Good Monday morning, Uni Watchers. I hope everyone had a pleasant weekend.
Week 8 of the 2024 NFL season is almost in the books, and the highlight of the weekend was the return of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers creamsicle throwbacks. A sea of orange, with throwback graphics throughout the stadium, greeted the Bucs as they took on the Falcons yesterday.
I know some of you aren’t fans of the Bucco Bruce throwbacks, but I think they’re one of the best throwbacks in the game today. Hell, they’re one of the best uniforms in the game today. Everything just works so well with these.
As my pal Jimmy Corcoran pointed out back in January of this year, the Bucs were one of the NFL teams to use the WFL’s Sand-Knit uniform template, and it is a testament to that design that it still looks great today. But for me, the white and orange, with just a few hints of red, really make this a terrific uniform. And while I certainly don’t want every team to do it, I do love when teams match helmets and pants, including the stripe pattern.
So, so good. It’s a shame we’ll (likely) only see these once this season. I’d love it if we could see them every week.
And now, here’s your full Week Eight uni rundown:
The Rams feel their “bone” (aka “dishwater”) uniforms give them mojo, and Thursday night they went full dishwater against the Vikings. I don’t have as big a problem as some with the color, but it’s just not a good-looking uniform. And I’ll never begrudge anyone who wears a Guardian Cap, but some look better than others. As far as modern uniforms go, it wasn’t a terrible matchup, but it wasn’t good, either.
Ugh. Is there anything worse than two white-helmeted teams going mono below the neck? I don’t mind when the Dolphins go mono-white (although I’d prefer aqua hose), but it’s just a terrible look for the Cardinals. Maybe Kyler Murray agrees, because yesterday he wore white hosiery! It was a surprisingly good look. Hopefully he can convince the team to join him (and to wear red socks with their all-white uniforms).
I talked about the Bucs in the intro, but as a matchup against Atlanta, it actually looked fine. The Falcons regular uniforms, obviously, aren’t great (even for a modern uniform), but by going black/white/black/white and avoiding mono-white or same-color pants/socks, there was excellent color contrast between the two squads.
I expected this to be a good-looking matchup, and it did not disappoint! Despite the confluence of black, white, purple, orange and brown, the colors all popped on a beautiful sunny day in Cleveland. Plus, you gotta love the homage to the Kardiac Kids.
I don’t mind when the Jags wear teal jerseys or teal pants, but I don’t particularly like when they wear them as part of the same combo. At least they wore white hose. And fortunately, the Packers’ gold and white didn’t clash with the teal too much, so the overall matchup was better than expected.
I love the Colts uniforms, but for some reason, they decided to wear white hosiery, for that icy white look. The Texans, on the other hand, wore their best uni combo, wearing dark blue socks at home. It was still a good-looking matchup, but it could have been better if the Colts had worn royal blue hosiery.
A week after wearing silver-gray pants with their white jerseys for the first time in 20 years, the Pats were back in mono-navy below the neck, their preferred home outfit. Despite the ugly loss, the Jets looked ok in green/white/green/white. I’d love a pair of green stripes on those hose, but since many players wear compression pants, striped socks are probably a pipe dream these days.
Cincy wore their white bengal look (which I love), and came into yesterday with a perfect record wearing them. But the Eagles hung an “L” on them Sunday. I’m not sure why the Eagles no longer wear green (or black) socks with their white pants anymore, but it’s been their preferred look for the past couple seasons. It made for a very white below the waist game, which isn’t ideal under a bright sun.
The Titans uniforms, I think we can all agree, are awful, but at least color-wise, they have some decent combos. Their navy/white/powder/white is one of them. So had the Lions simply worn silver-gray pants, this would have been a pretty good uni matchup. But, alas, it was Monolulu blue again yesterday. The resulting matchup had a lot of blue, and three different shades at that.
Although I wish they’d mix in gray pants more often, I have grown to like the Seahawks in mono-navy, one of the few modern uniforms that’s aged well. I also like the Bills in white/white/blue/white, so this ended up being a pretty nice pairing. It’s amazing how important pants stripes are to a uniform’s overall look.
Eight weeks into the NFL season, and the Saints still haven’t worn their regular gold pants. At least they didn’t go mono-white below the neck, but I’m not sure the black yoga pants are any better. And while I prefer the Chargers in gold pants, their white/powder/white/powder combo is still a good look. Leave it to the Saints to be another turd in the punchbowl.
