum Texans set.

    This tracks. Don’t know him but he seems like the kind of guy who Gets It™️. It would be a great interview if it ever happened.

    saw an article w him giving love to the Seahawks throwbacks. Not better than Oilers throwbacks but I suppose he has personal reasons for that preference..

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