We’ll have some good looking games this Sunday, with the highlights being not one, not two, but three throwback uniforms: the Green Bay Packers, New York Giants, and Philadelphia Eagles will all be breaking out their classic/legacy/throwback uniforms for the first time in 2024. Of the teams who have announced their full uniforms, it’s shaping up to be a better-looking weekend than the past couple, although there will still be a couple stinkers.
Let’s take a look at how the uniform matchups for Week 9 are playing out. This post will be updated once teams who have not announced full combos do so.
The two teams met back in 2021 wearing the same combos they’ll be wearing on Sunday, although I’d expect many of the Dallas players to be wearing white hosiery, as is their wont these days. The Falcons uniforms are of course not great, but their black/black/white/black combo is probably their best (non-throwback) uniform combo. It probably won’t be a top 5 game, but it will likely look as good as it possibly can.
The Broncos haven’t announced their choice of pants for this game, but now would be a perfect time to debut the bust out the orange pants in a regular season game. There are few Ravens combos I don’t like, and the purple/black is one I really like. We’ve recently seen how good the purple vs. orange look can be. We’ve also yet to see the Broncos in white over blue, which might be ok if they wear white socks. But here’s hoping for the orange…
UPDATE: The Broncos will be going with ORANGE pants and white socks.
As of this writing, neither team has announced their pants choice. I’m hoping for a color palette special with the Chargers in their gold pants and the Browns in orange. No matter what the combos, this will be a good looking game, although if both teams wear white pants it probably won’t look as good. But if either or both wear color pants, this is definitely in contention for the good side of the Five and One.
UPDATE: The Browns have announced they will again wear their orange pants for this game.
UPDATE #2: The Chargers will wear white pants and blue undersocks.
The Raiders/Bengals have worn the exact same combos once before as they will wear on Sunday, and that occurred during the 2021 playoffs. That was a magical game for the Bengals, who won their first playoff game in 31 years! I’m sure the decision to wear this combo once again wasn’t coincidental.
AFC rivals Buffalo and Miami meet at least twice a season, so we’ve seen what they’ll wear on Sunday before. The Bills are wearing their absolute best home uniform combination, and Miami will go mono-white. I don’t like Miami in aqua pants, as they always pair those with aqua socks, but the all-white look for the Dolphins is too devoid of color. It would be easily solved by simply wearing aqua socks, but white leggings with white pants are all the rage these days.
We now enter a stretch of some not-so-great-looking pairings. The Patriots have not yet announced what color pants they’ll wear, but it’s probably too much to think they’ll wear silver/gray pants with the white tops again. But the Patriots in blue pants and socks is probably what we’ll get. And while the Titans uniforms are terrible, at least the navy/navy/powder/navy isn’t their worst possible look.
UPDATE: The Patriots will be wearing their blue pants and socks.
As of now, neither team have unveiled their pants choices for this game. The NFC South rivals meet at least twice a season, but usually the Panthers wear white and the Saints black. In fact, of their last nine meetings, Carolina has worn a white jersey eight times. But back in the 2020 season, the last time we had the Panthers in black against the Saints in white jerseys, Carolina wore silver/gray pants and the Saints wore gold pants. While that might be the best possible pairing, I don’t expect we’ll see the Saints wearing gold pants — they wore them three times in the preseason, but have yet to wear them during the regular season (excluding the throwback pants, which are both a different shade of gold, and have a different striping pattern). I keep hoping the Saints will surprise us, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
UPDATE: The Saints will be in GOLD PANTS for this game!
UPDATE #2: The Panthers will wear silver/gray pants and black socks.
Washington vs. New York Giants
As noted in the intro, the Giants are wearing their 80s/90s “Legacy” uniforms for the first time this season. Of the four times they’ve worn them, two of those have come against Washington. The Commanders haven’t yet declare their pants preference, but in 2023, the Commanders wore mono-white below the neck (a game the Giants won 14-7), while in 2022, the Commanders wore burgundy pants. That game ended in a 20-20 tie. Unless the Commanders suddently decide to wear black or gold pants with their white jerseys (something they have never done), we’ll have a repeat of the combos worn in either 2022 or 2023.
UPDATE: The Commanders will be in burgundy pants and socks.
Although the Bears haven’t officially declare their pants preference, it’s a safe bet they’ll be wearing their midnight blue britches against the Cardinals. The last time the Bears wore white pants with their white jerseys was way back in 2009, according to the GUD. The Cardinals will be in their standard white helmet over mono-red.
UPDATE: The Bears, as expected, will wear their midnight blue pants.
The Eagles kelly green throwbacks will make their first appearance of 2024 on Sunday, when Philly hosts the Jaguars. The Jags haven’t announced the color of their britches as of this writing, but they have three options: white over white, white over black, or white over teal. The best matchup would probably be either white pants and black socks, or black pants and white socks. But no matter what the Jags wear, the kelly greens will be the highlight of this game.
