Reader George Noriega has embarked on a minor redesign for all NFL teams’ current uniforms. When George reached out to me earlier, he proposed “a weekly submission of tweaks to various teams that IMO (and also based on reader feedback) would address a lot of the comments and criticisms we see every week on Monday Morning Uni Watch.” He isn’t looking to change much, but feels his tweaks would enhance the overall look for each team.
Some of George’s tweaks have already run as parts of larger lede articles (including two of today’s, but in order to keep the divisions together, they’ll also be seen here). I’ll be running George’s tweaks by Division over the next couple weeks. If you missed his AFC West concepts, click here.
Today we’ll look at his proposals for the NFC North Division. Here’s George — enjoy!
NFC North Tweaks
by George Noriega
Just a quick rundown of the concept and an example of what I would be looking to do:
- (1) For all teams, tweaks would be based off their current templates, so I’m not looking to do complete overhauls i.e. Cardinals, Commanders and Rams would keep their current templates
- (2) Mono uniforms are OK i.e. Pats all-blue, Jets all-green, Saints all-black, etc., but also…
- (3) No leotard/yoga pants look, regardless of whether pant stripes break the look up
- (4) No plain white socks; socks are either contrasting color to the pants or striped
Chicago Bears
Home: Navy/navy/white/navy socks with orange & white stripes
Away: Navy/white/navy/white socks with navy-orange-navy stripes
Alt. 1: Orange/orange/white/orange socks with navy & white stripes
Alt. 2: Navy/white/white/navy socks with orange & white stripes
Alt. 3: Navy/white/white/white socks with navy-orange-navy stripes
Alt. 4: Navy/navy/navy/white socks with navy-orange-navy stripes
Throwback: Circa 1936 Navy/white/navy/orange and blue striped socks
Notes: No major changes to the Bears… the all whites with Navy socks are included as a nod to the Walter Payton era road uniform, which stopped being used after the preseason in 1984 and has only been worn three times in the nearly 41 years since, all in 2000.
Detroit Lions
Home: Silver/Honolulu blue/silver/Honolulu blue
Away: Silver/white/silver/Honolulu blue
Alt. 1: Silver/Honolulu blue/white/Honolulu blue
Alt. 2: Silver/white/white’Honolulu blue
Alt. 3: Silver/Honolulu blue/Honolulu blue/SIlver
Alt. 4: Silver/white/Honolulu blue/silver
Throwback: Silver/Honolulu blue/silver/Honolulu Blue AKA The Thanksgiving Day uni
Color Rush: Blue/black/black/black
Notes: The Lions wearing Monolulu Blue and Mono White neck-to-toe are a thing of the past… Striping has been added to the white pants, blue pants and black pants to visually match the silver pants… the silver/white/blue/silver combo is not new; it was actually the default Away uniform in 1998.
Green Bay Packers
Home: Yellow/green/yellow/green socks with stripes
Away: Yellow/white/yellow/green socks with stripes
Throwback: Circa 1937 look with period-accurate striping on socks
Notes: Eliminated is the all-white Color Rush/White-Out/Snow-Out/Ice-Out/whatever-ridiculous-marketing-name-Nike-comes-up-with-next iteration because Green Bay only ever needs a HOME and AWAY uniform. Period, end of story.
Minnesota Vikings
Home: Purple/purple/white/purple
Away: Purple/white/white/purple
Alt. 1: Purple/purple/purple/white socks with thin/thick/thin purple stripes AKA Purple People Eaters Uni
Alt. 2: Purple/white/purple/white socks with thin/thick/thin purple stripes
Throwback: circa early ’60’s era
Notes: The throwback uni would have a period-accurate dark purple helmet (if the Giants can do it, Multi-billionaire Zygi Wilf can drop the extra bucks needed to outfit the team in the correct helmets too)… period-accurate purple socks with three yellow stripes on the throwbacks.
Thanks, George!
Surprised you didn’t eliminate the sails on the first digit in the Vikes jerseys.
