Good morning, Uni Watchers, it’s Black Friday. We made it! I hope all those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a great day with family and/or friends, and, unlike Ralphie Parker’s dad, you’ve got lots of leftovers!
There were, of course, three NFL games yesterday, and for the second straight year, the league honored the late John Madden, who was perhaps as synonymous with Thanksgiving football as anyone, with the possible exception of this guy.
All teams wore special Madden patches.
In addition, the coin used for the pregame toss in each game featured Madden’s silhouette on the “heads” side and his famous turducken on the “tails.”
But that wasn’t all. NBC began its broadcast before the nightcap between the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers with a two-minute open featuring the original Madden Cruiser traveling from the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, to Lambeau Field last week.
NBC honors #NFL legend John Madden this Thanksgiving with a ride to Lambeau Field on the original Madden Cruiser bus. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/MkddsSJnIJ
— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) November 28, 2024
With Madden’s omnipresence felt at all three games, the teams for the most part wore their Sunday best or throwbacks, providing for a decent-looking game, a very good uni matchup, and an all-time classic to close the evening out.
I was disappointed when the Detroit Lions, much to everyone’s surprise, decided against wearing their own throwbacks for yesterday’s early game. But I want to point out a couple things about that. I’m disappointed as a uniform observer, but I completely understand the team’s rationale for sticking with a winning uniform combo. While I think most people would agree their silver/Honolulu Blue/silver-gray outfit is their best, it’s also the only uniform in which they’ve lost a game. They’re undefeated in both Monolulu Blue and mono-white, and I expect they’ll continue to wear those combos until they lose a game in either one.
The Lions also won the only game where they wore their black alternates. They’re scheduled to wear the blue helmet and black jersey again in Week 15. I wonder if they’ll stick with the winning combo, or will they mix it up with blue pants?
So here’s the thing. While I was hoping for the throwback as an “IUO” (Independent Uniform Observer), I completely get that the players and fans should ride the hot streak, uni-wise. The players love the Monolulu Blue, the fans apparently love it too, so by all means, you do you. The uniforms weren’t designed for me anyway. In fact, I was wondering exactly how the team decides on its combos. Turns out there is a protocol. While the team must submit its home jersey (and helmet) selections to the NFL months in advance, the league leaves the decision on pants and socks up to the team, and they can decide as late as game day on their lower stylings. Here’s the pertinent section:
The final piece of the equation is the pants and socks. Those are decided weekly, by a select group of players. Equipment manager Tim O’Neil typically sends a text to a small group of team leaders early in the week, asking them to decide.
Technically, the Lions can wear any of four pants — plain blue, plain white, plain silver and silver with striping — with either the blue or white jersey, although we’ve not seen the blue jersey/white pants combination. Perhaps that’s because O’Neil doesn’t offer the non-traditional option as a choice to the players. Socks are either blue or gray.
Heh. That article was written back on October 4, well after the season had started, so obviously the author had noticed the socks are either blue or white, not gray. I think he actually meant to say “white” since the Lions have never shown that gray socks were an option with the new uniform set. The Lions did have a gray sock option with the last set. But regardless, the point remains. Socks and pants are chosen by a select few, and always the week of the game. They’ve been doing a fine job so far, as the team is now 11-1, and odds-on favorites to make, and win, the Super Bowl.
So to all the Lions players and fans: keep it up. I get it. To everyone else — wouldn’t it have been cool if the Lions wore throwbacks yesterday?
Let’s take a look at those Turkey Day games now.
The most superstitious team in the NFL lived up to their billing yesterday, eschewing what everyone expected to be Thanksgiving Throwbacks for their preferred home look of Monolulu Blue, in which the team has gone undefeated so far this season. It’s not a terrible look — and you certainly can’t argue with the results. If the players like the outfits, and the fans seem to love them too, well, they feel justified in following the sage advice of one Crash Davis. The biggest issue I have with the combo is the lack of stripes on the pants. Of course, they couldn’t put white/silver stripes to match the jersey on the blue pants, because those wouldn’t match the blue helmet, should they ever wear the blue/black/blue/black combo. It’s not going to be the worst looking game of Week 13, but it would have been fun to see the throwback on Thanksgiving.
