Four teams redesigned their uniforms for the 2024 season: New York Jets, Detroit Lions, Houston Texans and Denver Broncos. This short series will review all the uniforms worn by those four teams.
For the first time since making their NFL debut in 2002, the Houston Texans introduced new uniforms for the 2024 season. As we quickly learned, these were not your Daddy’s Texans uniforms.
The team immediately took advantage of the NFL’s multiple-shell permissions, and created not just primary home and away sets (which allowed some mix/match-ability), but also two alternate monochrome uniforms — an all-red and an all (very dark) blue “color rush” set. While there were some who loved the new set, most opinions were decidedly unfavorable upon the new set’s introduction. It probably didn’t surprise you that Paul wasn’t particularly effusive in his praise.
We’ve now had a full season to look back at the uniforms the team wore. My first impressions were that I particularly liked the new home uniform (at least when worn as a blue/blue/white/blue combination), and I didn’t hate the new roads (as long as the pants and socks were in contrasting colors). I wasn’t expecting the two alternates to look very good on the field, but I wanted to see them in action before rendering a final verdict.
The Texans did a fair amount of mixing and matching with their home and road outfits, wearing six different combos of them during the season. We’ll look at those first.
This is my favorite of all the possible combos, and the new set overall. It’s not just because it is probably the most like their old set (which I liked), but because it’s actually a very nice uniform. I don’t love the font, and I wish the pants stripe wouldn’t truncate at the hip, but the numbers are big and legible and I’d almost put this in a “modern classic” category.
Unfortunately, the team only wore this combination twice.
Grade: B+
I’m not a fan of same-color socks and pants, but that’s the NFL’s preferred style trend these days. Not an awful look, but not nearly as good as the b/b/w/b combo.
This combination was worn just once.
Grade: B-
The mono-blue isn’t a good look for any team, but I’m surprised the team decided to wear this combo at all — since it’s very similar to their alternate Color Rush/H-Town Blue set. But head-to-toe mono is popular with the players, and it was worn for three regular season games, plus their Wild Card win.
Grade: C
If you had to guess which combo the Texans wore the most often in 2024, would this look be at the top of your list? The Texans wore this five times during the season. Most folks who dislike the white (and also red) jersey cite the “horns” on the jersey. I don’t love them, but it’s not really a dealbreaker for me either. Far more annoying is their tendency to pair same-color socks and pants.
Grade: C+
I’m definitely NOT a fan of teams who have a non-white helmet paired with all-white below the neck, but more than half the NFL sports this look, so I can’t crush the Texans for wearing it. It’s the go-to look, style-wise, these days. Not my cuppa, but then again, these uniforms weren’t designed with me in mind.
The team wore this combo twice during the regular season, and in their Divisional Round playoff loss.
Grade: C
Of all the road options the team wore, I like this look the best (of course, the one better combo would be blue/white/white/blue, but they never wore that). Helmets match pants; jersey matches hose. Nice.
The team wore this combo twice.
Grade: B
There is absolutely no reason for this uniform to exist. As seen above, the Texans were perfectly fine wearing a mono-blue combo that is actually quite similar to this — only better. And for whatever reason, the shade of blue on this is so dark, it may as well be black. The new helmet logo isn’t great, and the red numbers are brutal. The uniform might be a bit more tolerable if players wore red socks, but even that’s pushing it.
But again, this uniform wasn’t designed for me, and it seems as though the players and fans love it. The Texans wore it twice.
Grade: F
This is almost as bad as the color rush — there’s way too much red, and the red isn’t even subtle. And then there is the perspective problem — the helmet horns point one way, while the shoulder horns point the other. But with all that red, the horns almost disappear anyway. Apparently white pants are an option. Maybe next year they’ll sport that combo.
Fortunately, the team only wore this uniform once.
Grade: D-
But the other thing that was rather odd — the Texans seemed to bring out the worst in their opponents’ attire as well. (I haven’t gone back and checked how many times the Texans were the “And One” but it was certainly among the most, if not the most.) The “And One,” of course, needs two to tango, and for whatever reason — perhaps merely chance — when the Texans looked bad, their opponents seemed to as well.
