The penultimate weekend for the NFL’s regular season will feature a number of good looking matchups, highlighted by the Eagles wearing their kelly green throwback uniforms against the Dallas Cowboys. As you’ll see, there isn’t even a standout game here that should even sniff the And One (although the Christmas and TNF games will probably have that covered). Other than the Eagles throwbacks, there aren’t any teams wearing alternates of any kind, although Monday Night Football will have the 49ers in their 1955/1994 fauxback/throwback. But it’s pretty much all “regular” uniforms this weekend, and that’s a good thing!
Who’ll challenge for the Top 5 and who’ll need to go back to the uni-drawing board? Let’s look at the contenders below.
This post will be updated as teams who have not announced full combos do so.
Saturday Games:
We have three games this Saturday, with the Chargers and Patriots kicking off the festivities. This should be a decent-good looking game, with the Pats back in their silver pants for the eighth game this season — those pants look especially good when paired with the Pats’ navy tops. And of course the Chargers always look good, going with gold pants on the road.
As is their wont, the Broncos won’t be unveiling their pants and socks until (most likely) tomorrow, but we know they’ll be in blue helmets and white jerseys. It’s probably likely the Broncos won’t wear their orange pants (as the Bengals primary colors are orange and black), but you never know. I’d love to see orange pants with blue socks — but the white or blue pants will work just as well, so long as they wear color-contrasting socks. The Bengals will be in what we can probably consider their “primary” look of orange/black/white/orange. [Note: The Broncos always throw up a “fake” combo a day or so before the game for some reason, but their pants/socks are always different. Here’s what they posted Friday, which in almost all likelihood means their Sunday pants/socks will differ.]
UPDATE: The Broncos will wear white pants and blue socks.
The final game tomorrow is between the Rams and Cardinals, and with the uniform choices shown, it should be a pretty good matchup. The Cards’ best uniform is their all-white roads, and LA’s best home uniform is royal over sol, and that’s the pairing for tomorrow evening. It might even contend for a Top 5!
Sunday Early Games
Like the Broncos, the Panthers don’t normally announce their pants and hose until shortly before the game, and the team have paired their silver helmets/white jerseys with white, blue and black pants this season. They could still wear blue pants/black socks or black pants with blue socks to create another new combo. The Buccaneers will counter with their red jerseys and pewter pants for the third time in the past four weeks (after going the first 13 weeks without ever wearing that combo). Depending on Carolina’s lower half stylings, this may be a top fiver.
UPDATE: The Panthers will wear white pants and blue socks.
The Eagles won’t be donning white at home to force the Cowboys into their “bad luck blues,” and that’s a good thing, because the Eagles will be wearing their luscious kelly green throwbacks! Dallas will instead be in their regular primary uniforms, so this should be a very good looking game. Pretty much a T-5 lock!
Sunday’s game between the G-men and Colts should look pretty much as it does above (game played 1/1/23), with one definite exception: the Giants are wearing a 100th Anniversary patch on their jerseys this season. And the Colts have been wearing white hosiery with the white jerseys for all but one game of the season, so it’s probable they’ll be in mono-white for this game as well.
Technically, neither team has unveiled its uniforms (including jerseys) for this game, but I’m fully expecting it to look like the above photo, from the waist up. In fact, I’d be further willing to bet the Saints go mono-black to the Raiders’ silver/white/silver-gray. It would be fantastic if the Saints bust out their gold pants, but I’m not holding my breath.
UPDATE #1: The Raiders will be in silver pants and black socks.
UPDATE #2: The Saints will be in mono-black.
As of this writing, Jets owner Woody Johnson still hasn’t tweeted the Jets’ combo, so what you see above is subject to change. Buffalo will definitely be in white/blue/white/blue (their absolute best look). Unless the Jets decide to wear same color pants/socks, this will be a great looking game, and an easy T-5 contender.
UPDATE: The Jets will indeed be in green pants and white socks.
It’ll be a bit of a color palette special for Sunday’s tilt between the Jags and Titans, with the Titans wearing navy/white/powder/white, and the Jaguars countering with black/teal/white/black. While I like colors like powder blue and teal individually, they don’t always play well together, but I’ll wait to see this matchup before I dismiss the combos. With so many other good looking games already on the docket, this probably won’t sniff the T-5, but it won’t be in the running for the dreaded And One either.
Sunday Late Games
This matchup is good — the Dolphins are in mono-white, with the Browns in their standard orange/brown/white — but it could be even better if the Browns would wear orange pants (and the Dolphins wear aqua socks). But that’s not in the cards so it’ll be tough for this game to crack the Top Five.
The Packers will be in their standard gold/white/gold/green — a gorgeous combo — for their big NFC North showdown in Minnesota against the Vikings, who’ll be in purple/purple/white/white. My only complaint here is the Vikes wearing white hose, instead of purple, but it should still be a pretty sweet matchup. And with the Packers at 11-4 and the Vikings at 13-2, both teams have already punched their tickets to the post-season, and will be fighting for seeding as well as the NFC North title. The NFC North will have three teams (Pack, Vikes and Lions) not just in the post season, but it’s possible all three teams will have the best records in the NFC — but only one of them will get a bye and #1 seed, while the other two will have to fight it out on Wild Card weekend.