HALLELUJAH! For the first time since their introduction, the Broncos wore orange socks with their white pants, and what a difference that makes! And the Panthers wore (IMO) their best combo of silver/white/white/Process Blue. The result was a fantastically surprising good matchup. Of course, a couple Panthers had to go rogue, but by and large, this looked really nice. I wonder how a team would look if they paired orange and Process Blue?
With the Commanders in their mono BFBS, I was hoping the Bears might go blue/white/white, but alas, they did not. The result was kind of a muddled mess. There’s actually enough gold on the Commanders BFBS unis they could…maybe…try pairing the black helmet and jersey with their new gold pants. But so far they’ve always worn the Ninja look, to their detriment.
Almost all AFC West matchups this year have been worthy of the #1 spot, and the Raiders/Chiefs is just another example of a gorgeous pairing. Normally I’d prefer the Chiefs in white shirts and britches, but against the silver and black, red/white/red/white is the way to go. Damn, that’s a beautiful-looking game.
There aren’t many teams whose throwbacks look worse than their regular uniforms, but that is definitely the case with the 49ers. It’s bad enough when the Niners wear jerseys and pants with absolutely no gold anywhere (except the helmet), and it’s made doubly worse when they wear white hosiery with the white pants. Seriously, there oughta be a law that every Niners/Cowboys tilt looks like this.
So who are your Five and One for Week 8? I have mine below, but feel free to give me your own list down in the comments section.
I’ll never understand if the Broncos go back to the white socks after seeing how much better the Orange looks. I wouldn’t mind seeing Navy socks with this combo too.
They’ll do it because it’s the current trend among this generation’s group of players. For some reason most of them seem to like the leggings that are color-matched to the pants. It is what it is, and the trend will probably go away for something else in a few years.
Denver and Carolina are two teams that have overall okay uniforms that either become much prettier or much uglier depending on what combo they select each week. That game could’ve looked like a disaster, but each team decided to wear their Sunday’s best for once! I love the orange socks for Denver, and I loved the contrasting blue socks for Carolina!
I would’ve never thought that game would make it into my personal 5&1 but I would also put it at #3. In fact, our 5&1’s would be identical if not for my 1 being Arizona/Miami (bleck).
No mention of Jalen Hurts’ mismatched cleats during the Eagles-Bengals game? link
I was wondering who thought it would be a good idea to pair those black uniforms against the Da Bears?????? And, Detroit did a major upgrade to their blue jerseys/gray pants. It’s too bad they don’t ever wear them together.
Ravens/Browns was fantastic!!!!!
Maybe the best regular season highlight of the decade for Washington fans and it happens in those awful unis.
Reminds me of the Cavs beating the Warriors in game 7 of the Finals in 2016. Finally broke Cleveland’s championship drought, and it was done in awful black uniforms with sleeves.
I understand the history of losing in the creamsicle uniforms vs the relative success in the red and pewter uniforms. But the Bucs current set looks more like something a MAC team would wear, the white and orange with red trim absolutely looks like a warm weather Florida team. Just go back that with a updated helmet logo, either a recolor of their current flag logo, or modernize a pirate head like what Torch Creative came up with a few years ago.
Chiefs in red/white/red is far superior to red/white/white, particularly against a team with light pants.
YMMV on that – the white over white looks exceptionally good on KC regardless of what pants the home team wears…ditto for CHI (though they’ve mothballed that for far too long).
White jersey, white pants is always the worst choice. Add white socks for a truly awful outfit.
Unless you are the Cardinals…then it’s the only choice- or at least it should be.
Cardinals. Home: Red jersey, white pants. Road: White jersey, red pants. Like the Chiefs. Gorgeous.
Re: “I’d love a pair of green stripes on those hose, but since many players wear compression pants, striped socks are probably a pipe dream these days.”
When the Jets used their Classic uniforms this year, I noticed that several players had leggings with stripes sewn onto the pants:
link
It’s an easy solution and I don’t understand why the teams with striped socks don’t have striped leggings as mandatory
Guess the Game from the Scoreboard
Game 3, 1975 World Series. Mr. Barnett was the home plate umpire and ruled catcher’s interference on Ed Armbrister’s bunt in the 10th inning that put the winning run at third base. Joe Morgan drove in the winning run with a long single.
Right game but you got the call all backwards. Armbruster clearly interfered with the catcher, but Barnett refused to call anything and thereby handed the Reds the game on a platter. Armbruster’s obvious interference caused Fisk’s throw to second to sail and allow the winning run to get to third where only a fly ball was needed to end it. As if making an all-time horrible no-call were not enough of a travesty, Barnett insisted on defending his bonehead performance by trying to cite and misapply what the rule book said. The rule book clearly proved him wrong and this could well have cost Boston the series.
