Ted Cunningham

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.

Agreed. I realize there are more precise definitions for these words, but as a shorthand, I usually use the two words interchangeably (with a preference for "burgundy"). However, (again) that's shorthand when distinguishing between red and a darker shade of red. If I were asked to define the two, I would likely define burgundy as having a little purple to it, where maroon is just a straight up dark red. As for however Washington would describe their colors, I would certainly think "maroon" would more closely fit it. And neither really fits Michigan, though I think the Panthers would be closer to burgundy. ("Plum", a reddish shade of dark purple makes more sense than either burgundy or maroon, as others have stated or indicated previously.)

I've often thought that simply adding silver (or a lighter grey, as Nike has been essentially unable to produce silver on fabrics to this point) would certainly improve their current look. I don't mind Philadelphia's current uniforms. Even though the "midnight green" is a byproduct of the late 90s to mid 00s NFL dark era, it's a unique color in the NFL and I don't hate it. As a general rule, I like away uniforms that go primary/white/secondary/socks when the primary color is dark and the secondary color is some shade of gold or silver. I think that works for balance. (Digression: I also think that's why gold pants work so well for Washington.) With that context, the one broad thing about the regular home and away looks I have never really liked was the balance of the away uniform: green/white/white/socks. Silver pants would add a lot of balance to that look, and would still look good, too, with the home uniforms (maintaining that dark-over-light look and avoiding two-tone dark-over-dark looks like Tampa's current iteration of the pewter uniforms).

Yeah, these are nice. I'm curious about the overlap of the E where the jersey buttons. While Ebbets doesn't have a home jersey (that I could find) from 1954, they do have the road version that shows some creative spacing to avoid cutting a letter over the placket. Photos from that season show the word is evenly split, 3 letters by 3 letters.

Yeah. The kerning feels weird somehow, too.