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George Noriega Tweaks the NFL (AFC East Edition)

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 any past tweaks, click the following:

AFC West
NFC North
NFC West

Today we’ll look at his proposals for the AFC East Division. Here’s George — enjoy!

• • • • •

AFC East 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

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Buffalo Bills

Home: White/blue/white/blue socks with stripes
Away: White/white/white/white socks with 3 blue/red stripes
Alt. 1: White/blue/blue/white socks with 3 blue/red stripes
Alt. 2: White/white/blue/white socks with 3 blue/red stripes
Alt. 3: White/red/white/red socks with stripes
Color Rush: Red/red/red/red

Notes: When the Bills redesigned their uniforms in 2011, they had a separate pair of socks that paired with their blue jerseys and their white jerseys (see below)…they wore the correct white striped socks 5 times, twice in the preseason and 3 times in the regular season, and then after Week 6, the Bills paired the blue striped socks with their away uniforms and have never used the white striped socks again… for this redesign, we use the blue socks and white socks as they were intended, and also match the white striped socks with the blue pants to avoid the dreaded leotard/yoga pants look… we also add a pair of red striped socks to the Alt. 3 uniform… and finally, a red helmet to go with the all-red Color Rush uni.

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Miami Dolphins

Home: White/aqua/white/aqua
Away: White/white/aqua/white 3-striped socks, aqua-orange-aqua
Alt. 1: White/aqua/aqua/white 3-striped socks, aqua-orange-aqua
Alt. 2: White/white/white/aqua
Throwback 1: White/aqua/white/aqua striped socks
Throwback 2: White/white/white/aqua striped socks

Notes: A team that has ENTIRELY too much white in its current set, so the redesign adds pops of aqua to the uniform… harkening back to the Dan Marino era, the helmets get aqua facemasks, while the white jerseys get aqua sleeve ends and white striped socks are matched with the aqua pants… IMO, these tweaks help make the set into a pretty good modern update for the Fins, and while their throwbacks remain the gold standard in their current rotation, tweaks that make them look closer to the Marino-era helps their current set immensely… this of course begs the question: why not just go back to the Marino unis?”

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New England Patriots

Version 1:

Home: Silver/navy/silver/navy
Away: Silver/white/navy/white socks with 3 navy stripes
Alt. 1: Silver/navy/navy/white socks with 3 navy stripes
Alt. 2: Silver/white/silver/navy
Throwback: White/red/white/white socks with red-blue-red stripes AKA The Pat Patriot unis

Notes: If some of these look familiar, they should; with the striped socks, the away uniform now looks virtually identical to the Brady-era away unis, while the Navy mono look with striped socks WAS used during the Brady-era albeit only twice, both times in 2002, back-to-back losses against the Packers and Broncos, at which point they were shelved and the mono navy look didn’t make a re-appearance until 2016… with more traditional uni elements like UCLA stripes, triple stripes on the pants, and now white striped socks with dark pants, these unis arguably look better than the Brady-era uniforms.

= = = = =

Version 2:

Home: Silver/navy/silver/red
Away: Silver/white/navy/red
Alt. 1: Silver/navy/navy/red
Alt. 2: Silver/white/silver/red
Throwback: White/red/white/red AKA The Pat Patriot unis

Notes: A second set of concepts for the Patriots, where they are now a red-socked team… Not sure how receptive Robert Kraft would be to the Away and Alt. 1 unis, as they look similar to the horrible 2002-2010 unis that division rivals the Buffalo Bills once wore…I’m not too crazy about this look, but what say you, Uni Watch readership?

= = = = =

Version 3:

Home: Silver/navy/silver/white socks with red-navy-red stripes
Away: Silver/white/navy/white socks with red-navy-red stripes
Alt. 1: Silver/navy/navy/white socks with red-navy-red stripes
Alt. 2: Silver/white/silver/white socks with red-navy-red stripes
Throwback: White/red/white/white socks with red-blue-red stripes AKA The Pat Patriot unis

Notes: A third concept set for the Patriots, where all their socks are striped… I think this set works really well, and it has an old-school feel, throwing it back to the 60’s and 70’s when teams almost always used striped socks with all their uniform sets… I think I slightly prefer Set #1 to this one, but this one REALLY has its merits and is growing on me more and more.

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New York Jets

Home: Green/green/white/green
Away: Green/white/white/green
Alt. 1: Green/green/green/ white socks with 2 green stripes AKA The Gang Greens
Alt. 2: Green/white/green/white socks with 2 green stripes
Throwback: White/white/white/green striped socks AKA The Joe Namaths
Color Rush: Black/black/black/black

Notes: The Jets have 2 classic looks throughout their history, and both are represented here… if Alt. 2 looks familiar, it’s because the Jets wore something similar from 1990-1996… period accurate striped socks for the throwback uniforms.