Would’ve preferred the Lions in silver pants as well, but it seems the blueberries are here to stay for now. The Titans could’ve helped out by bringing their navy pants, which would’ve made for a better contrast overall.
I agree.
The combo TEN trotted out in yesterday worked way better in the white helmet era.
Also: the lions/titans featured 3 shades of grey/silver in addition to 3 shades of blue.
GTGFTU: 2023 Week 4, 1 October, Buccaneers 26 @ 9 Saints. The only time this matchup has happened since the Bucs’ new uniform set.
Yep! Another big clue was that Baker has only been w/ the Bucs for a season and a half at this point, and has only faced off against the Saints three times. So, not a ton of options.
A) I’d flip your top two.
B) I’d have Cowboys-49ers, Colts-Texans, and Panthers-Broncos behind them.
C) There are a LOT of AND ONE candidates.
I hated the Texan’s new look but it has grown on me.
As a Texans fan, I had mixed feelings on the new look. “Why mess with something perfectly fine?” tussled with “I wouldn’t mind a bit of a refresh.” Overall, I think they mainly did a good job with staying somewhat true to their general look while updating things. I *really* don’t like the idea of going head-to-toe red when they break out the red helmets and jerseys (white pants would look SO much better!), but that’s what they’re going to do.
The one that has really grown on me is the alternate with the new H logo. I didn’t love it at first, but getting used to it and seeing it in action really makes me like it.
I rather liked the Texans uniforms prior to the redesign. The current B/B/W combo is a minor downgrade from what preceded it…but still pretty good…the rest of their looks are awful.
I started watching the NFL after the Jets changed from the Sack Exchange era unis and still prefer the Chad Pennington/Bart Scott era set, but this new set is growing on me.
Do the Dodgers still have a grey jersey with “Los Angeles” instead of “Dodgers”? If so, which is the alternate?
Was thinking about this the other day. Weird how Nike had to come up with a whole CC line of uniforms to show a connection between the teams and their hometowns, and yet, the Dodgers went against tradition and dropped their city name from their road uniform. Doesn’t make any sense to me.
From a sales standpoint, you’d think you’d want to give the fans the option (and likewise advertise the gear during games, since sadly that is essentially what uniforms are now) by wearing a white Dodgers jersey at home and a gray Los Angeles jersey on the road.
Even more so their in-metro area rival Angels don’t have a Los Angeles jersey road jersey, you corner the market on fans who want to wear something with their city name on it.
The Dodgers haven’t dropped the city name — they still have “Los Angeles” script roadies. They also have “Dodgers” roads, which they do wear more often, but the Los Angeles jerseys are still an option. And they’ve actually gone back and forth in their history since moving to LA, alternating Los Angeles and Dodgers since 1958. It’d be nice if they stuck to just one (I presonally prefer “Dodgers” on the roads because IMO “Los Angeles” is a bit unwieldy).
It’s such a good looking roadie, I hope they wear it in the Bronx
“the Dodgers went against tradition and dropped their city name from their road uniform. Doesn’t make any sense to me.”
As Phil points out, “tradition” in this case was far more on the side of “Dodgers” appearing on the road unis.
Tradition as in, MLB as a whole. Team name on the home jersey, city name on the road jersey. That is the typical uniform convention. There have been outliers for various reason throughout the years, Dodgers being one of them. But I think their gray Los Angeles jerseys look good and unlike say, the Phillies trying to cram “Philadelphia” into the same design format on their road grays, Los Angeles works just fine from a design and aesthetic standpoint.
The Los Angeles jersey is officially the road jersey, the Dodgers version is officially the alternate, but they wear the latter much more than the former. Part of it may be superstition; I seem to remember someone tabulating that they had a much better record in the Dodgers version, but I can’t verify that.
It’s basically what they wore in Brooklyn from 1946 until they left for LA, though. Interestingly the “Los Angeles” script jerseys only lasted originally about a decade in LA and they wore the “Dodgers” version for close to 30 years.
Actually I seem to have that backwards. The team now lists the “Los Angeles” version as their second alternate.
The Commanders will never, ever, ever pair their black jerseys and helmets with their yellow pants. They already look too much like the Steelers’ Color Rush uniforms, having them look like the REGULAR Steelers’ uniforms would be a bridge too far for SO many fans, and not just DC fans.
If they’re gonna mix and match standard and alternate elements, they’d do well to add their burgundy pants to the combo. I’d be interested to even see if burgundy pants AND the standard burgundy helmet go well with the black jersey.