Unlike the superstitious Lions, the Cowboys had no qualms wearing throwbacks yesterday, and the result was a tasty tilt against the Giants. The game was made even tastier by several of the Cowboys wearing striped navy socks. It’s a throwback I love seeing once a season, and Turkey Day is perfect for just such a wearing. Ever since Paul penned his 2007 ESPN piece on the Cowboys uniform quirks (one of his best columns ever), I’ve always viewed them as charting their own path, uni-wise. And while I am always excited to see any team in a throwback, I’m not actually a big fan of Dallas’ retros. The original uniforms had a different cut, but the retros look a bit off with NOB on the yoke, and the TV numbers are super tiny, owing to the ever-disappearing sleeve cap. And, I’m just not a fan of yoked jerseys to begin with.
The original jerseys featured more of a “bow-tie” yoke design, and had plenty of space for properly-sized TV numbers.
Still, considering the modern cut offers a lot less real estate to work with, they do a reasonably good job of replicating the original. And the throwbacks have two things going for them that their primary uniforms don’t: no mismatched shades of blue and the helmets and pants stripes match perfectly. You know my feelings on the Giants road uniforms.
The best looking game of Thanksgiving was had for dessert. The late game between Green Bay and Miami had the Pack in their regular home uniforms, which many — myself included — feel are the best in the NFL. And the Dolphins also paid attention to the Thanksgiving Throwback memo. It all made for a fantastic matchup and a Top 5 lock. Will it be the best looking game of the week? It’s definitely the clubhouse leader so far.
GTGFTS – Andy Hawkins “No Hitter” vs White Sox
July 1 1990
Despite Fay Vincent, I consider that more of a no hitter than 6 pitchers “combining” to no hit a team.
Andy Hawkins remains to this day the only San Diego Padre pitcher to win a World Series game.
I really don’t mind the Lions look and prefer it to the throwbacks. Silver pants would be better but for me the all blue is better than black. The Bears looked good. There is something about Ford Field that makes games there hard to watch. I will always prefer grass but have accepted turf, however Detroit’s turf just looks bad, making the game hard to watch regardless of uniforms.
I have never liked the Cowboys throwbacks. I like the Giants road uniform but believe they should wear gray pants. I can’t help but wonder why the don’t try blue pants. Just a little too much red.
Packers and Dolphins were perfect, especially with snow flurries. I do wish all of the Dolphins would have worn aqua/green socks rather than white leggings!
The endzones at Ford Field have just always seemed drab. Not enough contrast.
GTGFTS: July 1, 1990, Comiskey Park, Chicago. Andy Hawkins threw a no-hitter but lost 4-0 to the White Sox; it wasn’t an “official” no-hitter because he didn’t pitch the ninth.
GTGFTU: November 13, 1983, Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego; Chargers 24, Cowboys 23.
Got the GTGFTU guess correct, GZ!
Cowboys/Chargers 11/13/83. As we kick off the Christmas shopping season, I’m reminded about how ‘Santa’/my dad would gift me Sears Wish Book ‘Boys jerseys…but always the home white (I got a Staubach, and I think 2 or maybe 3 #11s IIRC). Looking back, I wish I had received a bad-a…err, bad luck blue like Danny White’s! PS-I’m a sucker for hip numbers.
Dallas lost that game but it’s still a nice photo.
It’s a shame that the Cowboys wear white so often. Don’t get me wrong, I like that they have their white-at-home quirk, but both the throwbacks worn yesterday and the GTGFTU looks are so good and fairly unique in the NFL.
Can’t argue with the analysis here today. I hope all of our southernly neighbo
urs had a great Thanksgiving yesterday!It has probably been discussed here previously, but as much as I love the Dolphins throwbacks, the orange trim on the TV numbers looks too thick and really sloppy in some cases (zeroes and eights for example). Almost like they just threw down a big orange splotch and then put a white number over it. It may even be historically accurate, but it bothered me all game.
EP – Agree with your assessment on the orange trim for the TV numbers on the Dolphins throwbacks. Also dislike the size of the surnames on the back of the jersey. They were not that large with the originals.
Came here to say exactly this.
Maybe this has been posted elsewhere.
Does anyone know why the Michigan State Basketball team is wearing a “JF” patch on the right side (players) of their jersey this season?
