Good morning! Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend, as I did.
Now then: The Titans went navy over white for yesterday’s home game against the Panthers.. That may not seem remarkable, but according to the Gridiron Uniform Database, it’s only the third time the Titans have worn that combo since their current uni set was introduced in 2018. Even more incredibly, it’s the first time they’ve ever worn that combo at home. (the two previous times, both on the road, were against the Jets in 2021 and against the Bengals in 2020.)
It’s really a measure of how aesthetically impaired the Titans are that their most obvious, most basic-seeming combo — the one that they really ought to be wearing for most if not all of their home games — is such a rarity. Additional photos here.
There were fewer games yesterday than on a typical NFL Sunday (that’s because there were three games on Thanksgiving and another on Black Friday), but almost all of the Sunday games were uni-notable. Here’s a rundown:
- There was a rare color-vs.-color game yesterday in Indy, as the Colts wore their standard blue/white home combo and the Bucs went mono-“pewter” (although, let’s face it, it’s really just an ashen brown) on the road. Unfortunately, it looked awful, as the “pewters” clashed badly with the Colts’ blues (additional photos, if you dare, here and here):
Samson says sit down. ❌
📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/rxJZWrNLmd
— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) November 26, 2023
Payne Durham makes a tough catch in traffic 😤
📺: #TBvsIND on CBS
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/1dOevJjoZZ pic.twitter.com/qgBdB3qg2x— NFL (@NFL) November 26, 2023
- Speaking of awful, the Cardinals and Rams went mono-black vs. dishwater:
- In happier news, the Eagles wore their Kelly throwbacks (additional photos here):
- The Falcons wore their throwbacks (which, of course, should be their permanent look) against the Saints, who paired their Color Rush uniform with their black alternate helmet (additional photos here and here):
- For the second consecutive week, the Texans wore their red alternate helmets. Last week they paired them with their navy Color Rush uniform; this time they went mono-red (additional photos here):
- The Bengals wore their orange alternate jerseys (additional photos here):
- In a truly bizarre development in that same game, Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase made a reception while holding his mouthguard:
Ja’Marr Chase caught this while holding his mouthguard 😳 pic.twitter.com/VBE6TXNTjJ
— PFF (@PFF) November 26, 2023
- The Chargers wore their navy alternates (additional photos here):
- In that same game, Raiders quarterback Aidan O’Connell’s NOB had an upside-down apostrophe. That collector’s item is now the property of KC defensive lineman George Karlaftis, who traded jerseys with O’Connell (or should we say O‘Connell?) after the game:
- In the Giants/Pats game, Giants defensive lineman Rakeem Nunez-Roches lost part of his “ny” helmet logo:
- Not a single home team wore white.
(My thanks to Mike Chamernik, Kenny Ocker, Balko Tuzmoh, @jimmywags, and Phil for their contributions to this section.)
Falcons and Saints looked really good, even with that Saints helmet. Overall winner to me were the Eagles and the Bills, and an exciting game on top of that. Same goes for KC and the Raiders. That can must have been a hit in Houston with this color scheme, a beauty!
My overall winner was the Steelers/Bengals. Absolutely love that orange/orange/black, and it matched up extremely well with Pittsburgh’s road uni.
Also liked the Chargers (any combo that doesn’t include white pants for them is a winner), and yes…the Bucs. Give me mono pewter with stripes and bright contrasting numbers over that mess of a Cardinals uniform any day. I was watching game replays last night on NFL TV, and the Bucs/Colts game looked surprisingly good to me.
Oh, and belated Thanksgiving greetings to everyone. Thank you, Paul, for this site. Thanks, Phil, for keeping it running on the weekends.
Thank YOU, Jim, for always making Uni Watch a better place with your contributions and observations.
Agree with your opinion of the Bengals and the Steelers: looked very nice, I forgot all about it while watching the Eagles and the Bills. But I disagree on the all pewter Bucs outfit: horrible. The Cards black outfit is also not of my taste. But the Chargers can very well wear white pants with this navy shirt I think.
Cardinals need to go back to the Pat Tilman uniforms. Loved the state flag on the sleeve.
Overall pretty bad uni weekend.
I actually kinda like the Old El Paso jersey. Part of me wishes teams would ditch the ad patches, and just sell something like this to advertisers, to be worn during warm ups or events or something. Not saying it’d be great, but I’d rather see a full corporate non-game jersey (which can look good, as this one does), than a perfectly good home/away/alt/other Uni sullied by an awful looking ad patch.
It’s sad that they can turn out a better looking jersey than anything coming out of Nike’s design offices.
It’s a race to the bottom between the NFL and NBA. In 2023, from best to worst:
NHL
MLB
NFL
NBA
I like the concept of a dishwater uniform. The Rams’ execution of it, not so much.
