Good morning, Uni Watchers. It’s Friday — we made it!
If you have been reading Uni Watch the past week, you’ll know that our own Anthony Emerson has been spearheading a new, year-end feature we’re calling “The Uni Awards,” for the 2024 season. If you missed it, the original post is here. Very briefly, for 2024 there are three categories, both of which will feature “best” and “worst” nominees: Best and Worst New Primary Uniform, Best and Worst New Alternate, Throwback, or One-off Uniform, and Best and Worst New Logo. All the nominees for each category have been submitted. Yesterday, we opened voting for Best and Worst New Primary Uniform.
Today we’ll be voting on Best and Worst New Alternate, Throwback, or One-off Uniform, and on Monday, we’ll conclude our voting for Best and Worst New Logo. On New Year’s Eve, we’ll announce the winners. Voting is still open for yesterday’s category (and will remain open for approximately 24 more hours). Voting for today’s category will be open for about 48 hours.
And now, let me turn the rest of this over to Anthony, and I’ll catch you after the lede! Here’s Anthony.
by Anthony Emerson
The nominees are…
Best Alternate/Throwback Uni
Oregon yellow/green/yellow
It’s hard for a team like Oregon, which doesn’t really have a “primary” set. If they ever get away from Nike’s clutches, their primary set should look like this.
Milwaukee Admirals red fauxback
The Admirals went in a completely different direction from their primary identity for this fauxback, and they knocked it out of the park. I could honestly see that logo becoming a primary mark for them.
New York Jets “Classic”
Sort of the synthesis between the Namath-era look and the 1998-2018 look, the Jets “Classic” uniform is one of the best looks in the league. And I’m saying that as a Pats fan!
AC Milan 125th anniversary
Milan are one of the most historic and best-looking clubs in all of Europe, and their 125th anniversary throwback, worn earlier this season against Genoa, is incredible. The crest reads “Milan Football and Cricket Club,” in English, as the club was originally founded by an English expat. This is why the club is known as “Milan” even in Italian, rather than “Milano.”
New York Giants 100th anniversary
This got a couple of nominations, even though it would go on the other list for me. Still, I’ve spoken to Giants fans about this, and a lot of them dig it.
Iowa Wild “Iowa Grown” alternates
I love the “Mustang Goldfinch” shoulder patch, a nice nod to the Iowa state bird, but the star here is the Iowa-centric take on the Wild’s logo.
Cleveland Guardians City Connect
The City Connect program has often been a punching bag for Uni Watch, but the Guardians show what’s really possible with it.
Baltimore Ravens “purple rising”
Well, we know which uni will not be getting our esteemed founder’s vote. The “Purple Rising” unis are, however, very popular among the Ravens faithful.
Chicago Blackhawks Winter Classic
This uni will just get in under the wire for 2024, as this year’s Winter Classic will be played on New Year’s Eve rather than New Year’s Day. The sleeve patches are my favorite element.
Nashville Sounds “Nashville Brewskis” alternate identity
Can you guess which MLB team the Sounds are affiliated with? The Sounds created this identity as a nod to their parent club.
Worst Alternate /Throwback Uni
Boston Celtics 2024/25 City Edition
I don’t think there’s been a more obvious sign that the NBA and Nike have run out of ideas for City Edition unis than the Celtics’ 24-25 City Edition. Looks slapped together overnight. Jaylen Brown’s face in this promotional image was my reaction when these leaked.
Detroit Lions black alternate
The Lions’ new uni set is incredible, with the exception of this BFBS monstrosity. The helmet is the cherry on top of the shit sundae.
Philadelphia Phillies City Connect
The colors for the Phillies’ City Connect are allegedly inspired by the Philadelphia city flag, but a Phillies uni without red seems a little sacrilegious, no?
Iowa State “Stormtrooper”
At first glance, these look like Penn State rejects. You’d never know Iowa State’s colors are cardinal and gold.
New York Jets “legacy black”
What is it with NFL teams this year adopting great primary unis but ruining them with BFBS nonsense?
Green Bay Packers “icy white”
There are certain teams that really shouldn’t follow major uni trends, like “icy white” or “whiteout” unis. The Green Bay Packers are one of them.
Houston Texans “battle red”
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that the Texans kept their bloodclot look even after their redesign, but I’m still shocked that this helmet made it off the drawing board and actually onto the field.
Houston Texans “H-Town”
This uniform would’ve been a lot better with powder blue as the primary color, rather than a really dark navy. Part of me thinks that the NFL stepped in on behalf of the Titans to stop that.
Chicago Bulls 2024/25 City Edition
This is one of those unis that I would love if it were for some other team, rather than the team that’s ended up wearing it. The Bulls should not be wearing gold and grey.
Detroit Tigers City Connect
Nothing says “Motor City” like a design reminiscent of being run over.
GTGFTU: Chicago ASG at Soldier Field, July 28, 1972. Dallas 20, College All Stars 7.
I used to love that game when I was a kid.
First football game I remember seeing. I was confused by the stars on the helmets and didn’t know which team was which.
As much as I wanted to vote down both of the Detroit BFBS unis, I just had to go with the Texans for two of my votes. The “H-Town Blues” unis are as brutal as they played on Christmas, and I found these “Battle Red” unis to be unwatchable, as the red chromed helmets were way too distracting. I went to bed, put on the radio, and listened to the second half while imagining Houston in their previous, not great but perfectly fine, navy blue uniforms over white pants while having the Lions in their silver pants and blue socks.