I haven’t heard anything mentioned in a game, and can’t find anything online.
The patch is exactly similar to the patch they wore in the 2022-23 season (5-24) for Adrien Payne (5) and Stan Washington (24) who both passed away in 2022.
Yet, I don’t know of anyone with the initials JF and affiliated with the program passing away recently.
Definitely looks like a memorial band, but could it be in support of Jeremy Fears’ recovery from a shooting last December?
Former Board of Trustee member Joel Ferguson who passed away recently.
Thank you.
That Madden Cruiser video was nice, but I’m scratching my head wondering why they opened with a shot of Columbus, which is 140 miles from Canton. If they just needed a skyline, Cleveland is right there and a lot closer to the Hall of Fame.
Would have been tasty with Lions in grey pants and Bears in orange jersey’s. Cowboys were great. Much better than what they usually wear at home. TIme to fix the aqua grey pants to match the helmet. Dolphins should always wear aqua socks with white pants, throwback or not.
Not a “uni stunner” for me. As bad as the Giants look on the road, I’ll still take them over anything the Chiefs wear. The helmet is a de facto logo for every team. The fact that the Chiefs helmet doesn’t have all of the team colors is enough for my condemnation. The arrowhead is a bonus black eye. This was all something I was thinking about prior to my hometown adopting them… and I’ll never understand why it did. I am very much looking forward to them coming back to earth… and that ain’t happening anytime soon.
I do like “the Chop”, however.
Psych.
I guess I’ve made my peace with Detroit’s monophilia. I still prefer their plain-Jane throwbacks to all of their current options, but they’ve developed a signature look, so I’ll allow it.
It’s strange to say it, as much as I advocate for stripes, but I really don’t like Detroit’s new double-stripe, and I think I’d actually prefer a plain stripeless helmet and sleeves when paired with the monoberries. Maybe just Bubbles on the helmet. Chrome hats never seem to work all that well, but I’d like to see a blue-heavy Lions look with a shiny chrome helmet.
The Madden patch looks like bad penny.
Just as a note: this is conflating two things with the Madden coin.
(1) Probably as far back as the late 1980s, at Thanksgiving games, Madden would declare certain players’ performances worthy of a receiving a turkey leg. One year, though I don’t recall the specifics, there were a large number of “winners”, possibly the D-line or O-line of one of the teams recognized as a group. The next year, they began having a studio/booth turkey with four extra turkey legs attached, for award purposes. That six-legged turkey is what’s portrayed on the coin.
(2) Sone time after that, Madden started using/ promoting the “turducken”, where a deboned chicken is put inside a deboned duck inside a mostly deboned turkey, often with additional stuffing layers. I didn’t watch as many of those broadcasts, or at least not as closely, but a “turducken” presentation would not have the duck and chicken legs exposed and visible. If there were six-legged birds during the turducken era, I believe they were like the previous six-legged turkeys, built by attaching four additional turkey legs to something that started out looking like a normal bird.
(I am 100% sure that I watched both the game where he decided to award lots of legs without regard for the number of legs actually on the turkey and the following year’s game where the six-legged turkey was first revealed.)
Thanks for the info, Dave!
I’m pretty sure not only did the NFL itself refer to “turducken” regarding the coin, I believe at least one if not more of the broadcast announcers did so as well.
I know the WWL called it a “six legged turducken” link
And the NFL did so in a tweet link
Friends, there was 1 other time that I vividly remember that the Detroit Lions wore white jerseys at home. It was way back on Thanksgiving day in 1970 when they were playing the Oakland Raiders at Tiger Stadium. That year, Oakland wore silver numbers with black trim on their white road jerseys which was kind of hard to see on TV. You see, back in those days, most of the country owned black and white televisions and NBC which was broadcasting the game, felt that since it was a Thanksgiving day game viewed by the entire country that the Raiders should wear their black jerseys that had silver numbers and the Lions should wear their white jerseys that had blue numbers with silver trim. Even though NBC was broadcasting the game in color they felt that the numbers on these uniforms were clearly more distinguishable on a black and white television. Both teams complied. The Lions won that game 28-14. Having been born and raised in Detroit, I remember it like it was yesterday.