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Monday Morning Uni Watch: ‘2023’ Wild Card Edition

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A little sideline surgery yesterday for Packers running back Aaron Jones, who suffered a jersey tear in the second quarter of Green Bay’s NFC Wild Card playoff game in Dallas and had to get it stitched up by the equipment staff. Here’s the video from which that screen shot was taken:

In that same game, Green Bay linebacker Rashan Gary had a yellow waistband towel, instead of the usual white. At one point it came loose and fell onto the turf, where the Fox broadcast crew mistook it for a penalty flag:

And in one particularly esoteric note from that same game, NFL officials usually wear black shoelaces, but someone working the Packers/Cowboys had white laces:

In yesterday’s other game, the Lions went monolulu blue against the Rams (additional photos here):

By now you probably know that KC quarterback Patrick Mahomes’s helmet was shattered during Saturday night’s deep-freeze game against the Dolphins. Phil had it in yesterday’s Ticker, but here’s a video clip of the play and a photo of the resulting damage, just in case you haven’t seen it:

You probably saw the icicles on KC coach Andy Reid’s mustache too, but just in case:


Also of note: As has been the case for the past few years on Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, all teams playing this weekend are wearing “MLK” rear-helmet decals, and most players are wearing the phrase “Be Love” on their neck bumpers, plus “Be Love” is also on one end line of each field (a reference to the King Center’s “Be Love” campaign; additional info here):

Of course, the “Be Love” message had a certain meta aspect for one particular player yesterday:

As for today, here are the uni matchups for the Steelers/Bills and Eagles/Bucs games.

(My thanks to Willie Gabel, K.C. Kless, Kary Klismet, and Kenny Ocker for their contributions to this report.)

 

 
  
 

Mascot Watch

Uni Watch girl mascot Biscuit is a bit more of a lap cat than boy mascot Waffles. Her lap presence is always accompanied by lots of purring, which is the best!

 

 

Cans of the Day

Any of these cans on its own would be okay but unremarkable. Put them together as a set, however, and they gain some nice cumulative oomph!

Comments (55)

    I have to assume that the Lions believe the Monolulu Blue look to be good luck. Expect to see it for the duration of, well, however far they go in the playoffs.

    They’ll be the home team next week, so yes, they can once again wear that same combo if they choose.

    But if the Lions and the 49ers both win next week, Detroit will be on the road for the NFC Championship Game, in which case they’ll be wearing white. And if the Lions advance to the Super Bowl, the AFC is the designated home team this season, so the AFC champs will have first dibs on wearing a colored jersey, not the Lions.

    Here’s a quick rundown of the Lions’ uni combo records:

    Monolulu Blue: 6-0
    Color Rash grays: 2-0
    Mono-whites: 4-1
    White over silver: 1-1
    Blue over silver: 0-1
    White over blue: 0-1
    Throwbacks: 0-1

    Not great for what passes for the “traditional” uni pairings in this current set (white or blue over silver, including the throwbacks). Then again, they only wore a “traditional” set for four games.

    Any chance the game could be color vs color if Detroit faces SF in the NFC Championship game? Or does the league have rules against this for the playoffs?

    They do consider them good luck.

    I linked to the video in a different comment section, but go to YouTube and search for Jared Goff Mic’d Up. At about the 1:10 second mark of the video, he talks about the unis, including the fact that the team calls them The Blueberries.

    My girl Phoenix has always been a purr machine. When she had her first vet visit at around six weeks old, the vet couldn’t get a heart rate because the purring was so strong.

    “Sparkling” Cola is certainly an interesting term. Isn’t cola inherently carbonated?
    And what’s the word before lemon in the first one? If it’s “fruity”, what sets that apart from lemonade?

    “Cola” could refer to the cola flavor, derived from the kola nut and mixed with vanilla, cinnamon, citrus and vanilla. By the way, I love those cola-flavored gummy bottles.

    Paul, have you ever incorporated one of your cute mascot cats into a logo? If not, it might be time. That photo of Biscuit is absolutely adorable.

    Looked at the Mascot picture and had a random thought; Hanes puts its logo on the top of the sock now? I feel like every pair I own has at least two of the letters either worn out to the point you can’t make them out or are now holes.