The third and final throwback game of the weekend will feature the Green Bay Packers in their 1950s throwback uniforms. This game has a chance to be a very good looking game if the Lions (finally) decide to pair their silver/gray pants with the white jerseys — something they have yet to do. After wearing their white jerseys over blue pants twice in the pre-season, the Lions have yet to wear anything but white pants with their white jerseys during the regular season. The Lions are undefeated in the all-white combo, so I expect they’ll wear white pants against the Pack.
UPDATE: As expected, the Detroit Lions will wear white pants and socks.
The Rams will wear white jerseys with blue pants and socks, while Seattle is in its traditional home mono-blue. The two teams wore the same uniform combination in September of 2023. It should pretty much look the same on Sunday.
Sunday Night’s game between the Colts and Vikings should look like the above photo. Like the Dolphins, I don’t like it when the Colts go mono-white — their uniform looks perfect when they simply wear royal hosiery with the all white uni. But alas, they’ve been mostly sticking with the full icy white look for their roads the past several seasons. The Vikes also have a tendency to pair white hose with their white pants, so this one likely won’t look as good as it could.
And there you have it — a look at all the uni matchups for Week 9. The MNF game will feature the Buccaneers and Chiefs, in what should be a repeat of their Super Bowl LV uniforms. So that should be a good looking game as well.
The white Commanders jersey is an experiment gone wrong. Does match with the rest of the uniform. Waiting for the clock to tick so they can fix it. Washington needs to get rid of black as a trim colour and get rid of the black alternate.
Wonder if after Da Bears/Cardinals game we will get to hear “THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!!!!!!” lol
I am hoping for the Broncos in orange pants as well. Hate to say it, but I think the best pants the Lions could pair up against those awful green uniforms of the Packers would actually be their blue ones.
Not me I love when the Broncos wear All white uniforms Orange pants I won’t like I only like All white uniforms look great Professional Look great on TV Don’t like dark colors especially Black n Dark mono Ther awful looking
That was the best Denny Green press conference ever. I’m still laughing at that, all these years later.
The Broncos wore white over navy against the Steelers in week 2.
FWIW, I would also like to see the orange pants, but I’m halfway expecting the white pants yet again.
Browns announced brown over orange on instagram.
One of my favorite combos in the whole league.
Still don’t see the problem with the falcons unis. Aside from the tiny little baby falcon logo on the sleeve, it’s a great looking uni. Especially now that the ombré is less prevalent.
As far as “modern” uniforms go, there are probably several that are worse (the Titans, old Bucs alarm clocks, Cleveland with “BROWNS” down the leg, etc). I’d even go so far as to say they’re better than what they replaced.
Still, the GIANT “ATL” on the jersey chest and pointy side panel *stripes* don’t bother you? It definitely has promise when they don’t go mono.
About a year ago, when I did my “2+3+2+3” project, I made a couple tweaks to the Falcons unis that I think would move them up considerably in the “good” rankings:
link
I replaced the giant “ATL” wordmark with a much smaller “ATLANTA,” removed the side panels, and created a set of gray pants. I also created a red jersey (since they thankfully ditched the red/black gradient link). But even if they didn’t go with a red jersey or gray pants (or a red helmet option), I think those two small tweaks (Atlanta wordmark and pointy stripe removal) would make their overall uni-set pretty solid.
YMMV of course.
Now that the ombré is out, my only “must go” is the tiny sleeve falcon. To be extra picky, it would look better with a smaller word mark or none at all. Grey pants are a push for me. They would look great but not necessarily a marked improvement. Titans, Commanders, and Seahawks have way more urgent issues.
Do the Rams have blue pants simply to appease the ‘helmet and pants should match’ crowd (TFPIC)? Woof.
Continue to pine for the day the Bears break out the white pants for a road game – it’ll be worth the wait once they Get It.
I think the rams look fine in the blue pants. Save for the darn asymmetrical stripes. I demand to know why Nike insists that asymmetrical pant stripes look good.
Not sure if anyone else has noticed but in like week 2 or 3 this year I noticed a significant difference in the number of teams who were wearing different color hosiery. I’m a Cowboys fan and all of a sudden in week 2 or 3 it went from like a 50/50 split of blue and white socks to just 2 or 3 players wearing the white socks/leggings. I noticed a reduction in other teams wearing them as well. I wonder if the NFL sent out a notice or something? Dak Prescott wore white socks with every uni-set all last season and did so again in week 1. In week 2 he went back to the blue socks and that coincided with his current downswing in play, lol.
Saints will be wearing gold pants Sunday according to their Instagram page. Gold/White/Gold.
I think this uniform combo will give the Saints enough inspiration to only lose my 15 this week…
Chargers could easily go Power and yellow pants against the browns in brown and orange pants. Plenty of contrast. Need more Color vs Color NFL games.