A little less than a week ago, in a post on football facemask design and terminology, that day’s “Guess The Game From The Uniform” included a submission from Jimmy Corcoran (shown above, but here’s the full photo), in which the Minnesota Vikings quarterback, Fran Tarkenton, was shown wearing a solid purple jersey. Although I don’t include submitter descriptions with the GTGFTU, Jimmy always provides them with his submissions. Here’s what he said about the Vikes/Cowboys photo:
You can easily tell what year this game was by looking at the jerseys for both teams, 1973 was the last year the Vikings wore their jerseys without stripes. They wore them in the 1974 preseason but never again in a regular game. As a kid I thought they wore their practice jerseys, but you can see, these were the standard heavy mesh Sand Knit jerseys. Also, 1973 was the last game for this style of Cowboys jersey, in 1974 they raised the numbers to the shoulders and the numbers were now heat pressed. Like the Vikings, Dallas still wore these jerseys in the 1974 preseason and the new 1974 jerseys were still made by Southland. This game was played on Dec 30, 1973 at Texas Stadium.
In the comments that followed that day, commenter “Ol’ Deezy” wrote:
“The thing with the Vikings of the early 1970’s is they had two purple jerseys, one with stripes and one without. This helps a lot when trying to narrow down the game in any picture depicting a Vikings game from that era, the style of purpose jersey is a tip-off. The stripe-less jersey I believe was a warm weather jersey. Coincidentally, I always thought this would be an interesting topic for Uniwatch.”
Interestingly, I had similar thoughts about striped vs. stripeless jerseys worn in the same season. And there are few on the planet with a better knowledge of this era of football uniforms than Jimmy Corcoran. So I approached him to see if he’d like to help write a piece about those teams who wore both striped and stripeless jerseys in the same season, or simply wore two different jerseys in the same year. He happily obliged…
Two Different Jerseys in the Same Season
by Jimmy Corcoran
Phil mentioned to me that he has been wanting to do an article for a while on teams that wore two different same color jerseys during a season and since I have a lot of knowledge on jerseys from the 1970’s, would I be interested, I said sure, I think Phil and I together would be able to cover this topic pretty well together.
I never actually studied the history of football jerseys, when I was in college in the 1980’s computers didn’t exist yet, and I couldn’t go to google images to study the history of a team’s jersey. I first remember looking at a jersey tag as a small kid in that basement that the Pottstown Firebirds used as a locker room, I remember seeing the red Rawlings tags on the jerseys that were hand me downs from the Philadelphia Eagles. I have no idea why I took an interest in this, the kids I went to elementary school could care less about it, my father, who loved wearing his football uniforms had no idea who made his Philadelphia Bell jersey, the only thing that mattered to him was that he got number 9.
On October 8, 1972 the San Diego Chargers came to Maryland to play the Colts, my father’s coach for about half the teams he played for, Ron Waller was on the Chargers coaching staff and we went to see him. After the game I was in the locker room, and I saw the equipment guys taking the jerseys that the players took off and laying them flat on the floor on top of each other. This was my favorite uniform that I had seen on TV and I couldn’t believe I was that close to them, they weren’t the powder blue but the white ones looked great as well. There was one thing that surprised me, the numbers were royal blue, I thought on TV they were the same powder blue that the home jerseys were. I picked the jersey up and looked at a few under it, the tags were by Sand Knit and there started my jersey journey.
Let’s break down team by team the difference in the two jerseys they wore in the same season. We’ll begin with Washington.
WASHINGTON ‘SKINS
In 1969, Washington head coach Vince Lombardi switched from Sand Knit to Rawlings, and there were some problems. The dark jerseys were the wrong color, and the helmets had to be repainted to match this new Cardinal color, the jerseys were delivered just a couple of days before the season started so there had to be an issue with the white jerseys. They only wore these jerseys for the first game against the Saints, but you can see it is just a practice style jersey with the NFL 50 patch sewn on, of course the Skins got it together, got their white Rawlings jerseys and as you can see, a classic uniform that still looks great over fifty years later.
MIAMI DOLPHINS
The Dolphins, everyone knows this one, in 1972 the Dolphins wore two different jerseys in the same game and most notably in the Super Bowl. The jerseys with the stripes were made by Sand Knit and the ones without the stripes were made by Wilson, in 1973 they got new jerseys with stripes and screened on numbers that were made by Russell and they were all the same on the field again.
CHICAGO BEARS
The Bears wore two different white jerseys for three seasons, 1971-73, both sets were made by Wilson but one set had block style numbers with no orange trim.