Sunday Night Football
As of this writing, the Commanders still have not unveiled their pants, but I’m expecting them to wear gold pants and burgundy socks. The Falcons will counter by going black/white/black/white — not a terrible combo, but not a great one either. With so many good looking games on the docket, this will probably not be in contention for the Top 5, but it’ll be a nice SNF game, uni-wise, if the Commanders wear gold trou. I’m not sure how many of us expected a Falcons/Commanders game to be flexed into Sunday night when the season began, but here we are, with the Commanders holding the 7-seed and the Falcons currently in the 4-spot, as they lead the NFC south in the standings. Good on both teams for nice runs this year!
UPDATE: The Commanders will be in mono-burgundy.
And there you have it — the matchups, as currently known, for Sunday’s games. Obviously I’ll update this once the teams who have not declared their sartorial choices have done so.
Monday Night’s game will have the 49ers in throwbacks, and I fully expect the Lions to stick with their all-white road uniforms (in which they are currently undefeated this season).
Keep checking back for updates!
Historic uni moment last night as the Seattle Seahawks wore blue pants in Chicago for first time in franchise history
Pretty cool factoid there. How did you notice that? I couldn’t honestly say which color combination the Chargers wore today and I watched every minutes of it.
Will the Eagles have any kind of memorial patch for Bill Bergey, who passed away this week and is a BIG deal in team history?
Haven’t seen anything announced (yet). But as of now, nothing.
Thanks, Phil. Bergey is an Eagles’ HOFer, so I really hope they wear a patch or something for him.
Great guy. He came to my uncle’s funeral when he passed in 2020…
Surely the Eagles will do something to memorialize him …not sure it will be uni-related, but it should be.
I don’t have any recollections of Bergey, outside of his placement as the 8th day of Christmas in that old Eagles Super Bowl song:
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Type O Negative: referred to jaguars as panthers. “Jags and Titans, with the Titans wearing navy/white/powder/white, and the PANTHERS countering with black/teal/white/black.
Gah!
Good catch — now fixed.
Thanks
I would love to see the NFL promote a “turn back the clock” weekend or a “Throwback” weekend that would highlight great teams and players of the past all on one giant glorious NFL weekend. Throwback uniforms for teams and referee crews, throwback TV graphics, announcers in classic sportscoats, all the things that all of us who follow Uni-Watch would love to see.
They did that 30 years ago.
And on a lesser scale 15 years ago.
They used to do that on Thanksgiving which I miss.
At what point do we count the non-tucked in undershirt as a Uni Element.
As an example, In the picture of the Panthers, above, I’d call their look Silver/White/Bule/White/Blue
Wish the Dolphins would wear teal socks with the all white as well as blue socks for Colts. Titans should adopt a Columbia Blue helmet although it would look UNCish. That’s my favorite Bengals combo and I wish they would wear the orange socks with the white jersey and white pants as well for a game or two. Any news on any nfl teams possibly changing uniforms next year?
The Packers can’t win the NFC North in any scenario (even winning out). The Packers, Lions, and Vikings can’t all finish with the same record either.
There is no scenario where the Packers can be any higher than the 5 seed or finish with the best record in the conference after any tie breakers.
The Niners uni combo tomorrow will be interesting. I have my own NFL uni tracking system that I’ve painstakingly developed over the past few years, and one of two possibilities are fulfilled, SF hit the alternate uni limit in week 8.
Originally, SF announced threat they’d wear their red throwbacks weeks 8 and 17, along with the CR/white throwbacks week 6.
But SF did a late-swap of their standard home uni to the red throwback for week 5 at home against AZ, which I believe was due the temperature in SF that day. They then wore throwbacks as planned weeks 6 and 8.
Now, there is one more consideration at play. As part of the CR program (officially discontinued in 2018), teams were allowed to wear 3 alternate looks plus 1 CR. An albeit cursory review of my records indicates that few teams have taken advantage of that nuance, but the Ravens did so most recently in the 2022-23 season, wearing the black unis thrice and their mono-purple color rush once.Additionally, in 2021-22, the NFL allowed SF to wear their throwbacks 6 times (4 red, 2 white, only 1 in the mono-white CR look).
As both instances occurred well after CR’s official discontinuation and I have no knowledge of any revocation of the 3+1 CR rule, I’m left to conclude that it’s still a possibility. Of course, not many teams still have official CR unis, but SF indeed does, which they wore in week 6 at Seattle.
So perhaps the Niners received an exception from the NFL for this week, or maybe they’re invoking the 3+1 CR rule, to extent it’s still invocable.
But if neither of those propositions are true, then SF will likely be wearing their standard home unis tomorrow.
Edit: Monday’s game, not tomorrow. Was typing on my phone while holding my teething 8-month-old.
We wondered about this on the boards when the team tried to wear their white fauxbacks (and as you note, the Niners did request to wear the white throwbacks for a very hot game in SF, but since they had already declared they would be wearing dark jerseys, the NFL wouldn’t let them as the request came well after the deadline). Now the GUD has them back in their regular uniforms, so I guess the NFL also made them count the red throwback as an alt. And that’s fine, because their current uniforms are far superior to the 55/94 fauxbacks.
Phil did you comment on the Charger’s Thurs. Night game against the Broncos and I missed it?
I covered it as a part of Monday’s MMUW
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Getting really tired of this white socks + white pants nonsense