The wait is over.
When the Jets unveiled their new uniform set for 2024, they returned to full time status the throwback uniforms that were made famous during the team’s “Sack Exchange” era. They replaced what was arguably their worst ever uniform set, and one that lasted only the league minimum five years. At the time, they were also planning on wearing a fourth uniform — the one they’ll wear tonight — but saved that for its own special announcement.
Tonight marks the debut of the Jets “Super Bowl” throwbacks, which marked the absolute apex of Jets on-field success so far.
Back to The Classic. pic.twitter.com/OicjQG5w7K
— New York Jets (@nyjets) October 10, 2024
The team has been practicing in the new helmets, which include a period-appropriate gray facemask.
The uniforms pay homage to the 1968 Super Bowl championship season. These will be similar to the road uniforms worn by the franchise from 1998 to 2018, which itself was a modernized version of the 1968 uniforms (although those uniforms had a decidedly darker green hue — more akin to forest or olive green than the original kelly green worn by the Super Bowl champs).
Here’s a look at the full uniform:
And here are a couple shots of Joe Willie Namath in Super Bowl III.
Those Super Bowl uniforms were worn more than 50 years ago, so naturally the team had to make some concessions to the cut an tailoring of the modern uniform template. But from preliminary looks, they seem to have gotten the uniform about as close as they could.
The Jets are playing the Buffalo Bills this evening. Interestingly, the Jets produced two graphics depicting their opponents’ uniforms. According to the GUD, the Bills will be wearing white/blue/blue/blue. But neither graphic depicting the Bills unis tonight actually show this combo:
They got a little closer with their original graphic:
Perhaps it was wishful thinking on the Jets’ part, as either of the two combos shown above would look better than what we will see on the field this evening. Once again, proving that socks are an important uniform element.
I’m definitely looking forward to seeing these uniforms on the field tonight. My earliest memories of the Jets are of these uniforms, and in fact the first NFL game I ever attended was a Jets/Chargers game at Shea Stadium, with Namath still at quarterback. I was too young (three years old at the time) to remember Super Bowl III, but thanks to Joe Namath and the “guarantee,” Super Bowl III became one of the most legendary NFL games ever played. It marked the first time the upstart American Football League — as it was known before the merger — defeated an NFL team in the Super Bowl, and it earned respectability for the league. While talks to merge the leagues had begun, winning the Super Bowl for the AFL cemented things, and the leagues would officially merge two years later. (As an aside, the Minnesota Vikings would win the NFL title following the 1969 season, but not win the Super Bowl; with the merger, the NFL broke into two conferences, AFC and NFC, so the Vikings, despite having never won the Super Bowl, were the last NFL champs, pre-merger.)
This will mark the second year in a row the Jets are wearing a throwback uniform as an alternate. Last season they wore the white “Sack Exchange throwbacks for two games. Those are now the Jets primary road unis. It’s interesting they chose white throwbacks last year (as well as this). The Super Bowl III throwbacks make sense, as that’s what the team wore in that game.
It’s too bad the Bills are choosing to go mono-blue below the neck. While the Jets opponents in SB III were the Colts, had the Bills worn the white/blue/white/blue look depicted by the Jets’ graphic department, it would have borne a passing similarity to the unis worn in that game. Unfortunately, we’ll get a mostly mono-white vs. mono-blue matchup this evening.
What do you guys think of the Jets SB throwbacks? I happen to think that was the best uniform the Jets have ever worn, although the Sack Exchange uniforms are pretty good too. Will you be watching tonight?
Love this and they got the green right. I would love this set to primary but I also get the sack exchanges are easier replicate with current tailoring. As messy as the seasons been this is a nice cherry on a great set.
These should permanently be the Jets’ third uniform option (I’d prefer it as the primary with the Sack Exchange look as alts, but alas), rather than the stupid black set.
Agree. I also look forward to seeing this on the field with the Kelly green. It seemed the old darker green got more dull and drab as time went on.
You weren’t imagining that. When Nike took over in 2012 they couldn’t produce the correct shade on the fabrics they were using, which were already duller than the Reebok fabrics used previously. Although it varied with lighting conditions, they never did get it right.
Don’t know why they couldn’t wear the same socks as the Super Bowl team.
The SBIII uniforms are my favorite Jets’ ensemble. I like the helmet logo even if it’s a bit cluttered. Shame on the apparel manufacturers for not having an adequate template to accommodate the shoulder hoops.
