Good Monday morning, Uni Watchers, and Happy Veterans Day. If you or any of your family members are veterans, thank you for your service!
Now then.
Whereas Week Nine of the NFL featured three throwback uniforms making their debuts, Week Ten was all about alternates — we had four alternates all told, three of which were also making their NFL debuts — Thursday night, the Ravens debuted their new purple alternate buckets, which they paired with their color rush uniforms; the Jaguars introduced their new white helmets; and the Texans not only debuted their new red helmets, they also broke out their new “Battle Red” uniforms.
I liked the Ravens’ new helmets, and thought they went well with the CR uniforms…
…but there was just a bit too much purple. I have no problem with the color, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. I think those purple helmets would pair well with the white jersey, or even with the Ravens’ standard purple jersey over any other color pants. It was fine for one game, but I wouldn’t ever want to see it more than once a season.
I was also pleasantly surprised at how much I liked the Jags’ new white helmets.
My biggest issue, which I’ll have more to say about below, was the stripeless pants with white socks. It’s just too much white below the waist. Black or teal socks would have made this a much more appealing outfit.
As far as the Texans new “Battle Red” uniforms? To me, they suffered the same issue as the Ravens. There’s just too much red.
On TV and in long shots, I also had a bit of a hard time reading the numbers. They looked fine up close, and I was surprised the metallic helmets matched the red shade of the uniforms pretty well for the most part. But the all-red was overwhelming. If they paired those with white pants, it would have broken it up much better.
We also had one never-before-worn combo yesterday, as the Carolina Panthers paired their alternate black lids with their blue jerseys, and black pants and socks.
I realize the style these days for many teams is to wear same-color pants and socks, but let’s leave the black-below-the-waist look for the zebras.
Unfortunately, we had as many teams in contention for the “And One” as we did for the Top 5. Let’s see how all the games looked now…
I talked about the Ravens unis above, so we’ll focus on the matchup now. I love most of the Bengals combos, but the orange/white/black/white is down there (I know the white socks tie in with the white jersey, but I think orange hose might be better). But the focus of this uni-game was of course the Ravens all-purple, and orange, black and white certainly didn’t clash with the purple, so it was a good pairing.
Contrast was no problem in Munich, with the Panthers in their new black/Process blue/black/black combo against the Giants in royal/white/white/red. I’ve said before I wish the Giants road uniforms had some blue, but at least they always wear contrasting socks. I did like the Panthers helmet/jersey/pants combo, though blue socks would have been preferable to black.
There’s an adage that “if you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all,” which applies to this matchup. After going with gold pants (finally!) last weekend, the Saints were back to their “usual” mono-black below the neck at home. Compounding the chess piece look were the Falcons, who played the role of the White Spy. Thing is, this game would have been immensely improved if the teams had simply reversed their lower leg stylings. But this was just one of several games in contention for the “And One.”
I know some folks feel games like this look like a scrimmage, but I’m absolutely fine with two royal and white teams facing off. This was a great-looking matchup, helped by both teams having pants with stripes and color contrasting socks.
After going most of the season pairing same color pants and hosiery, the Broncos have been mixing in contrasting socks of late. And what a difference it makes! I’m still not in love with the Broncos pants striping, but it’s certainly better than no striping. That makes an otherwise middle-of-the-pack matchup into an instant Top Five contender. Keep it up, Denver…I’m liking the new unis more and more each week.
As noted, the Jags debuted their new white helmets yesterday, and the white/black/white look is fine — but with white, stripeless pants, they needed to either wear black or teal socks. There’s enough teal on the helmet (tongue) and jersey to justify teal socks, but both teams preferred to go with their yoga pants look. This was otherwise an aesthetically pleasing pairing (I love when helmets match pants), but for the lower leg stylings.
I still don’t understand why the Patriots won’t pair their silver/gray pants with blue socks (just like they won’t wear white socks with their blue pants), although at least one player got the memo. That would make the white over silver/gray look much less like a mono-white uniform. Still, until they figure out that contrasting (navy) socks look better, this combo won’t be as good as it could be. I still prefer the silver/white/silver-gray to mono-navy below the waist, but it’s such an obvious, simple fix. And in a very interesting “fold,” it looked like the Bears suited up a pair of No. 10’s, but check the TV numbers: Caleb Williams’ No. 18 looked like No. 10 (nice spot by Justin Hicks).
I can understand the Commanders not wearing gold pants against the Steelers, who also wear gold pants. But I don’t think going mono-burgundy was their best alternative. White pants would have been a much better option. Looks like one Commander had a bit of his helmet decal peeling off.