With some tweaks (blue trim on the yellow shoulder/pants stripes, and lose the patch) it could be a real looker.
Texans, just say no to mono-red. Or mono-blue. I thought I’d like the red helmet, but stick to blue. And carry on that fine Texas tradition of “Are we a red team or a blue team? Yes!” and keep mixing up your colors.
Cardinals, you just don’t Get It.
I agree re: the Rams unis. More accent colors and paired with the blue or yellow pants and it would be a unique look.
The problem with the dishwater uni’s is the shoulder/pant stripes. Who thought white would be a good color to put on those?
The group running this site is fond of knocking the Texas Rangers with the “can’t decide if they are a red team or a blue team.” It is utter nonsense picked up now by many of the readers of the site. Must I point out every MLB team and NFL team with both colors? Or two colors? Are the Falcons a red or a black team. The Packers, yellow or green? The Ravens purple or black? Are the Bills red or blue? How about the Cowboys? Navy or royal blue?
This is widespread and I’m ready to stop the dogpile on the world champion Texas Rangers.
(All in fun; I can’t be mad with a championship banner going up!).
“The group running this site is fond of knocking the Texas Rangers with the “can’t decide if they are a red team or a blue team.””
It’s not so much a knock as an observation. There’s nothing inherently wrong with trying to be both a red AND a blue team. The Nationals suffer from the same identity crisis. It’s more of an endearing quirk than a criticism.
As the rain continued last night in Philly, the mismatch between the Kelly green jerseys and helmets became way more apparent. The helmets have an almost chalky look to them.
No biggie, though. They still looked great and won an absolute barnburner…
I noticed the mismatch too and wondered if it was just me or if this regularly happened back when this was their regular template?
No, the new kelly green unis are demonstrably lighter than the Randall Cunningham-era unis, especially the helmets.
link
Different lighting conditions, different technology capturing them, I don’t think you can make assumptions based on old film photographs.
I’ll add that when the Braman-era uniforms got wet, they too darkened…as one might expect they would:
link
link
Maybe next season the Eagles will correct the shade of green on those helmets.
Right on. Thanks, Chris…
Here are the helmet’s match when the jerseys aren’t soaked with rain and darkened by it and the helmets don’t have water on them reflecting the light from water droplets. . Seems like a good match to me. link
The helmet is correct in color, and historically accurate. The jerseys were soaking wet and dirty by the end of the game, thus the mismatch. The only thing they need to do for the throwbacks is make actual silver britches, but that is an ongoing Nike problem we won’t solve here.
All the holiday traditions you share Paul serve as a countdown in my mind for the holiday season. Love to see the mistletoe has been hung with care!
My first thought on seeing the colors of the Frost Chek can: The official permanent-type anti-freeze of the Houston Oilers. Luv ya Frost Chek!
Can think of no better player to be their spokesperson:
link
Why do the Saints have that helmet “stripe”? It ruins a pretty cool look when paired with the color rush/throwbacks. I’m sure it would ruin any pairing.
CBS used a throwback logo for the Eagles in their score bug and other onscreen graphics, which I thought was a really nice touch.
1) It is probably just me or the lighting, but the Cardinals nee Phainopepla in that picture appear orange instead of any shade of red. Anyone else seeing this?
2) Paul, is there a story with the stencils above the faux toe doorway? They look great no matter what.
That brass alphabet stencil originally belonged to my brother Henry and his wife, Mimi, both of whom are deceased. I love it as a beautiful object, and also as a reminder of these departed family members.
Wonderful memento, indeed.
I have a brass alphabet, too, but no piquant story. The typeface looks like Clarendon bold whereas Paul’s seems to be octagonal block.
Not sure if you’ve seen this Paul, but here’s an article in the Detroit Free Press about the Lions uni origins: link
In today’s Ticker!
I’ve never been a fan of the mono-color look, to me it looks too high school-ish. That being said, Houston’s mono blue paired with the red helmet last week looked pretty sharp; yesterday’s mono red with the red helmet is just…too much red.
Agreed! I surprisingly liked the red/blue/blue (best with red socks but blue work too) and wouldn’t mind seeing that way more often. All red wasn’t doing it for me.
For a minute last night, I thought Kent State was doing a pretty good job of hanging in with the Ravens!
Just my two uni-cents:
-That Cardinal uni doesn’t look half bad with the pants stripes, actually. Wish other teams would add stripes to their black pants (Saints, Ravens)
-Bengals need some orange pants! A little surprised they don’t have them at this point.
-Really liked the Texans all navy color rush uni with the red helmet last week.
-Good looking Sunday night game with Ravens and Chargers last night.