Apart from the shoulder/sleeve tailoring, there’s a major concession to the 1998-2018 uniform here and that’s the helmet logo/decal. The Jets to my knowledge have never explained why they went with this version instead of the 1965-77 version that was worn in Super Bowl III, which was football-shaped rather than oval and had slightly different graphics. The obvious reason (to us, anyway) is that the merch manufacturers still have the template from the 1998 logo which was discontinued only five years ago, and not for nothing, it *was* in use for 21 seasons (whereas the 1965 logo lasted only 13).
The 1998-2018 uniform, in addition to the modified logo, darker green, and green facemasks, also had thicker numerals in a different block font (the biggest difference being the “2”s) and serifed NOB lettering; these “new” ones have sans-serif lettering and approximate the 1968 numeral font (which itself differed from what was used from 1963-67, and in the early-mid ’70s). They also eliminate the logo patch on the jersey front that was added in 1998.
Personally, I love these uniforms; I always preferred these to the 1978-89 kit but also prefer the green jersey, which I’m hoping we’ll see next year…
Graf hit on two points that always bothered me about the 1998-2018 Jets uniforms, I don’t know why they used that olive green color and the serif’s on the two looked wrong. That slant on the two during the Namath era just gave the uniforms a glamourous look, there was something flashy about it, like a team in New You’re with a superstar QB would wear. This sounds crazy now, but my grandfather game me my father’s 1968 Jets pants, I kept them at my mother’s place while I was in college. When I graduated, she told me to pick up his equipment or she would throw them out, I ended up throwing the Jets pants away. I didn’t collect pants and thought I had no use for them.
I always liked the slanted “2” and sans-serif NOB better.
The “olive green color” didn’t appear until 2012; before that it was a rich hunter green, matching the Packers’. The general trend in uniforms in the mid-late 1990s was toward darker colors (e.g., a bunch of hockey teams switching from royal blue to navy), which is probably why they went with the hunter green instead of sticking with the kelly/medium green for the 1998 rebrand. Starting in 2012 Nike couldn’t produce the proper shade with their newfangled jersey fabrics, hence the “olive green” look in some lighting conditions.
I have the same issue I had with the 2010s version. The shoulder stripes being green-white-green against the green sleeve/cap creates that awkward-looking right-angle cut. If the stripe panel was rendered in white-green-white, it would create a much cleaner look, albeit reducing the amount of green on the uniform slightly.
Since 1998 I always thought they should do that, especially after Reebok started making the jerseys around 2001 or ’02 with the shoulder stripes way too high/vertical. But if you look at photos from the mid-1970s that’s how they were made back then.
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Wait, something is wrong here. Namath doesn’t have a t-shirt hanging out from under his jersey……. LOL
Essentially the same uniform, but looks a 1000% better back in the day. Why? Thicker quality material. Sleeves. Legit pants. Real striped socks. No untucked undershirt.
The “Super Bowl” Jets unis and the look they wore from 1998-2018 were basically the same thing except they toned down the green to a hunter green and made some small changes to the logo. I thought it was a bit odd when five years ago they triumphantly announced the Super Bowl throwbacks almost immediately after they’d ditched essentially the same look in favor of one of the worst uniforms in the league.
The numeral and NOB fonts were also different. So were the socks, which had stripes from 1963-74.
The “Super Bowl throwbacks” they’re wearing tonight were “triumphantly announced” this year, not five years ago.
Is SB III still the greatest upset in NFL history? I would put SB XXXVI (Patriots and Drew Bledsoe’s backup beats the Greatest Show on Turf) and SB XLII (Giants beat undefeated Patriots) as larger upsets now.
It’s hard to say. You’d have to ask someone that was old enough to recall how dominant that Colts team was in the NFL vs the upstart 11-3 AFL Jets, but I would agree a 10-6 Giants team beating the undefeated Pats (who looked to me like a team no one could beat) was bigger in hindsight. I think the bigger upset factor for the time, though, was that the Pats/Rams and Giants/Pats outcomes were at least between two established NFL teams, and most understand on any given Sunday, anyone can win. In SB III, the AFL was considered a vastly weaker league, particularly since the Packers had crushed the AFL champs the two SBs prior.
Exactly.
And Namath’s “guarantee” added to the lore.
Maybe not the biggest upset ever in NFL history, but at the time it most certainly was, and it probably cemented the AFL (at less than 10 years in existence) as being on an equal footing with the 50-year old NFL — no small feat.
The “legitimacy” argument always falls a little flat for me. Sure the Jets winning DID do that, but it’s not like the Chiefs didn’t ALSO upset an insanely dominant Vikings team the very next year. If the Jets didn’t do it, the Chiefs would have.