Pretty good looking game down in Tampa Bay yesterday, with the Bucs wearing white at home. And I know it’s now de rigueur for teams to wear white hosiery these days, but I’ll never understand why the 49ers have stopped wearing red socks. Is it better to go high sock-less (there’s probably fines coming)? It would be so much easier if they just wore red hose.
This was probably the best possible uni matchup possible between the two teams. While I prefer the Titans in navy/white/powder/navy, with the Chargers in their own powder blue over gold, color-wise, it was a very pleasing look. Yes, the Titans template absolutely sucks, and does any team have worse numbers? But if we’re looking at this matchup from a purely color standpoint, it doesn’t get any better.
The Cardinals have the Jets to thank for making sure this game avoids the dreaded “And One”, and it all has to do with green hosiery. In fact, I’d go so far as to say green/white/white/green is the Jets’ best primary look, especially since their green metallic lids can and do have different shades of green between helmets and jerseys. I love the metallic helmet, and it looks best with white jerseys and pants.
The Eagles are another team that seems to always wear white hosiery every game, but unlike the 49ers, they pair the white hose with white pants. At least most of the Cowboys went with royal socks. And speaking of the Cowboys, they once again wore helmets with a red, white and blue stripe (something they did in 1976 for the nation’s bicentennial), which is now reserved for their annual Salute to Service game. It was an endearing quirk back then, and it’s a cool throwback look now.
Welp. If you like really bright mono unis, then this was a game for you. And this was about as solid red vs. solid white as one can get; with the exception of the Lions’ silver lids (which are still pretty light), this was almost hard on the eyes since the colors were so bright. And normally, I like bright colors, but each team had too much color. And it’s weird, on both of my TVs, the Texans unis seemed to have a purplish hue to the red, but that wasn’t present in still shots. Did anyone else have that issue? Also, several readers have noticed over the past couple weeks that CJ Stroud appears to have some kerning issues (it almost looks like “ST ROUD.” With their last-second victory last night, we can expect the Lions to keep wearing their mono-whites.
The uniforms were, ahem, so bad that even Mike Tirico trashed them on SNF (h/t to Mason Sultana). Mason’s brother had this to say: “The horn on the helmet looks like a ‘CURVE AHEAD’ highway sign!” The horn being a two way highway with the center line. “I was in stitches,” Mason added. “Now that is all I see. I liked it so much, I made a mock-up of a sign. Hope you enjoy!”
Thanks, Mason!
So who do you think made the Top 5? There are a bunch of games that would be the “And One” in a lot of weeks, but there can be only one. Which matchup do you think was the worst? Read on for the Five and One…
No idea how you can pick NFL stylish matchups. There are none. They all suck. NFL uniforms are straight garbage. Mono gone wild. Short shorts replacing pants and yoga tights masquerading as socks. And let’s not forget those wonderful long undershirts that hang below the jerseys. It’s all a sloppy mess.
Bucs-Niners into the Five, Saints-Falcons into the One for me.
No screenshots, but there was some atrocious letter spacing on the NOBs for Houston last night. Anyone else see that?
Texans having issues with the letter “T”. Stroud’s NOB kerning has looked weird all year, no matter what uni they wear.
I’d *love* to see more PBP announcers call out functionally useless uniform combos as such. Good on Tirico.
Sounded like he was having problems identifying the players by number
I caught this, too. He said it at least once on the broadcast, I think it was right before halftime, basically apologizing to the viewers for not being able to identify the players. Tirico said something about having to “guess” who he was looking at based on “position and body type”.
GTGFTS
13 July 1986
Jose Canseco just hit his 23rd HR of the year off Steve Clarke to make the score 10-5 in front of 37,138 at Exhibition Stadium.
Game ends as you see it as Dave Leiper concludes 2.2 innings of perfect pitching to earn the save.
GTGFTU – October 11, 2009, Week 5 at Mile High, as the Pats wore their white 1960s throwbacks against the Broncos’ yellow and brown 1960 throwbacks with the infamous vertically-striped socks. The Pats lost 20-17 in overtime on a Matt Prater 41-yarder that improved the Broncos to 5-0, although Denver would have a disastrous second half of their season and finish 8-8, while the Pats finished 10-6 before losing to Baltimore in the Wild Card round.
Got so focused on the GTGFTU that I hit post before writing my thoughts about last night’s game…
The Texans’ uniforms were a very hard watch. The facemasks were too shiny up close, with the reflections being rather annoying, and the navy on the uniforms looked so dark as to be practically black, which just made them look dull. The Lions were… well, what they are these days with the white-on-white-on-white, and I would still prefer pants stripes. I got so tired of watching that after the failed 2-point conversion after the Montgomery touchdown in the 3rd, I went to bed and put on the radio, where I listened to the rest of the game – and imagined the teams looking a bit more proper in my mind’s eye (Houston in blue-over-white, Lions in white-over-silver).