The Browns should always wear orange pants. Maybe white jersey, white pants once a year as an homage to their successful teams of yore.
I just can’t get over… yawn… how boring… yawn… and unremarkable the Bengals all-white look is. It’s as if their own uniform is the dreaded spy vs. spy look unto itself. Maybe I should replace ASMR videos with pictures of the white tiger unis to help me go to sleep at night.
Huge agree on Cincy. And it could be fixed so easily by simply adding orange socks and maybe using the regular orange helmet. Or, alternately, keep the all-white look but make the bengal stripes orange. It’s so dreary the way it is in reality.
We often discuss the best uniform matchups for a given week in the NFL. A fun side project for someone might be to take every possible uni combo (helmets, jerseys, pants, and socks) for all the NFL teams and figure out what the five worst possible head-to-head matchups could potentially be. After watching Washington and Cincinnati yesterday, an early nomination from me would be all-black Washington vs. all-white Cincinnati.
Does anyone know of a tool that exists to mix and match NFL uniform elements to create hypothetical uniforms? I’ve seen some folks use Madden in the past, but those don’t really lend themselves well to sharing.
I assume that Gridiron Uniform Database has some sort of collection of elements that they pull from to easily create their graphics. But, to the best of my knowledge, they haven’t shared such a tool that would allow folks to create their own.
Washington’s get-up would receive my vote for ugliest uniform in NFL history.
“Cincy wore their white bengal look (which I love)”
Still don’t quite understand what people like about this look, which just feels like another whiteout style uni sucked dry of color and playfulness to me, but to each their own.
Post-Hail Mary thought:
Washington’s ownership will never have a greater opportunity to separate itself from the echoes of its Redskins visual history and identity than now.
If I’m ownership, I lean into the alt black unis and ride the good fortune and enthusiasm from the fans as long as possible.
Translation: wear black at home from here on out.
(And I’m not a Washington fan.)
-C.
I’ll defend the Titans’ uniforms.
The sword motif works really well throughout. It makes for a cleverly implemented shoulder yoke (which is a hard element to make work). The unique two tone silver “sword” stripe looks great on the helmet especially with the chrome silver face mask. The often maligned jersey numbers are more thematically justifiable than most custom fonts, and I don’t find them particularly unreadable. Plus they’ve got TV numbers too. The color combo of navy, light blue, and silver is varied but handsome.
There are flaws- the awkward diagonal pants stripe and the flying thumbtack logo (which has always been a dud to me) – but these are far from the worst uniforms in the NFL.
I’ll gladly watch the Titans over the Jags, Falcons, Cardinals, Seahawks, Patriots and Saints with their black leggings nonsense.
“I wonder how a team would look if they paired orange and Process Blue?”
In my head I see it looking more or less like the Broncos Orange Crush throwbacks with more intensity on the blue. As nice as those look, I think the more vibrant blue would look good as well.
As near as I can figure (and I have done no intense research yet), the Browns/Ravens, Browns/Bengal, and Bengals/Ravens are the only games in the NFL to feature NO primary colors in the uniforms. Whether it’s Light (RGB) or pigment (CMY), Purple, orange, black and brown are all secondaries at least (I’m not counting the Raven’s weird greenish mustard in the mix). Probably why it looks so gorgeous and Autumny.
The Bills white/white/blue look is good but it’s sort of ruined by the plain white socks everyone wears. Some stripes would go a long, long way.
Detroit introduced a nicely upgraded uni set for this season and have proceeded to look like crap just about every week so far because they consistently lean into the one bad element that was foolishly included – stripeless white and blue pants. So far they have worn the silver pants once, while going monolulu blue twice and mono black once at home. On the road they clearly prefer the all white below the neck look.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they ultimately settle on mono blue at home/mono white on the road and mothball the silver pants like the Saints have with their gold.
Sad for the Lions. The monolulu blue and white both look horrible. Unfortunately they look like the best team in the NFC right now so they’ll probably keep the ugly train going.
Those gigantic ram horns on L.A.’s guardian caps look awesome! I love that look! Imagine if their entire team wore them!
This really showed up for me watching the game on TV, but the panther’s helmets look terrible. the logo is huge, the new shapes of the helmets forces that logo further towards the back of the helmet, and the stripes flaring out in the back make for some really strange looking spacing. If you go into their photo gallery from this week, pictures 19, 22, and 63 show it well. The stripe is too close to the logo sometimes, and in general it looks inconsistent from helmet to helmet.