Super Bowl IV was somewhat anticlimactic after Super Bowl III, and with the merger on the immediate horizon. Yes, it was an upset, and a meaningful one, just not as great or significant. The ’69 Vikings (12-2) were almost as dominant as the ’68 Colts (13-1); they were favored by 13½ points over the Chiefs, whereas the Colts were an 18-point favorite. By the end of the ’69 season, an AFL team beating an NFL team in a meaningful game was rather less unthinkable than it had been a year earlier.
I think I may have mentioned this in a previous Uni Watch story, but when I was a kid in the 70’s and we would go to a neighborhood barbeque, or a kids birthday party the other Dads were always impressed that my father was a football player and always asked him the same questions. Did you ever play against Jim Brown? no, did you ever get hit by Dick Butkus, no, he never played the Bears and who was the best athlete you ever played with.
My father would say one of the best athletes I played with was Joe Namath and they thought he was joking; they are picturing a Namath with the knee braces on. My father was dead serious, he said you guys have no idea what a great athlete Joe Willie was, he had amazing hand to eye coordination and could play basketball, tennis and was a great baseball player. he even could pitch pennies better than any guy on the Jets. My father said they would pitch pennies against the wall for money at Jets camp and Joe would always get his the closest, he would never lose. He would finish with, with two good knees and that lightning-fast release he would have been amazing, you never got to see the whole Joe Willie because of the knees.
I would say yes, because unlike the other two examples, the 1968 Jets were quite literally not in the same league with the 1968 Colts.
Yes. Complete shock.
Those gorgeous unis are the best, maybe the only, reason to tune in tonight.
Plenty of reasons to tune in. People will watch football nearly any time. If you are a fan of either team you will certainly tune in. People enjoy watching football on a monday evening after the first day of their work week. Who cares about baseball. No good hockey games on tonight.
Back in Super Bowl 3, the green oval on the helmet was football shaped instead of a perfect oval shape. Anyone know when they changed the shape of that decal?
1998. The graphics were also modified slightly, with starker lines separating the “JETS” wordmark from the background “NY”, and the football drawn with laces in the center rather than a shadow in the upper half.
Beautiful. Would love these to be their permanent unis with a green pant option and a white and green face mask option. I at least wish they’d go to this shade of green on the sack exchanges since the helmet shade is so off from the green jersey.
The shade of green used on the primary jerseys is the same. The helmet shade looks different under some lighting conditions because of the metallic paint finish.
“While talks to merge the leagues had begun, winning the Super Bowl for the AFL cemented things, and the leagues would officially merge two years later.”
Not quite. The merger was announced June 8, 1966. So, it was more than talk by this game. The process to complete it took until after SB4
Everybody’s wearing undershirts now anyway …
Bring back sleeves!!!!!
-C.
Damn you untucked undershirts!!!
Love these, but I wish they would’ve gone with the Green Jersey instead of the white one
Would be made a better show with the Bills in throwbacks like in 1968 week 4.
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All these versions of the Jets uniforms look the same to me. I don’t get it.
I was thinking the same thing. I don’t know if it is the settings on my TV or the camera settings? But, these don’t look any brighter than what they wore back in the 2000’s.
So I waited to see these on the field – the SB3’s are surprisingly blah on the Jersey turf…but the stadium signage in Kelly and white is spectacular – High marks to the facilities dept!
RE: blah on the Jersey turf
Whoever greenlit Metlife has to feel like a total clown after Minnesota, Atlanta, and Los Angeles all built *vastly* superior stadiums within the next decade. MetLife is a f’n dump by comparison.
I always they were going for the same look as Giants Stadium. But, with a modern twist. The multicolored seats kind of hint at the fact they might have been worried they weren’t going to be able to fill them so it would give the illusion there were more people there than actually were.
I have to say, these look really, really good. I think this is the first time the Jets have worn this design with the correct 1968 numeral and lettering fonts since the early 1970s when they switched to the thicker Champion font, which the 1993-94 throwbacks used; those throwbacks (and the 1998-2018 primaries) also used serif NOB lettering, which the Jets didn’t use until 1976 (and then only briefly, until 1979). Between that and the shade of green I like these a lot better than the 1998-2018 uniforms.
These are pretty slick, but I HATE how they don’t complete the sleeve striping. I refuse to believe that in 2024 it’s too much to ask to just do these right finally.
Good uniform but it did not help them win. I like the kelly green they use, the olive looked too drab. Now if they only would get rid of any black jersey…
The decal looks off. Namath ers appears to be more football shaped, where the current throwback decal appears to be more of an oval
You’re correct; the current throwback decal is the 1998-2018 logo (in the current shade of green), not the 1965-77 logo. Why they went with the former instead of the latter has never been explained; I imagine it’s because the merch manufacturers still have the template for it and it lasted 21 seasons (vs. 13 seasons for the old one).