Examples include:
(Almost) Spy vs. Spy (Pt 1)
(Almost) Spy vs. Spy (Pt. 2)
(Almost) Spy vs. Spy (Pt. 3)
All-Color vs. All-White
Full Teal for the Jags
Christmas Day — 7 of 8 elements are black/almost black
Our orange alt is so bad we only wear it on the road
Yeesh. I’m not sure what it is about the Texans, but they seemed to bring out the worst in their opponents’ uni choices as well.
Feel free to disagree (or agree) in the comments below.
Bears Fan here – “Our orange alt is so bad we only wear it on the road” – This statement puts a pretty nice bow on how I feel about these dreadful uniforms. There is some history of similar *mostly* orange set-ups but these are a swing and a miss for me.
Woof.
Orange helmet with orange jersey and white pants gives off a Bengals vibe. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the Bears using orange as an alternate color for either the helmet or the jersey, but not both at the same time, keep the navy blue in there somewhere or they stop looking like the Bears.
I love the Bears pulling the orange jersey out once a year, but it should never be paired with the orange helmet. Their helmets are already pretty plain, which is fine most of the time, but the orange lid just highlights that fact even more. I wouldn’t mind seeing an orange/blue/white/blue or orange combo once, though I cringed a little as I typed that out.
I also loved when the Dolphins pulled the orange alternate out once or twice a year for a big game, though I’d choose the throw backs over the orange alternate if you made me pick.
The orange unis from the Zach Thomas/Jason Taylor era were fine. The white/orange/white/orange combo weren’t bad looking at all. Those orange color rush unis that the team wore once back in 2016 were awful.
Funny that we have an article here about the Texans uniforms, but they get upstaged by how bad the Chicago orange alts are.
It’s a Bears team with perfect classic uniforms, so it’s hard to improve on that.
At first glance, they look like they’re wearing some kind of Browns or Bengals fauxback, which is already distracting.
Also, the Bears have been so pathetic as a football team over the last couple of seasons that it feels embarrassing to call attention with a gaudy uniform. Most embarrassing situations I can imagine would probably feel worse if they happened while wearing full shock-orange hat and shirt. To me, the orange helmets and jerseys just call more attention to how bad they are.
The red set gets an F from me because that game was actually painful for me to watch. The metallic red helmets were especially troublesome.
Two thoughts:
1- I wish the Texans went with something like the H-Town Blue for their primaries. Maybe just what the did for the primary but instead of red accents, it was the light blue. That shade of blue is one of the best in sports, and always looks good (LA Chargers, Tennessee women’s teams, UMaine, etc.)
2- Mike Tirico brought up a few times on the Lions-Texans broadcast that the numbers on the red unis were super hard to read from press row. Could be a lot better with white numbers outlined in navy
Agree with you on all points here.
1. Amy Adams threw a fit when the Texans started talking about incorporating H-Town (Close-to-Oilers) Blue. There was no way she would let the league allow them to get away with a full blown H-Town Blue jersey (or any of the other 2 major elements, I imagine). The sentiment around here is that they will slowly and methodically increase the amount of it over many seasons, the old “frog in boiling water” analogy.
2. I hate when teams throw colored numbers on colored jerseys unless the color is yellow, gray, or a very, very light shade of blue. To me, colored unis ALWAYS look better with white numbers and colored trim.
Two I want to add:
1. I’m practically begging them to change the inner stripe of the horns on the red helmet/jersey to white. The whole red ensemble feels completely unbalanced because the white in the pants stripe and number trim scream out at you, but there’s nothing from the numbers up that’s white. The one, simple change to the inner horn stripe would make a massive difference. Here’s a quick photoshop I did to illustrate my point: link
2. I hate the “H-Town” Alternate uniform with every fiber in my body. It’s hideous.
Even forgetting the mistake of making the navy pretty much black, I think the home navy uniforms still fail because they were such a complete downgrade from the previous design. Why go with sleeve logos on this uniform? Sleeve logos that are the same as the helmet logo are just pointless and repetitive on jerseys. I think the navy home jersey only looks good in comparison to the other uniforms because they are all so awful.
I really don’t understand why the NFL got away from TV numbers, as it makes all of these new uniforms look like cheap knock offs. And for some reason Nike cannot decide if it likes sleeves that are truncated (pants) or go too far into other parts of the uniform (sleeve stripes to the front of the jersey). There was nothing wrong with their original uniforms, and if the team liked the mix and match concept they already had the option to create any combo they wanted simply by adding back their original white helmet to the rotation, giving them navy, red, or white for each uniform element.
