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Uni Watch

Monday Morning Uni Watch: 2023, Week 14

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Good morning! The Saints wore their gorgeous throwbacks yesterday, and I for one couldn’t have been happier. I know some folks can’t get past the fact that the helmet’s shade of gold doesn’t match the rest of the uniform, but that doesn’t bother me so much. I mean, just look at all those stripes in that photo shown above — love it! Lots of additional photos here.

It looked great in action, too:

In other news from around the league yesterday:

  • From that same game, the Chargers retired Antonio Gates’s No. 85 at halftime:
  • In a game I made sure not to watch, the Ravens went purple over purple (additional photos here, if you dare):
  • In that same game, the top of Rams linebacker Mike Hoecht’s facemask came loose during a play:
  • The Bills and KC hooked up for a very good-looking game, with the two uni combos matching up in an extremely eye-pleasing manner (additional photos here):

  • In that same game, the Bills once again had a few players wearing Nike’s old template while most of their teammates were wearing the new template:

  • In that same game, 49ers defensive back Charvarius Ward wore black socks:
  • With this season’s Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award nominees being announced last week, the 32 nominees each wore the Payton logo as a rear-helmet decal, as seen here on Vikings defensive lineman Harrison Phillips (he and the other 31 nominees will continue to wear the decal for the rest of this season):
  • Bengals backup quarterback AJ McCarron got into the game — his first regular season appearance in nearly three years — and was wearing a silicone wedding band on his left (non-throwing) hand:
  • Just one home team wore white: the aforementioned Cowboys.

Looking ahead to tonight, there are two games: The Giants will wear their throwbacks while hosting the Packers, and the Dolphins and Titans will wear very complementary color combos.

(My thanks to all contributors, including John Intrater, Derek Linn, @diamonddawg2323 and @waynetm41.)

 

 
  
 

Too Good for the Ticker

Longtime reader Chris Weber sent along this photo of a collage he made from various ticket stubs and press passes he’d saved over the years. “Each of these tells a story,” he says, which is how many of us feel about our old stubs. Digital tix have definitely made certain things more convenient, but at the cost of tangible keepsakes like these. As Chris says, “There’s no substitute for paper.” Indeed.

 

 

 

Your Daily(ish) Dose of Kitten

Uni Watch girl mascot Biscuit (left) and boy mascot Waffles aren’t twins, but it sometimes seems that way. It’s not just that they look so similar — it’s that they do almost everything as a team, which is really fun to watch. They’re inseparable! Here are some more shots:

 

 

Can of the Day

Why do I have the feeling that the product inside the can didn’t look as appetizing as the label illustration?

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Comments (41)

    Seems like there are an awful lot of facemasks that are coming loose these days. Anything to do with the hardware for the newer helmets?

    Probably. Hoecht is wearing a VICIS helmet and the facemask snaps in to the upper mount instead of being screwed onto the helmet. And that snap in mounting is an option on Schutt helmets so it can happen with them as well. Do either Hoecht did that himself by pulling down on the facemask to reposition his helmet or he was the victim of an uncalled facemask/hands to the face penalty.

    Hi Jerry …
    The Golden Bear. Funny story: He actually walked past me and took my notepad from my hand and signed it. I was at Oakmont CC for the Open as an intern for WTAE’s sports dept. I was taking notes while watching guys near the practice tees and he just happened to come by. I remember saying to myself NOT to ask for an autograph since I was working and felt that wouldn’t be cool or proper. It happened so quickly, I honestly didn’t have a choice. Lol! Obviously, Jack knew (knows) how to treat people. -C.

    Good story. I would imagine that even most reporters wouldn’t object too strenuously if Jack signed their notebook without being asked.

    Interestingly, this Monday night is the first time all season the Dolphins have worn anything other than white. They have at least one other teal game in a couple weeks when they wear the throwbacks

    Saints need to wear gold pants again. Packers-Giants gonna be a fantastic uniform matchup especially with it being on ABC. Is there any explanation why the white socks trend has become a thing?

    In the picture of the Saints on the home page lede, I noticed three different sets of thigh-pad patterns on the lineman. Am I late to the game in noticing that? Is that a thing? Apologies if this has been discussed before…

    In the Cowboys game, with the Cowboys white uniform including white socks, CeeDee Lamb wore blue socks.

    Those cats…can they get any cuter?!

    Plenty of tri-color combos of note this week (not counting the Eagles/Giants/Saints mismatches, who all looked/will look great):
    Jags – a splendid change-of-pace…maybe should be their permanent away look.
    Pats – a terrible default look, forever and always…silver pants – you own ’em, so wear ’em!
    Titans – white over light blue looked better when they wore white helmets…I wonder if silver pants would
    work for them. RIP, Frank Wycheck (ARHS, ’89).

    C-Web,

    Was there a stub from a Pirates World Series game? It’s on my Bucket List. I missed the Blackout game. Big regret.

    Saints unis were amazing. Two teams I will always stop and watch are 49ers and Raiders home unis ON GRASS. I love em.

    Hi Kev,
    No. Closest I have to Pirate success was the division clincher in ’92. Maybe we’ll both be more fortunate in the future, screwed-up MLB economics be damned. -C.

    Paul,

    Love the Saints’ throwbacks. Tweaking the helmet to match the pants and, viola, the classic Saints’ uniform.

    Kudos to whoever selected Sunday’s ensemble.