Agreed, that one tweak would do a lot for that set.
If I played on the Vikings I would go to a single digit number!
I like the sails. It’s okay to be different
This is the biggest tweak to be made
Stripes on the Lions pants make them so much better!!!!!!!!!!! Still don’t understand the black facemasks on the Vikings helmets. I would love to see them with yellow facemasks.
The logo has black edging; perhaps that’s why the facemask is black. A yellow facemask would look….nasty, considering how little yellow is in the uniform. If you were going to change the facemask from black, I’d go with purple, or even white, before yellow.
The NFL rules say you can’t introduce a new team color to a uniform apparently. So the reason the Vikings were able to get away with the silver elements on their Winter Warrior Uniforms this season was because their original helment facemasks were grey making grey officially a team color. I thought that was a crazy loophole they found! (hope this doesn’t mean black is one of their team colors now with the facemask change)
LMAO! Now that IS a crazy loophole if it is true!
Couldnt agree more about the Lions pants stripes. IMO no pro team should have pants without stripes, it would also make the yoga pant look they all insist on a LITTLE bit better.
The Bears current away uniforms really ought to be their alt road look…white over white with the ‘Chicago’ striped socks should be the standard. And maybe it’s time to revive the white wishbone C once and a while.
And if the Lions insist on having/wearing blue pants, pairing gray socks with them is a terrific option!
Nice going, George!
Nah, I never liked the mono white look for the Bears, they’ve been white on navy pants by default since 1984, it should stay that way. I like the fact that the Bears don’t change it up like other teams do outside of the orange jerseys and throwback looks.
I’m surprised you ditched the mono sets for Detroit but kept that all-black alt. Less is more IMO, and in reducing the number of options for the Lions, that set would’ve been the first to go. Especially that horrendous alt helmet.
Minnesota should wear purple/yellow striped socks more often. And, as with every redesign, I would get rid of the alt helmet.
I wouldn’t mind seeing the Bears go white over white with navy socks once in a while. Sort of like how KC does it. Save it for a special occasion. I know it’s been a long time since Chicago has done this.
Would like to see the orange and white reversed on Bears helmet logo.
Why stick with the black face mask on the Vikes?
I know it’s period accurate but I think actually having the purples match on the throwback was the correct decision. If they’d been able to better color match between materials in the past they would have had the helmets matching the jerseys. They Giants throwbacks are awful to me for that exact reason.
Surprised you kept the black facemask
Lions unis have been a downgrade over previous set
The answer to “why did you keep this uni element?” and “why didn’t you change this thing?” is twofold:
(1) It never occurred to me
(2) It didn’t bother me as it currently is
How we view uniforms aesthetically differs from person to person; certainly I haven’t been above looking at someone else’s redesigns and wonder, “why did they change THAT?” and “why didn’t they change THIS?” And the answer is probably the same as mine.
ALTHOUGH… seeing some of the feedback has given me new ideas on what to touch up, so maybe I’ll compile all of those and incorporate those suggestions to see what it looks like.
I would love for the Bears to go back to Navy/White/White/Navy on the road. Much more streamlined.
What if the Bears just dropped the “C” altogether and went with an all Navy helmet?
Thank you for striping Green Bay’s socks.
That’s the only thing that uniform needs.
Boy I miss those white over white Chicago jerseys. Too young for Payton but the white over white gives me Urlacher nostalgia.
Yes, they wore white over white a number of times during Urlacher’s run, but it was always paired with white striped socks:
link
Prior to that, they wore the white over white with the home navy socks:
link
link
Personally I prefer the look with the navy socks.
Thank you for putting stripes on all of the pants.
My least favorite thing about the lions uniforms is the “detroit” wordmark on the white jerseys. I think it’s unnecessary and the set would look much better without it.
The Lions just shouldn’t have white pants at all, they need to be tossed. It’s the most annoying thing about the Lions uniforms is seeing them fade the silver pants so much. All silver pants teams should not have a white pants option as silver is light enough.