They oversold the idea that they’d have a nod to the Oilers, as what little baby blue is in the their alternates barely moves the needle. Failure all around.
I agree with all of this.
And it wasn’t until this post did I realize the horns aren’t on the navy jersey, which makes me wonder what’s the point of having them at all?
I still haven’t heard anyone call Houston “H-Town” outside of speaking about those specific uniforms. And the Texans should have pushed the envelope and did baby blue jerseys and white pants instead of the terrible set they put out on the field.
The original Texans’ unis were fine the way they were and did not need to be changed, let alone to this.
Changing uniforms = $$$$$$$$
Follow the dollar $ign$. That’s it. Make a change, sell more merch. That’s why there are 4 jerseys.
I agree !!! The original uniforms were good, hopefully they will change them back just like the Browns and Bucs did after the 5-year rule….
My daddy’s Texans uniforms were the Dallas Texans’
Just the latest example of “be careful what you wish for”. As a fan I’d been pining for a Texans uniform change for years as I thought they were too boring. In a division with so many similar helmets (dark blue, dark blue, black, white) I thought it would’ve been great to just switch to their 2023 red helmets (while keeping the blue jerseys, white pants) and call it a day. Alas, I have four more years to wait for a potential improvement. The sad thing is if they somehow make a Super Bowl in this getup it’ll be another 20 years with this set.
The Texans really are the Louisville of the NFL.
My biggest complaint about the Texans new unis is the navy is so dark that it looks almost black. If you didn’t know that it was the Texans playing, you’d swear it was the Falcons at first glance.
This is my breakdown of the looks:
White pants, navy jersey, navy helmet – Best look, especially with the navy socks
Navy pants, white jersey, navy helmet – Its their away look, but I don’t like the horns on the jersey at all, looks inverted to me.
White pants and jersey with navy helmet – Not a fan, but not their worst. Navy socks would be a slight upgrade, but not enough.
Solid navy – No, doesn’t work, needs some contrast.
H-Town almost black – Really? What’s the purpose of this outfit? The red numbers and the small amount of light blue is an all out chokejob. This needs to be tossed.
Solid red – F— (triple minus). If there isn’t such a grade, I’m inventing it. I see 0 positives in that junk. This needs to go to the incinerator.
The Texans’ new unis grew on me as the season went along, but only the basic road and home.
If I had my way they’d stick with blue over white, white over blue, and toss in the occasional red alt (jersey only, not the pants). Ditch that H-Town nonsense and if you just have to have an alt helmet go with the 2001 white prototype that never saw the field. Maybe pair it with the red top and call it a day.
They’re bad. I’ve been a Texan fan since day one and I really miss the originals. Well on their way to “modern classic” status. The font was unique yet legible. The jerseys all matched with shoulder stripes. The sparing use of red throughout (save for the “Battle Reds”) was restrained yet elegant. This was a perfect example of “change for the sake of change”. Hopefully once the five years are up Cal, etc. will return to the old uniforms.
The kerning on the nameplates is one of the biggest crimes against typography that I’ve ever seen. Can’t tell you how annoying it is to try to read:
S T ROUD
Postseason inevitably features tons of older playoff footage and every year I’m aghast by how many teams’ looks have gone awry compared to previous decades. This hunger for new swag that the league can turn into piles of cash to me doesn’t need to equal attire going downhill. Teams from the 70’s/ 80’s and some of the 90’s simply look better. Recent unitard, white stocking, hanging T’s trends really really hurt the appeal of uniforms in general. I believe there is exactly one or two teams that look better now than they did 20/25 years ago (Cincy/Denver maybe).
The Texans exemplify this. Not the worst uniform in the league, but like TN by the end of their 5 year window fans will be clamoring for the old duds or something new. Yucky fonts, weird stripes, similarities to the gawdawful Falcons. I’m offering my services to nike. A simple thumbs up / thumbs down system should work. And I only need 100k annually. A drop in the bucket for them…
I think that the H-Town unis should be primarily light blue with a secondary red, incorporated with some navy. I think this would be a new change instead of having 2 uins that look almost the same.