(Speaking of, it would be really nice if the Lions did opt to break out the silver pants on Monday night, considering the 49ers are wearing their 1955/1994 throwbacks with their white pants, especially since it’ll be my birthday… but I’m not getting my hopes up.)
Best- Jets Throwback but there’s a lot of good stuff on there. The new Uni set has been arguably the only good thing about this season
Worst- This is easy. It’s the Tigers. Looks bad with a bunch of terrible design choices. But what separates it from say Philly or the H-Town options is that fact that Nike ripped off the the entire concept from the their Pistons’s 18/19, 19/20 City edition unis. Same motor city, same tire tread pattern. There’s a few differences but it’s way too close. And it’s recent. It’s like if the next Celtics city edition was suddenly in Blue and Yellow with a Stencil design. Just lazy and bad.
Green bay could have ended up on the other side of this list if they simply would have striped their helmet properly.
Agreed
It’s literally the one missing piece from making that uni PERFECT
Hear, hear
Best – Oregon’s throwback. The Jets were a close 2nd. Just wish they hadn’t put Williams on there with the untucked shirt. I’ll be glad when that trend dies.
Worst – Detroit’s black uniforms. Why, just why? Jets came in a close 2nd with their solid black unis. I just don’t get it??????
Hoping the Giants can pull an upset win…going to be tough going up against the Namath Jets and Guardians CC though.
Giving the Texans 2 entries (which they 100% deserve!) may split the vote and allow for another team to be named worst of the worst … I didn’t vote for either, as there is 1 uniform that (while somehow/what popular with the fans)stands below the rest and is so disconnected that it continues to Phil…err, fills my eyes with pain.
Best – Iowa – I love a state outline logo
I wish I could cast a 3rd vote for the Texans…
I realize I am likely in the minority here, but I actually LIKE Green Bay’s Icy Whites; I think they are one of the better WFWS unis (even though they fly in the face of tradition).
I like em a lot if they’d just add a yellow in between the stipes in the helmet or heck just have a plain white helmet with numbers to give an old school look.
Hard to beat Oregon’s beautiful uniforms. The worst was hard to choose as almost all were equally bad. Personally, the NY Giants should be in the worst rather than the best. I tend to watch only NFL, MLB and College football, so it’s hard to know what is good or bad in other sports.
I love the Milwaukee Admirals fauxbacks. I must have missed the ticker about the cream version. One minor quibble, while the logo is very much in the art style of the era, I feel like it’s too well put together? Meaning if it was actually drawn in the 60’s there’d be something on it that would break modern design rules while this does not. Maybe the admiral’s skin tone should not be a team color?
The 1972 college all-star game, I wonder if Tom Landry told the defense to take it easy hitting number 46 Robert Newhouse, since he would be playing with them that season. This was also Duan Thomas’s last game as a Cowboy.
So many choices for the worst! Lions, Jets, Tigers, Phillies…I’m having a hard time choosing. At the very least I’m trying to find something good with each design to narrow them down. I’ll be thinking of this for a while and cast my vote later.
Whoever nominated the Lions for worst alt, i don’t want to be friends.
GTGFTS Is it Evanston Il Sept 26 1982 when my Cats broke their 34 game losing streak against northern Illinois? That weak high school scoreboard lived at Dyche stadium all the way into the 2000s. I saw a lot of ugly scores on that godforsaken thing!
Sorry Kevin, that guess is wrong. (This may have been the most difficult GTGFTS anyone ever sent in)
Oh wow! I’ll keep researching!
Ok so…the best I can come up with is that this probably represents the only lead NU had during an entire season – I would guess against Indiana sept 12 1981.
Based on the Coke ad my best guess is 1976. I cannot find any box scores. The only home results that could have had this score at some point are: Oct 2 27-15 loss to Arizona; Oct 23 28-25 loss to Wisconsin; Nov 6 38-10 loss to Minnesota; and Nov 13, their only win of the season 42-21 over Michigan State although the score makes it seem unlikely that it was ever 3-0. If one of those is not it, I give up.
According to the submitter, it was October 22, 1977
Ok wow oct 22 1977 vs Ohio state. I was thinking 4 years too late!
Glad to know the answer, but disappointed to know there’s not anything more compelling than it was just another butt kicking during the dark days of the 70s-80s.
how does illinois not make the cut?
Exactly
Disagree on both Texans uniforms, I like the monochrome Battle Red and think it’s awesome that we have horns on the helmet. I also really like the H-Town Blue uniforms (though you’re 100% correct about the NFL not letting us use as much H-Town Blue as we wanted, apparently the Titans tried to stop us from using the color at all). The new H logo is really cool as well as the alternate blue, it’s basically an upgraded version of our old Color Rush uniforms and it works well in my opinion. Say what you will about them, but they seem to be pretty popular with Texans fans.
Voted for my Packers, only because they missed badly by not having the yellow stripe
Lions black alts are fantastic and I will not stand for this slander.
You post it on a Friday then turn off responses by the following Monday lol
Yes. There was 48 hours of voting. The site is open on weekends too.
There really isn’t enough uni content to justify coming here every day — it’s a check out once or twice a week kinda site ever since Paul switched the formatting to have new posts for each story.
You should probably have kept voting and nominations open for a week or longer especially around the holidays, but whatevs the whole thing is basically just a cj for throwbacks anyway