The Bears’ dark jerseys were different, the wore 2 sets of those in 1971-72 but the number fonts were the same and one jersey had no stripes, these jerseys were also made by Wilson.
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
These jerseys had a drastic look from each other, one set had gold sewn on numbers with white trim and the other set had plain white screened on numbers. They wore the same white jerseys that season, this does not count the preseason when they wore black numbers with the black helmets.
By accident I found a one year style jersey. If you look at the numbers you will see very thin gold trim, that was a one year style worn only in 1970
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
The Eagles wore two sets of white jerseys and two sets of green jerseys. In the team photo they are wearing their stripes, you will notice that the 2’s and 4’s and a 3 have serifs on them in some jerseys, these jerseys were older Rawlings jerseys from seasons before, I have seen white 1969 jerseys from Sand Knit but couldn’t find a tag on the 1969 green ones. The man on the far left in the white outfit is Bob Colonna, the Philadelphia Bell equipment manager, a guy who is in a lot of my stories and taught me quite a bit about uniforms. The Eagles also wore mesh green jerseys with no stripes that were made by Sand Knit. This went for the white jerseys as well.
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS
The Patriots wore two sets of jerseys in 1971 and 72. In 1973 they switched to mesh Sand Knit with the WFL style template that has been covered in past articles. The red jerseys with the plain white sewn on numbers were first introduced in 1969 by the Patriots, and the heavy jerseys were made by Rawlings. In 1971 they introduced lighter jerseys with blue trim on the numbers, you will notice it is not the bright red of the heavy jerseys but has a more Cardinal color to it. If you look at the schedule of the 1971 and 1972 Patriots, you will see they wore these new jerseys in warmer weather games.
MINNESOTA VIKINGS
The Vikings wore two different jerseys in 1969, a mesh Sand Knit and a heavy purple with sewn on numbers in gold trim. I thought those heavy jerseys were probably Rawlings, I was surprised they were made by King O’Shea who also made some of the Chicago Bears jerseys. In the 70’s the Vikings wore jerseys with no stripes and with stripes, in a 1973 playoff game against the Skins, like the Dolphins in the Super Bowl they wore two different jerseys in the same game. The Sand knit jerseys without the stripes are sometimes called their warm weather jerseys, that may be true, but it is the standard weight mesh jersey Sand Knit did for all the teams as NFL teams started to switch over to mesh around 1972.
Well thank you for going down this jersey memory lane with me today and I hope my mentor Bob Colonna is looking down on me saying “You did good kid.”
Additional photos can be seen in this gallery:
Thanks Jimmy!
Great stuff, Jimmy! I’ve always been fascinated by this era of multiple jerseys… especially in the same game.
I already made a Fred Cox shirt in this style. I may have to make one for Mac Percival as well. That photo of Mac you shared has been on my Wall of Kickers for a few months now.
By the way, I have a different photo of that Vikings/Cowboys playoff game. In SI’s The Football Book there’s a full page photo of this cover without the wording.
link
Thank you Jimmer, I was looking for straight on kicker photos for this piece
In 69 the Vikings wore the stripe less jerseys for warm weather and the numbers were screened applied just like their white 69 jerseys
Great stuff – a subject I’ve always been interested in. Vikings: isn’t there a famous photo of the Purple People Eaters sitting on the bench during a cold game in 1969, but one of them (Alan Page?) was wearing his jersey backwards? It was back when there were no names on the jerseys, nor the NFL logo on the front. You could tell because the 50th anniversary patch was on the wrong shoulder. Isn’t that right?
Two good photos of Saints WR Dan Abramowicz show how he taped his cleats not just over the laces, but also over the back of his shoes. He was one of my favorites, so of course I had to tape my black cleats the same way.
Yes, Page having the patch on the wrong shoulder rings a bell
I love this era also probably because it was when I first really started watching the NFL (I was 7 in 1969).
I don’t think the cardinal color was a Rawlings screw-up for the 69 Redskins; they had to hurriedly repaint the helmets to match because the NFL didn’t accept Lombardi’s yellow helmet design as it was submitted to the league after their deadline. Now why they wore the plain jerseys for the opening game in New Orleans I don’t know.
Skins likely wore the stripeless mesh jerseys for the heat of opening week. For the first five-six years of the Saints’ existence, they worse White at home for the most part as someone had done a study showing that Saints’ body temperature was an average 7 degrees higher in a day game at open air Tulane Stadium for day games. Someone actually did a study on it – I’ve seen it referenced in newsprint but can’t give you a source. Saints would then wear darker jerseys at home for late season games.