Stripes on the pants OR Teal/Black socks and that Jags uniform goes from good to VERY good.
I’m going to repeat myself by saying that I think the Texans’ red uni would be improved greatly by replacing the red helmet with their navy one. At the very least, they need to lose the chrome effect.
Absolutely. Just reverse the colours and you got a better look.
I agree with T Ganz in that it’s mono gone wild in the NFL of late. I will never understand the lack of pant strips with several of the newer unis. A little contrasting stripe on the Jags or Lion would make those more pleasant games to watch instead of looking like you’re waiting for the rest of their uni elements to load.
I know this site likes the Patriots’ gray pants, but white and gray do not provide much contrast. If the Patriots are going to insist on wearing gray pants, save those for the blue jerseys. I like the blue pants with the white jerseys.
I would like the gray to be darker (or shiny-er), but I think there’s *just* enough contrast.
Out of curiosity, do you feel the same way about the Raiders when they wear white jerseys? Would you prefer they wear black pants?
I feel the same way. Pairing the gray pants with the white jerseys ends up looking like they’re wearing dirty pants. They need to pair them with the navy jerseys.
I think the socks make all the difference. Patriots desperately need to wear blue socks. If the Raiders were to wear white socks it would look just as bad.
For the Pats I agree. Seems like the Raiders’ (and maybe everyone’s) “grey/silver” pants are nearly grey/silver enough, at least on TV. When the Raiders are silver/white/silver, I often think the pants are too light. A shinier (?) material would probably help.
I still like the Jets in green jerseys, white pants, green socks notwithstanding the helmet-coloration issue. Green-white-white-green is a close second.
Something tells me we’re going to get mono-green against the Colts on Sunday. But since there’s no point in watching the Jets anymore, I suppose it won’t matter.
Crazy! I have the same sinking feeling that the Jets will go mono-green as well. Which is disappointing since they would look good in green over white vs the Colts. But if we’re really digging deeper, they should wear their white helmet throwbacks against the Colts to recreate a Super Bowl III uni matchup—but they won’t because they already wasted them against the Bills a month ago.
Actually they could wear the throwbacks against the Colts if they so chose, or they could go BFBS as they’re allowed a total of three alternate/throwback games of which they’ve only used two and haven’t announced a third. However, GUDB already shows the Colts in white and has done so all season, which means that at some point the Colts announced that they would be wearing white in this game which means the Jets have committed to wearing a color jersey even though they haven’t announced it yet.
All this means we could still see either the BFBS or the throwbacks one more time at some point, but not both. Since this team never gets anything right I’d bet on the BFBS.
“I still don’t understand why the Patriots won’t pair their silver/gray pants with blue socks (just like they won’t wear white socks with their blue pants), although at least one player got the memo.”
With each team having 50+ players, so many of today’s athletes seemingly craving attention, and the NFL no longer policing socks, why don’t we see more of the occasional player trying to stand out by wearing proper, contrasting hose? Many of us who read this site took pride in our athletic appearance when we were younger. I have to believe at least a few guys on each roster also care. I just don’t understand the reluctance to look good and standout when it would be so easy to do.
The Ravens mono-purp could benefit from some tweaks IMO:
Remove the silly striping and bird head and since the raven in flight logo is (sadly) a non/starter, put the BR shields in their place … or just use 1 front-facing ala the SD Chargers All American City sticker from way back.
Better still – harken back to the Browns legacy and go blank bucket with w/g/w stripes to match the pants.
Add the same stripe pattern to the sleeve caps…and viola!
Those Houston unis were just about as bad as it gets. My buddy visits family on Sunday for dinner, then some of them watch the night game. His mom, who loves football, watched the first quarter. He said she described Texans uniforms as “putrid” and “nose bleeds” and stopped watching because she couldn’t take it any more.
My coworker described them as “a bunch of spider-mans” a look that was made worse by so many of the Texans wearing red cleats. The shine on the helmets turned black at certain angles, and sadly – or mercifully – most of those angles made the comically bad horns disappear. The navy and red of the unis are both gorgeous color values but are also somehow too similar for the blue to pop off the red. With the navy helmet and white cleats this would have been easier to look at. With navy helmet, red top and white pants: even better. If they had a white helmet and paired it with the red top and navy pants: decent. The number font still lets this design down every time though.