    I don’t think it should be considered “mono” unless the helmet is the same color. Like jaguars all black, ravens all black, lions all silver, etc.

    It’s certainly mono. when the fabric of the uniform is all the same, that’s mono.

    That implies that the helmet is *not* part of the uniform…no? Just saying – if the helmet matches, then what do you call it. Extra-super-duper mono? Monochromatic suggests that everything is the same color.

    With pending sporadic whiteout conditions today in Buffalo, I can’t help but wonder if the league would allow a color on color matchup in fairness to both teams. Red alts for the Bills vs. black homes for the Stillers. It would be good for the TV audience, too.

    -C.

    There was a post on here a few weeks ago reiterating that teams are free to do color on color matchups if they want normally. They just seem to almost never do so, which is strange to me.

    That would make the most sense. Both would be plenty visible in the snow. Red jersey/blue pants vs Black jersey/yellow pants.

    Those cans look like they are living a better life than most of us. I’m reminded of the Fanta girls.

    I have a number of quibbles with the Rams’ current uniform set, but the one thing I absolutely love is the shade of blue they use for their helmet, not to mention the finish, which has such a great glossy quality to it. It looked almost iridescent on camera last night.

    We have to assume that they’ve realized no one likes the “bone” unis if they’re wearing this set in the playoffs, right?

    From the picture above, it’s interesting to note that Mahomes’ helmet breaking was from contact with mostly the face mask, and not the helmet itself.

    Also, wouldn’t be surprised to see him fined, as he appeared to lower his head to initiate contact with Elliott.

    Not sure if you’re able to find a picture, but the Lions unitards were the same color as their end zones, which made for a brutal viewing experience for those of us with not-so-great eyes. It was a little headache inducing.

    Would also add that Detroit has silver striping on their pants, so isn’t quite monolulu blue

    And there are silver numbers on the jerseys, too. I think you’re getting too strict in your definition of what it takes to get a uniform defined as “mono”. When Paul uses it here, he means that both the jerseys and pants are predominantly blue, not entirely blue.

    I’m really surprised football players are allowed to have yellow towels. It seems like it could lead to unnecessary confusion.

    Counting Chickens Before They Hatch: Should Detroit win the Championship and greet the following season with new uniforms, they would be at least the third pro team to do so– The 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, the 1995 Houston Rockets, and the 2000 St. Louis Rams.

    This would make for a great article, Walter — if you’re interested. Combine that with teams that won their championships in the first year of new unis (Denver Broncos come to mind, but I’m sure there are more). LMK if you’re interested!

    Team in the Big Four that won the championship in the first year on new uniforms. 2006-07 Anaheim Ducks come to mind.

    Would the Colorado Avalanche qualify for that list? Technically they were new unis (albeit part of a franchise move and rebrand).

    Kobe and Shaq won their first (three) years in their new wishbone unis, in their new arena (Staples). I definitely remember Broncos doing that, as well.

    Oh, my gosh, yes. The first year of Robo-Penguin. This strikes me as a project with mega-reseach and plenty of errors.

    Add to the list the 1992-93 Pittsburgh Penguins. And the 1987 Mets changed the road jersey while keeping the home uni the same.

    I think you can throw in the 2020 Washington Nationals with that too — went to script white Nationals jersey that year.

    It took a little effort, but I found out that Frosty brand is from Australia. Unfortunately, it appears to be a defunct brand, as it’s really hard to find info about them (search problems coming from conflicting brand names).

    GUD has an interesting thing on the socks for the Bucs game this afternoon. I guess socks are TBD? They cycle through all white, then Black on top/White on Bottom, then all black.

    They do that when players wear socks that are “all over the place,” meaning some players will wear the black socks, others wear white tights, and some actually wear black socks with low whites. That’s why the animation.

    No. For most of the season the Bucs (along with 5-10 other teams like Dallas yesterday) continued the annoying trend of having players wear the correct colored socks while other players on the same team instead wore white socks.
    We’ve been using gifs like the one you mention to point out the inconsistencies.

    Strange that the NFL doesn’t disallow gold color towels. NFHS – can not wear ball colored or penalty flag colored towels. NCAA – towels must be white

    Though not uni-notable, the Cowboys Packers was a beautiful looking game and a beautiful result (in my view).

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