Ted Cunningham

This is basically where I am, too. I do understand the argument that, without another definitive mascot/name, calling them the Washington Football Team and keeping a look that they used for so many years under the offensive moniker could be perceived as a constant reminder that they used to have another name and the lack of a conventional mascot/name would equate a wink and nod to the previous name. ("Hey, we're just called 'Football Team' now because we can't use our real name. But you guys remember it, right??") I don't agree that that's what would happen, but I can see the logic to the argument. And of course, regardless of what the team is called, you'll have old heads who use the old name out of habit without any necessary intent to cause offense and people who like to use the term "snowflake" who will intentionally use the old name, but I think they're well in the minority. Otherwise, yes: just keep using the old uniforms, use the new helmet (with the gloss/car paint/deep finish that they used in the 2000s), and perhaps include a logo-less throwback to the dark burgundy/old gold/khaki pants era. Given this is a team with a significant history and decent pedigree (on the whole, anyway), they should retain a look familiar to the franchise. If they want to go in a new direction, do so wholesale: Buy the DC Defenders identity from the UFL and rebrand as them, or go completely in another direction without either burgundy or gold.

***But not people from or who have lived for any length of time in DC.

It's unfortunate from a branding standpoint that WVU's arguably most consistently successful stretch of seasons were in the Pat White/Geno Smith uniforms as those are the uniforms that much of a broader national audience associates with WVU. While I think that design was essentially a far more tasteful application of the original 1997 Denver Broncos striping and is fairly tame by standards of the time, each redesign since they went to the navy helmet and the flying WV (1980) has been unnecessary tinkering (to outright eschewing) with that original look. A modernization of the original look would be my preference (if not an outright return to that look; though that's unrealistic given Nike's coherent branding across the University's sports programs). And I don't hate some of the changes and added elements that the 2019 redesign brought: there's more emphasis on the navy-gold-navy striping. I liked the Country Roads alternates for a big game, etc. And while the flying WV is the mark that the team should use, I don't mind it within the state outline as an alternate logo. These new ones are slightly worse than what they replace. (There's too much gold on these for the navy jerseys, just like there was too much gold on the navy jerseys in the 2019 set.) But they're still better than the pickax uniforms or either of the jerseys Pat White wore (taking the timeline back to 2002, which wasn't really great either because they had inexplicably added white drop shadows to the numbers that year). While this was not the first thing I thought of when I saw those stripes (I figured they were going for what Pat White/Geno Smith wore, but I also thought Houston Texans or even USC since they didn't have the side panel/Broncos stripes), this is an interesting point.

Yeah it took me a bit to realize that too. It’s a bit awkward and more noticeable on the gold pants. I don't even think it's a bad look, necessarily. If they were starting from scratch, I could see what they were going for. But knowing what those pants replaced, it's certainly a downgrade.

This is an interesting point given that sleeves have actually made a very limited comeback recently. I noticed it started with Tyreek Hill last year, and now some players in the UFL have been sporting longer sleeves. I presume this is a "quarterback cut" jersey style or something a la Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. (Though frankly, I didn't know they were still available.) I'm now curious what the Broncos' new sleeve design will look like on this particular cut of the jersey.

This is exactly right. This is Illinois/Syracus/Boise State over the last decade or so, regurgitated.

Do they keep the thumbtack? Or just straight up go everything Oilers including the derrick and just call themselves the Titans? The latter idea is wild, and I don't hate it.

Or even just go back to the 2020 uniforms (with the new logo, for obvious reasons). That dark silver helmet was miles better than even a white or blue iteration of the current helmet would be. Oh yeah, I'm with you here: It would have looked better burgundy over gold.

Yeah, when I first saw a picture of what they were wearing, I wasn't looking forward to it. But the two teams against each other didn't look awful. Burgundy vs. red and white with gold mixed in on both sides; it wasn't a bad looking game. Not ideal, but I would take that over the San Antonio/Memphis matchup from yesterday. I also thought, for as red-heavy as it was, Houston/DC wasn't terrible either. Houston's helmet is garbage, but I liked the other three contrasting elements: white jerseys, blue pants, and red socks. And DC is just a pair of white pants away from having the best (OK, maybe second or third best) uniforms in the league. Lots of caveats there. And everything I said was "this is not bad" vs. "this is good". Ha. But my point is, this league is at least colorful and the matchups are pretty easy to watch (both aesthetically and it terms of quality of the games, come to it).

Not arguing the aesthetics one way or the other, but there is historical precedent for Birmingham wearing white pants on the road: They did so in 1984 and 1985, too. I'm not sure if having Birmingham go with white pants in 1984 was a deliberate decision related to the similarities with the Stars, as Sodboy suggests. (It seems at least plausible for a fledgling league attempting to establish brands.) But it predates 2022.

I like that facemask-swapping idea for the Browns depending on the uniform combinations, especially any league interference notwithstanding. I wonder how that would go over with league officials from a branding standpoint. Up to this point, they apparently haven't made much of a fuss when teams change their facemask colors. Those have been in generally one-off situations (like the Browns' and Jets' [from before the uniform change] white facemasks) or else a permanent change (like the Bills going to white facemasks). But if a team (that uses its helmet as its logo) did that regularly (resulting in essentially three variations of their logo), I would presume that would give the league pause? It's an interesting thought exercise anyway.

I think because it involves the Broncos and is stated with such confidence with no apparent legitimacy to back it up (about "all five upcoming changing uniforms", no less!), are we sure that Jesse Schultz isn't just Nick under a pseudonym? The portrait even kind of looks like him, aged to today. (This post is for the oldheads, I guess. But that's absolutely the first thing I thought of. Haha.)

Ha. I was wondering if anyone would notice. I intentionally left them out because, while it was a unique look to the NFL, that set of numbers looked like they belonged in the NHL. (Probably because around that time the Lightning and Flames had both featured italicized numbers briefly, and the NHL was the only placed I'd seen italicized numbers. So that's how I classified that look in my head. In other words, the general style of that set of numbers didn't look entirely new to me, even if they were unique, unlike the Ravens, Eagles, et al. which felt like entirely new designs.)

Custom number fonts, especially of late, are an excellent encapsulation of "just because we can doesn't mean we should". Since it used to be that suppliers (at least to a degree) dictated what number styles were available, there was more uniformity, at least in concept, among number sets. And differences in generally similar styles led to interesting (but tame) quirks and differences (like the "Champion" numbers essentially being "block" but with the curved 7, etc.). Because of certain teams sticking with styles over time, even after changing suppliers, we ended up with some teams with contextually unique numbers. (Two examples that stick out there are the Bears, and to a lesser degree, the Red Sox.) But somewhere around the mid-to-late 90s (I suppose starting with the Ravens, Eagles, and then Broncos), that changed. Those number sets were, at least, somewhat coherent in their designs though. Now, with numbers like the Texans, Dolphins, Seahawks, Titans, etc., it just seems like numbers are designed first and foremost to not look like other numbers, and then Nike et al back into some brand-speak, brand-related explanation for why they look like they do. (That's not to say all modern numbers that are currently unique are like this. Cleveland's an example that seems a little more coherent and intentional. Though even there, the half-serif on the 7 is questionable.)

Yeah, the spacing in that scorebug is weird. Other than that, I like the simplicity.