“Bengals need some orange pants”
Yes!
If you have been following my “2+3+2 (+3) Project” …
link
I give them a set of orange pants
link
No…no they do not.
Just fix the striping on the set of white pants with the Nemo striping to something close to pre-2004 and keep the black britches as-is.
In a vacuum, the Cardinals all-black uniforms are really nice. They just aren’t the Cardinals. You’re right, the pants stripe adds SO MUCH. The trend of mono colored uniforms wouldn’t be half as bad if teams weren’t wearing pants without stripes. Now, imagine if the Cardinals added stripes to their red pants…and then wore them with their white jersey’s. NOW we’re talking.
For as happy as I am with the Eagles Kelly Green, Nike butchered the color and both the helmet and jerseys are a shade too light. It was made more evident last night in the rain. The rain soaked jerseys resembled the OG 90s Kelly Green and it made it very clear how light the helmet is.
I’m sorta diggin’ the Saints mono-white with the black lid!
i think anyone who decided to watch the Giants/Patriots game would definitely be asking “Y”
The Ravens went purple pants with their road whites last night. Is that notable, or are they starting to rotate that in more often now?
Here, you can look that up yourself on the GUD: link
Enjoy!!
Paul, given your knowledge, do teams leave certain games open so they have options? Looking at the Eagles for instance. In their remaining games, they have 3 games where Midnight Green helmets and H/A variation is shown with pants TBD. The other 3 are blank leaving it open to be MG, KG or all-black.
My gut tells me, they are deciding whether or not to wear their black alternates or Kelly Green vs the Giants on Christmas Day. You would think Kelly Green is obvious on Christmas Day as you can imagine A LOT of Eagles fans will be unwrapping new KG jerseys on that day.
However, since their all-black uniforms were introduced in 2014, they have worn all-black vs. the Giants every year but 2017 so based on that trend, they probably want to wear all-black vs NYG, no matter how bad it looks and how much the fans want the KG.
One fantastic option would be for them to wear KG at Dallas.
Thoughts?
do teams leave certain games open so they have options?
In a few cases, maybe, but it’s more that some teams don’t bother to publicly announce their full uniform schedules. Some announce only the jerseys, and some don’t announce anything. The GUD goes by what has been announced.
I assume you’re talking about the GUD schedule?
Some teams reveal their full uni schedule at the beginning of the season, others (I think more than half) don’t. So the GUD fills in the KNOWN unis for those games. Where no unis are announced, the GUD will leave them as “TBD.” In some cases the TBD will be just what you think it is (for example, for all away games, we know the Packers will wear white jerseys over gold pants — but they don’t fill that in unless the home team has declared a uniform, especially if the home team sometimes wears their white jersey, which would necessitate the Packers wearing their green tops).
With regard to Philly — they no longer have a black alternate helmet (replaced by silver shell used for the throwbacks), but they do still have the black jersey and black pants in their stable (in fact, they wore black pants earlier this season). So it’s *possible* they could go BFBS (with the midnight helmet), as they still have one additional time they are permitted to wear an alt/CR/throwback. But just because they haven’t announced a uniform, the GUD will leave that as “TBD”
If the Chargers insist on wearing those navy blue jerseys, they REALLY need to go with white pants. That’s their one combo that desperately needs some help. Mono-dark-anything is bad enough (as the Bucs and Cardinals proved yet again), but especially with a white helmet, the mono-navy just looks ridiculous to me.
That Philly/Buffalo game would have looked really sharp if the Bills had worn their blue pants…as vibrant as their shade of blue is, when they go all-white, the whole uni looks really washed out to me. Likewise, when they go mono-blue, it’s too much. They should either be blue over white, or white over blue, all the time IMHO.
The Chargers just need to go full 90s Junior Seau throwback. Horribly missed opportunity. They insist on wearing navy but do it in the complete wrong way.
exactly. 2 alternates totally unnecessary, and a Seau-era throwback would also be a chance to go with the navy helmet.
Chargers Navy top/yellow pants for a one off would be nice. Just once a year.
Can’t beat the classic Chiefs vs Raiders combo. Beautiful old school AFC. Bengals vs Browns looked great for the fall. Surprised how decently ok the Cardinals looked, Rams not at all. Last but not least, the Bucs vs Colts. Nice to see a color game there. Although, if the Bucs wore Red top, it would have looked better. We need more color v color games. Chargers play the Pats next weekend. Pats wearing red throwbacks. Chargers should go Powder/yellow.
“Surprised how decently ok the Cardinals looked”
Say what?
I love kelly green for the Eagles. However, their dark green is still good as long as they don’t combine it with black. But it seems like the kelly green helmet is lighter than the kelly green jersey.