Completely agree with the 5 and 1 but I would have included the Munich game if Carolina had worn blue socks. I like the black helmet blue jersey black pants combination.
And the panther decal on the black helmet needs a silver outline. The Giants need blue socks with the away uniform but in this case white was OK.
Is the Tom Brady picture from Oct. 11, 2009, vs the Broncos? Wow, those jerseys fit so much better than the skintight sleeveless ones they wear now.
I’m not sure if it is even worth commenting on “wishing ___ wore contrasting socks.” The unitard look is ubiquitous.
On another note, I was coming around to the Texans horn shoulder stripes. I don’t love them, but appreciate how they are different. But paired with those helmets/uniforms “that shall not be named,” renders sets of horns going in different directions (3 directions if you count the end zones- forward, backward, and sideways). It’s like they had a concept and said “let’s throw it everywhere!”
Ravens, Saints, Commanders and Cardinals all looked like shit in mono unis, but none of them can compare to how bad Houston looked. Good on Mike Tirico for calling them out as being terrible. Everything about them is terrible.
I say every week how much I hate alt helmets, so this was a rough weekend for me.
To be honest, this week was almost Bottom 5 And 1 Good Uni:
The Bottom 5:
1. Vikings/Jaguars: The Jags looked like they were wearing a generic unlicensed uniform that they bought at Sears in the early 70s.
2. Jets/Cardinals: The Jets looked okay because at least they had the good sense to wear contrasting socks, but those bloodclot unis are awful.
3. Steelers/Commanders: The only good thing I can say about Washington’s mono burgundy set is that it isn’t their mono BFBS set.
4. Ravens/Bengals: The purple helmet is too much, especially with the mustard yellow facemask.
5. Lions/Texans: The Vikings, Jets, Steelers, and Bengals each looked good enough to redeem their respective matchups, but the Lions didn’t do themselves any favors last night. I gave up on that game at halftime partly because it was such a brutal combination. Consistently Inconsistent’s friend’s mom was right: “putrid” is an apt description for those Texas unis.
The + 1 Perfect Matchup:
Colts/Bills: No “stories”, no gimmicks, no alts. I love when the Bills go white/white/blue/white almost as much as I love when the Colts go white/blue/white/blue.
Honorable mentions: Chiefs/Broncos and 49ers/Buccaneers. Tonight’s matchup will be one of the best-looking of the week but would be dramatically improved if the Dolphins wore contrasting socks and if the Rams would get rid of the gradient jersey numbers.
All the mono-shit. Ugh.
For the Ravens, the purple lids/jerseys would have looked good with white or (dare I say it) the mustard pants. I also sort of liked the Jags’ white lids, but the plain pants suck (particularly in white) and that sleeve stripe in teal is just too thick for the overall look, IMO.
The Ravens need to Make Mustard Pants Great Again.
Too soon?
Mike’s Question of the Week:
Should the Ravens bring back the mustard pants? (A guy can dream.)
That gold face mask color looked sooo good with that helmet.
The mustard pants with those lids would be great!!!!!!!!
For as long as I live, I will never not be bothered by the Cowboys mismatching silver pants and helmets. I loathe it.
Agree. Drives me crazy. Not to mention the navy star/stripes on the helmet matched with the royal numbers, etc. But the pants… it’s made worse by the fact that they actually have silver pants the could wear.
I really don’t like the Pats’ white-over-silver look. I love the blue-over-silver option for the home, but it doesn’t work for me on the road.
I kinda wish they’d just ditch silver entirely and replace it with white.
5 and 1
5 Vikings-Jaguars
4 Ravens-Bengals
3 Broncos-Chiefs
2 49ers-Bucaneers
1 Bills-Colts
and 1 Lions-Texans
Almost included Cowboys-Eagles but I just don’t like Eagles white pants (prefer silver) and don’t care for red stripe on Cowboys helmet. Jags uniform was not bad but like most have written pants with stripes or black or teal socks would be a huge improvement. Texans would look better with a navy helmet or non chrome red. I am a traditionist and long time Panther fan. I did not think I would like yesterdays uniform but it wasn’t too bad. Though I will always prefer the silver helmet; the black helmet needs some silver or white to make it pop. The black pants would be better with two blue stripes like the helmet or solid black. The wide blue stripe on the black pants is very unattractive.
The Jaguars looked like a college team and the Patriots looked liked the old USFL Chicago Blitz.
Titans definitely have the worst number font in the league. Closely followed by the Falcons and Rams.
I caught a bit of BYU-Utah on Saturday, and when I turned on Texans-Lions, Houston looked exactly like Utah from the night before, when seen from a distance.
On another note, I don’t hate that Panthers combo.