Speaking of warm weather jerseys, in the early 70s, the 49ers wore mesh jerseys both White and Red, with NO TV NUMERALS or stripes, even in regular season games early in the season. A good source is those old “This Week in the NFL” shows you can see on YouTube, or the end of the season highlights/wrap up shows also on YouTube.
If only my beloved Saints wore anything as nice as those photos Jimmy put up here ….
Great article again, Jimmy, love your stuff ….
Thank you Nick, yes, the 49ers also had two sets of red jerseys. One set actually looked like practice jerseys, I just didn’t get around to doing the research for the pictures on them.
Hey John, Lombardi ordered maroon jerseys, and Rawlings didn’t make that color, the jerseys arrived a cardinal color. The darker helmets they wore in 1968 had to be repainted to match the new jerseys. Regardless, if the gold helmets were ready or not in 1969, those were not the jerseys Lombardi wanted, he wanted maroon.
Jimmy- thanks for that! I never knew that the color was changed because the manufacturer (Rawlings) didn’t have the maroon color. I have been assuming for decades that Vince changed the color as part of shaking up the organization.
His brother worked for Rawlings, the 1968 jerseys were made by Sand Knit and Rawlings didn’t offer the same color as Sand Knit. Lombardi asked for maroon but the color Rawlings sent him was way off.
My recollection from a Jerry Kramer book, paraphrased from memory:
Vince liked the uniform design and said “I want ’em in burgundy and gold.”
Joe said “We don’t have burgundy, you can have cardinal or scarlet or…”
“I want burgundy,” Vince said.
Joe writes on the order form… “Color: Lombardi Burgundy (Cardinal)”
The Dallas Cowboys had two different road jerseys in 1981. Evidently, the uni numbers were too silver, so they added a blue trim outline.
You are correct Brendan, I kept this to late 60’s 70’s, In 1972 and 1973 the Forty Niners also wore red jerseys with stripes and no stripes in both seasons but I didn’t get around to covering them
Great article. Reminded me a bit of Anthony Carter getting a different jersey than other Michigan players because only he got a tearaway.
Good point Neil G, I could have done the Browns in the 70’s, Greg Pruitt would get a cotton tear away, Rick Upchurch of the Broncos would wear a tear away and Joe Washinton with the Colts would wear a tear away, but I felt that was a different story.
In ’76, Hank Stram had many of the Saints skill players wearing cotton tearaway jerseys
I once got the Saints GM Harry Hulmes on the phone at his house, which was in the phone book, and he was nice to me about it and agreed to get me some of Bobby Douglass’ tearaway scraps if I could come out to Saints offices to pick them up. One day in 11th grade we had a fire drill at school, and I got a buddy to drive me to Saints camp – way the hell out in the suburbs, and got my scraps.
I spent hours that same night sewing cobbling them together to make one Frankenstein Bobby Douglass jersey. Wore it for years.
Hulmes told me that then, most intact Saints jerseys were donated to organizations to auction or sell at events for fundraisers.
Some other interesting tidbits I noticed while reading this fun article: The tape around the top of Tarkenton’s socks. Just sort of looks like clear packing or masking tape, I assume to keep his socks up?
I wonder if the Patriots adding the blue trim to the uniform numerals had anything to do with them moving to their new stadium?
Nice to see Tim Rossovich in a photo here! Whenever I see him I always think of Detective Noodles.
Great article. In the 2 white jerseys Plunkett wore they had different sleeve stripes as well.
Also for those of us who grew in 80’s you will catch the player in 82 jersey with Eagles was Tim Rossovich. Became a B actor most notable as a crazed hitman ( yes the same identical look in photo above) in The Looker with Albert Finney in 1981.
He also had multiple appearances in Magnum PI with his college roommate Tom Selleck at USC.
You are correct, many teams in the early 70’s switched to clear tape, while the rest of the league stuck with the white Johnson and Johnson tape. The tape got phased out as stirrup socks disappeared and teams started wearing tube socks with the top in team colors that stayed up better, and didn’t need to be taped at the top.
A Rosso sighting, whenever I see Tim, I picture him walking around the team hotel with a blank stare wearing his Vampire cape!
Bengals had cold/warm variable jerseys with slight differences in the sleeve stripes..
Awesome! I am both honored and humbled that my comment was included as inspiration for a follow up column on the subject!
Wonderful story. Great times when every team had their own supplier. I have a soft spot for those Vikings with stripes jerseys, as it was the first football shirt I wore as a kid (replica made by Sandknit). Got it from my neighbor who regularly travelled to the States. Did not know what football was, did not know the NFL or the Vikings. Just loved that shirt (which got lost after suddenly moving out of Amsterdam).