 
  
 
Comments (27)

    Any striped socks look better than no stripes. The all red of the Bills is too much red. They’d look too much like the Texans new ugly red set. Red helmet with blue jersey/white pants would be a winner.

    I mocked a set of home and aways with red helmets and it definitely gives off a Marv Levy era vibe.

    If Phil gives me the OK, I might share some of those concepts that didn’t make the cut in the future.

    Good going again, George!
    The red sock option for the Pats is a great idea.
    Boy, if Jersey B is keeping the stealth look, I wish they’d change the helmet logo color from green to white.

    As a Pats fan I’d say option 3 is the least offensive, but I’m really hoping we’re getting a redesign that removes those awful truncated stripes on the shoulders. Just ditch the arm stripes altogether if you can’t produce them with the jersey templates.

    I like the throwback striping on the socks in option 3, and I’d like to see that striping pattern used consistently on the pants and helmet as well. Having the striping on the pants and helmet would make it easier to ditch them on the jerseys.

    I’ll say this until I’m blue in the face: The mono black Jets look doesn’t work. If it was paired with green pants, it could work. It’s the same as the Lions black alt, which looks amazing with their blue pants (although we’ve never seen it on the field), but completely pedestrian with black pants. And as long as we’re tweaking, I hate that the Jets have green/white on their decal for the black helmet instead of white/green to match the numbers.

    Overall, though, I like what you did!

    Agree re: Jets’ BFBS; if they have to have it at all, it could be improved in these respects. But I think that the green pants would have to have black stripes, or perhaps a black-trimmed white stripe (like the 1990-96 road pants); the two-color white-striped green pants would look mismatched with the three-color BFBS jerseys.

    Most of the Color Rush/White Out uniforms I really didn’t bother making any changes to because, like most readers here, I didn’t much care for them and so the team could keep them as they are.

    Checking out different teams social media pages offers a glimpse into the mindset of the franchises’ fans, and surprisingly enough lot of them seem to like the Color Rush unis, not as replacements but as occasional one-offs (the Jets kind of surprised me with how many fans actually raved about the all-black set).

    It’s all in good fun.

    I’m part of the chorus that the Dolphins make the Throwbacks full time. To me the current throwbacks are more than fine. I think of the “Marino-era” as having drop-shadow numbers, which I am no fan of, just my opinion.

    When the Dolphins redesigned their unis in 1997 they went with the more cartoonish dolphin mascot and the drop shadows on the numbers.

    But the set right before that, from 1994-1996, I thought was the best look they had. That’s the Marino set I liked the most:

    link

    link

    link

    As a Miami fan, the biggest issue to me with their current set isn’t that there is too much white (which there is), but that the helmet and pants striping are mainly aqua with very little orange. Up until the Nike-era redesign, all of their helmet and pants striping had orange in the middle, which really made everything pop in a way that doesn’t anymore.

    Agreed that those 1994-1996 uniforms were Peak Dolphins. I do prefer the 1966 logo where the dolphin looks like it’s jumping through the ring however.

    As for the redesign, the striped socks do add quite a lot to the new look. Nice work George!

    Also, I second what Frankie said – the new uniforms need more orange.

    I kept the Color Rush options for most teams. Yup, breaks Rule 4 but there are some fans (not really here at Uni Watch) who, if team social media accounts are to be believed, actually like the Color Rush/White Out/special occasion uniforms.

    I may be the only one who actually likes the current Dolphins aqua color better than the past darker, more green or teal, aqua.

    Like the ‘new’ hue, and consider the ‘Phins current set (dan…err, sans) to be one of the better modernizations in the NFL; the throwbacks should be brought out for occasional wear.

    I love the Red “Sox” idea with the Patriots, I wish we would have some stripes on the helmets and go back to the Brady era name and number font and call it a day.

    Love the Dolphins tweaks, I would also suggest they get rid of the tiny “Miami” text on the back of the pants.

    Almost all players nowadays wear their undershirts untucked, I forgot that wordmark was back there.

    Love the Patriots red socks with the gray pants/white jerseys. Really brings out the red in the jersey stripes.

    The Patriots stripe pattern should be red/white/red, just like the flag, on both the white and navy jersey and the grey/silver and navy pants.

    I’m amazed at how something as simple as wearing striped socks can make a huge difference and make every team look much better. And yet, they refuse to do it. The leotard look is so idiotic and I don’t know how anyone thinks it’s a good look.

    The Miami Dolphins 1980’s to mid 1990’s is their best look with the wider pant stripes and before the went to the useless drop shadow. The Jets black helmet would look better in gloss.

    The Bills need to fix their uniforms. First, the stripes on the blue tops don’t match the stripes on the blue pants. The blue pants need to be inverted to red/white/red. Second, the stripes on the white top don’t match the stripes of the white pants. But you can’t invert those because the jersey stripes and jersey numbers always follow the same pattern. So you’d either need to change to red numbers or change the stripes to red/blue/red on the helmet and white pants. At least the red uniform is consistent, though.

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