Too many teams wearing white socks when they shouldn’t be.
The mono-burgundy look was rough but that game just like football to me. Overcast & gray, grass field, classic Steelers look, I enjoyed watching that one.
“just LOOKED like football…”
That Commies combo is by no means a great look, but it’s tolerable to me – and it did help lining up against the Steelers.
As far as mono-red goes:
WAS>BUF>AZ>KC>HOU
YVVM
Did no one else turn on the game Thursday and think the Vikings were playing?
I was disappointed in Houston’s Battle Red fashion statement. Maybe that looked better in the designer’s software, but in real life it needed more contrast, and would have benefited greatly from more outlining.
The dark-navy elements faded away and were too difficult to distinguish. The helmet horn is a cool idea, but they’ve yet to execute it properly. It needed to be white, or outlined in white. Some of that H-Town Blue would have been really nice somewhere.
I’d prefer to see these with navy or white pants.
“Thing is, this game would have been immensely improved if the teams had simply reversed their lower leg stylings. But this was just one of several games in contention for the “And One.”
No. The Saints’ white yoga pants look even worse than the black yoga pants – they’ve only worn that combination once before, and it was HIDEOUS – link: link
It’s definitely not good, but I still think it’s better than their mono-black. Still have no idea why they refuse (except for one stinkin’ game last weekend) to wear the gold pants.
But I was actually referring to the hosiery, not the pants, with that statement (sorry if it wasn’t clear). I’d have preferred the Saints with white socks (bad as that would be) and the Falcons with black socks. I wasn’t saying they should swap pants…although that would probably look better than below the neck spy-vs-spy.
Love Mason Sultana’s road sign mock-up of the Texans’ basically camouflaged horns! I kept thinking that the horns/stripes needed a white outline, like the hard-to-decipher numbers.
I kept that game on in case Goff and Stroud stopped throwing picks, glad it turned out to be another exciting ending.
On Phil’s point about low-cut socks in the 49ers link pic: Even their white socks/hose looked better than au naturel. Definitely a week when you could’ve flipped the 5 & 1 to 1 & 5. Just for kicks, if there’s another awful — dare we say worse? — week this NFL season, just go for it!
Texans helmet looked like a blow pop from the tv feed.
I also am really liking the Broncos new uniforms. Don’t know why? But, they are really growing on me.
I’m not sure why they’re growing on me either, but wearing good combos (as yesterday’s was) and seeing them actually on the field and in action — as opposed to posed studio shots — helps too. Could they be better? Sure…fix the pants stripes and the helmet to have an actual stripe…and these will be on their way to becoming modern classics. The sleeve caps, which I did not like when I first saw them, are actually pretty good, now that I’m used to them.
So long as they don’t go mono or wear same color pants and socks, these are definitely inching up there (for me at least) in how much I like them.
I won’t try to justify my Lions’ pants when perfectly good silver ones exist.
But I don’t think the Texans’ red jerseys are as far from being okay as I did before the game. More white outlining on jersey and helmet would go a long way and changing navy for white on the names (I couldn’t read names at all), and just one set of horns (a northwestern striping wouldn’t feel out of place here), and this could work.
From a distance, Jaguars looked like Penn State.
Panthers helmets almost looked logo-less
And Lions could go Monolulu blue with blue helmets to completely replicate the BYU v. Utah look..
Those Texans Red’s are FIRE!!!! Texans look best in RED IMO. I love the Chrome, if i changed anything it would be if you have the horns on the helmet take them off the jerseys.
Or better yet put the H logo on the helet and add a small amount of the H Town blue to the red uniform
Adding a MNF review: Better in the scrimmage shots when the gradient effect on the Rams’ numbers isn’t so prevalent. Otherwise their unis looked great, much different than their inability to cash in on third downs or and-goal situations.
The Dolphins looked fabulous, although had they worn white socks and not aqua, or even added horizontal stripes, it would have been el perfecto! At least the stripes on their pants kept the below-waist look from being yoga like. Definitely a top-5 look for the week.
The Texans had a great idea with the alternate unis – then they blew it. The monocolor thing is out of control all over the league and this was no exception. But perhaps worse are the number font (which is crap like so many are now) and…..having black numbers on a red unit. Black? White with black trim would be fine – but black? The numbers are ugly enough without making them totally illegible too. It’s a shame because that shade of red is beautiful and the helmets are gorgeous (even with the “curve ahead” logo)!
The Texans uniforms did come across as having a bit of a magenta tint to them, yes.
Was at the Jags/Vikings game, when the Jags came out of the tunnel my first thought was Spaceballs!
link