    PS. Question, who does select a team’s unifrom set for each Sunday: the team or the manufacturer?

    The Chargers idiotic move to LA continues to baffle me. They have no fans in LA, and Antonio Gates basically played his entire career in San Diego. So he was honored in front of a bunch of people who never saw him play.

    Have 0 issue with the franchise honoring Gates in their new-ish home…if he was an ‘old-timer’, it’s likely that a lot of the attendees wouldn’t have seen him play, right? Also, no one saw him play college football (which is truly amazing!).
    While relocating to Las Vegas may have been the ‘smarter’ move, the Chargers are doing OK in LA…if attendance is a good measure…they are outpacing the Rams this season and are at/near the levels experienced in San Diego. I’ll concede that not everyone going to the games is necessarily a Bolts fan.

    I recently found a huge pile of ticket stubs in a drawer and have started looking up the games to see if they were significant in anyway. (Mostly Rockies games, so no). I’ve written the scores on the back, but after seeing this display, I want to do them on the front like you did.

    You forgot to add a link: “I mean, just look at all those stripes in that photo shown above — love it! Lots of additional photos here.”

    Is there anything uglier than a football team wearing same-color shirt and pants? A football team wearing same-color shirt and pants with matching helmet. It’s such a bad look that it makes the other team on the field also look worse.

    Saints need to ditch the black pants . . . like NOW and recommit to the gold pants – much better look!

    The ticket collage is just gorgeous. I’m a sucker for a good collage.

    The Jack Nicklaus autograph brought to mind something that I uncovered during a recent move. Back in 1972, I had a school notebook featuring the name and logo of my then-favorite football team. I took the cardboard insert out and sent it to the team, where it was signed by the head coach and several players, some of whom are in the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately because it’s for the Washington football team, I can’t send a picture, but the players who signed include Billy Kilmer, Larry Brown, Chris Hanburger, Jerry Smith, Pat Fischer, Deacon Jones, coach George Allen, and my all-time favorite, Sonny Jurgensen. Every time I look at it, it just kills me to imagine that piece of cardboard being passed around the locker room for players to sign.

    Boneless chicken in a can? Nope.

    Thank you, Judy. It was a blast to put together just right. I’m a Steelers fan, but living in the DMV, I appreciate your fandom. Hail to …
    -C.

    The devil in the Saints details is their helments’ old fleur de lis. The one-trim design is a simple beauty.
    This is a vibrant uni, and better still if they ever use the bold numbers on the team’s inaugural jerseys.

    New Orleans is a vibrant town. Dressing the team in drab all-black and weak, dull Vegas gold misses what New Orleans is. (Vegas gold cuts into my soul the way purple does Paul’s.)

    We’re not afraid of extravagance down here in New Orleans. The Saints shouldn’t be either.

    No mention of the Browns-Jags game? It was a beauty with the Browns in their traditional homes and the Jags in black/white/teal.

    link

    All due respect to Bills/Chiefs, which was gorgeous, but that’s an easy match-up with two exceptional uniforms. With the Browns and Jags, there’s so many ways it could go off the rails, and yet that game was absolutely beautiful. I love the brown jersey and white pants, especially when coupled with striped socks. Jacksonville’s white over teal is second only to teal over white as their best option, although I do wish they’d wear teal socks with the white pants.

    As soon as I turned the game on, my first thought was “I bet Paul mentions this as a great looking game uni-wise.”

    Saints look is a keeper, the Niners looked very crsp but the winner this week were the Bills and the Chiefs, What an awesome looking game (with a cute trick play to boot, too bad it was offside).

    While by no means a great game, but a great-looking one, was Lions/Bears…it’s been several seasons since Detroit wore white-over-silver in Chicago. They looked oh-so-close to the way they did for decades in this long-standing rivalry; unfortunately, they also played the way they did for decades, too!

    Agreed all around. If only they’d wear the blue socks with the lower white sock. So close to perfection.

    Someone needs to break into the Saints Uniform closet and burn the existing set of uniforms and replace them with what they wore yesterday. Replace the existing white jersey with the Color Rash Jersey and the black pants they wore yesterday and you’ve got an awesome uniform set

    Count me among those bothered by the Saints’ mismatched golds. In general, mismatched shades are one of my biggest pet uniform peeves.

    I also just don’t find the throwback gold to be a pleasing color, but that’s a matter of personal taste.

    I normally hate Baltimore’s uniforms, but I thought the purple over purple looked great.

    Is it just me or do the Browns helmets look less orangey? The helmets look less glossy too so maybe that has something to do with it.

    One of the reasons the Bills – Chiefs game looked exceptionally good is the fact that, for the most part, Buffalo wore white socks with their blue pants and KC wore their red socks. Contrasting socks/pants makes an enormous visual difference.

    It is an absolute crime that the Saints don’t just change the helmet color to that beautiful old gold and go with these uniforms full time. For a franchise that is an aesthetic mess these days, the solution is so simple.

    Thank you Paul for your hard work on the site and those awesome cat photos…
    I’d like to humbly pass along a link to a wonderful cat documentary which lovingly shows us why we are so important as
    Cat-Dad/Mom caretakers of our always curious feline friends… Happy Monday
    link

    I’m pretty confident Charvarius Ward was NOT wearing black socks. I think they were just (deep?) red and the shadow on the broadcast made it look like black.

    link

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