As shown above by Tom, the shades of green on both the jersey and helmet are a good match to each other under good weather conditions. The jersey did appear darker once it took on water yesterday.
The issue I have with their soon-to-be-trademarked(?) “Kelly Green” is that it’s doesn’t seem to be the correct shade used by the Eagles ’85-’95 (which was deeper green – I’d say the helmet was a touch darker than the jerseys then, though not by much).
Maybe what passed for “Kelly Green” back then wasn’t ‘actually’ that?
For comparison, here’s a gallery of the ’87 Eagles/Jets game, looks to be played in the rain:
link
I’ll take the Midnight Green over this 2023 ‘throwback’ tint.
This color of kelly green doesn’t bother me with the jersey, but not a fan of the helmet. Agree that the earlier kelly green was better. And I agree that the midnight green is better than this current kelly green. I just wish they’d drop the black.
JUST MY OPINION, but this might have been the worst week, uniform visual wise, in NFL history.
The Texans’ mono red looked too pinkish to me yesterday, and the photo from todays post confirmed it when compared to the red Falcons helmet in the pic above.
I will never understand the striping on the Titans pants………….
I never liked these uniforms. Their previous set were fine as is.
“In a truly bizarre development in that same game, Bengals wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase made a reception while holding his mouthguard:“
I’m pretty sure that is the CB’s (Porter Jr) mouthguard. In the beginning of the video you can see the neon green mouthguard hanging from his facemask.
I am tired of seeing the black Jets uniforms. there should be a rule about how many times you can wear non-specified colors. The Jets colors are green and white and that is what I want to see a majority of the time. If they like black so much then officially change their color scheme
Other than week 9, when the Jets broke out their black pants (with green helmet and white jersey), Black Friday was the only other time this year the Jets have worn any black…and yes, it was a LOT of black. But if there’s ever a day to go mono black, it’s “Black Friday”.
That being said, wearing ANY black EVER is one time too many, so in that regard you’re 100% correct.
But compared to last season, when they wore at least one black element ELEVEN times, including NINE CONSECUTIVE weeks, this season has been relatively black-free. All they could do is break out the black pants again (I think that’s at the urging of Sauce Gardner), but they cannot wear the black helmet or jersey again this season. They already wore their Sack Exchange throwbacks twice, which left the Jets with one date to wear their other alternate (black helmet & jersey). Now they’ve shot that last bullet. So, compared to last year, this year has been pleasantly (relatively) black-free.
If you don’t see the Jets every week, the two times they broke out the BFBS were both national games, so perhaps you are imagining more wearings than have actually occurred.
How is it possible the Texans were able to wear the red helmet with both the blue color rush and red jerseys? I thought teams had to designate one jersey with which they could pair the alt helmet.
The restriction isn’t on a single jersey. One restriction is the alt helmet cannot be paired with the primary home or road jersey. The helmet can be worn with any of the following: throwback (“Classic”) jersey, third (alternate) jersey, or color rush (CR) jersey. Another restriction is the alternate helmet cannot be worn more than three times in a season, but it can be paired with any of those three jerseys. The Cowboys last year began this trend when they used their alternate white shell for both their throwback AND their “color rush” (alternate white jersey, white pants, white socks). This year the Texans took the same approach. They paired their red helmet first with their red (alternate) jersey and white pants, then last week paired it with their blue CR jersey, which has blue pants and socks. Finally, they paired their red alternate helmet and jersey with red pants and socks. But in all cases, they are within the rules because they paired their alternate helmet with any throwback/alternate/CR and they did not exceed three alt helmet wearings.
But there is one more restriction in play here. Not only is the alternate helmet to be worn a maximum of three times, the same restriction applies to any combination of throwback/third/CR. So if a does not wear their alternate helmet three times, but DOES wear an alternate jersey, that counts towards to maximum of three.
So, for example, the Jets have new throwbacks this season, but they pair their current green shell with it (they merely swap decals). They have worn that combination twice. This past Friday, the team wore its alternate all-black uniform, including black helmet. So that’s three alternate wearings (two throwback and one CR). They cannot wear the black helmet (even though it has only been worn once) again, because they’ve reached their 3 alternate maximum.
Hope that helps (or makes sense).
Perfect sense! Thanks, Phil!
The Big ridiculous striping on the Saints black helmet ruined what could have been a great look.
Can anyone explain The Titans uniform? What is that light blue mess under the arm. It wants to be a side panel (unfortunately) then its just cut off (more unfortunately). The sword yokes (swokes?) are hideous. And the little silver grey sideways rectangles on the pantaloons?? This is the one team when I see on TV I still question if they are an NFL team – and I live in Nashville. Is their 5 years up yet?