Brave-Bird 08

IDK, the black 49ers uniform is up there with the worst NFL uniforms of all-time. The only other ones that I think looks worse were when the Rams wore their white-horned helmets and new white/blue pants with their gold/navy jersey. both of these images are depressing to look at

I'm so confused. For one, Iowa State -- a school a stone's throw from Minneapolis -- already set the table for non-sensical alternates by wearing black-and-white uniforms for almost an entire season. Now, Minnesota, who has the same colors (generally) as Iowa State, chooses to make the same exact mistake, almost as if Fleck saw Iowa State highlights all year last year and thought "Let's do that too." I just don't understand. These uniforms don't look good. They did an entire unveil and hype video for it. The players even seem more fake-cheering than actually digging it. We've definitely lost it if coaches feel like they need a "black and white" alternate just to keep up with the Joneses.

Man, one of the most forgettable uniforms in modern history is those Jaguars unis -- look at how in that lineman cut the sweeping-stripe is split into two different pieces, just awful. The Fred Taylor era unis were a modern classic, nothing they trot out in can beat those

Alright y’all, I feel like I’ve built a solid reputation on these boards over the years, decades? Whatever. I have to get something off my chest: I can’t believe how much I enjoy the new Washington uniforms, after rejecting them at the unveil. Yeah, they’re not the Joe Gibbs era strips we all love. They don’t follow normal uniform conventions. But, with the burgundy pants today, they looked good. The yellow checks in the sleeve do more service than I thought they would for balance, and the white/black diamond theme is either 1) just fun to look at or 2) I’m being hoodwinked by how it goes well with their jersey patch they’re wearing for a Washington team, it’s kind of an interesting blend between the old gold/burgundy and that new white/diamond theme, and they can get away with that as a D.C. based franchise. idk. I mean I’m someone who loves the Seahawks and Falcons uniforms, so my palate for contemporary garb is higher. But I’ve shocked myself — I hate mono-white looks, but the set they wore today wasn’t bad. It’s just different.

Of course they said "ICY," then had to double down by saying "arctic" for a game being played in *checks notes* Nashville, in a video where it's being presented in California, lol Enough with the lame speak when unveiling uniforms. Just let the look speak for itself. If I see "icy" one more time I am going to lose it. (and as doug mentioned, they're not aware enough to wear the throwback white pants so that there isn't a random sliver of grey)

I've never thought the Cardinals uniforms are bad, they just belong in the year 2003. *ducks behind counter* While their pre-2005 uniforms were pretty timeless, they tied back to a very rough time in St. Louis, and even though they're the oldest franchise in the league, I don't think anyone in Phoenix really has a soft spot for the "heritage" of Cardinals football. A modern get up works since their existence in Arizona really felt like it required a facelift -- afterall, their temporary way of making themselves feel re-born was simply slapping the Arizona flag on the sleeves. I have no interest in them reverting to the ultra-simplified look of yesteryear, I would even be more intruiged if they adopted a new color scheme, possibly something similar to the Coyotes/D-Backs deeper red and sand aesthetic.

Yeah, the black set for Tennessee last year reeked of BFBS, even with trying to find some type of balance by adding black strokes to the helmet decals/stripe. The smokey grey just makes too much sense, and even though they wore some pretty bad "grey" options over the years, the most recent version was an amazing alternate.

It's still an element that agrees with the visual identity, the orientation of it really doesn't matter in this sense.

Agree with all of this except the side stripes definitely don't feel random to me: they're pulled from the logo, which is a lot better than the weird paneled sleeves on the previous uniforms

Washington could do a lot of good by wearing those gold pants with the burgundy as much as possible, but knowing how teams operate these days I bet it's only for one game

I hate that we are so particular as uni nerds that whenever there's an explanation from a scribe or someone else about uniforms, there's almost always something that doesn't make sense. This person is saying they wore silver pants so their white ones won't get dirty, when their default pant is another shade of silver. I want to say something, but I have learned after many years to always let it go lol

That is really strange that the Cardinals would have something like that. I mean, clearly an NFL jersey with the shield and Nike checks. From everything you can see, it's almost certainly a throwback.

@nuordr -- fair point. To play devil's advocate, and not saying you have this preference, but it's interesting that grey facemasks generally get a pass on these boards for any number of throwbacks, but a modern iteration does not. I get the logic: for grey facemasks re: throwbacks, they call back to an era when the facemask wasn't painted or considered part of the uniform (it was just more seen as an attachment). Now that the precedent has been set to tie in the facemask color, modern usage of it isn't met with as much enthusiasm. It's almost as if grey facemasks should be a grandfathered-in thing, only. I like the silver facemasks for the Falcons, but they could enhance the uniform by adding grey/silver pants -- I think that was one thing most Falcons fans called for when they saw the red pants that not only didn't match up, but apparently don't even exist. I also like that the Falcons silver facemasks echo a lot of the aesthetic of the stadium's interior. They kind of tie into the new arena more, which was part of the intent of the new design. But, starting a conversation about how uniforms might fit a greater overall aesthetic is a can of worms. I understand why people don't like them, but I just think compared to what else Nike did w/ the Browns, Buccaneers, Jaguars and Titans, the Atlanta redux was tastefully done.

I still don't see how this is considered terrible Compared to this So much cleaner. The Falcons uniforms are not traditional, but they are a massive improvement over the generic piped out Reebok set they had before. New uniforms are simple and brand centric. You can't compare them with the Titans, which have a ton of flaws (logo on helmet has too many keylines, the dumb armpit inserts, the randomnness of the floating inserts on the pants). Both the Falcons and Jets have good, contemporary uniforms -- the issues only come from when they wear combinations that don't look good, which is a mistake even teams with traditional uniforms can make.

The Pro Combat line was a bunch of uniforms that not only were designed poorly but were super gaudy and had strange details like the fat, truncated pant inserts, nonsensical armpit inserts, and the flywire. They were anything but "elite." I don't need Nike doing another batch of this, I need the Nike schools to make uniform decisions that make sense. When I think of where most are at in general, the trend is traditional: UGA & LSU have gone from custom font to block, Tennessee switched from the checkered-stripes back to traditional, Clemson's uniforms should not be touched in their current state, USC's only tweak has been the really nice pewter facemask. I could go on and on, but just like with the NFL (Browns, Bucs, Jaguars, etc), there's been a trend of teams basically telling the Nike creatives to sit down and taking back the autonomy over their identity. I don't want to see that change. I'm all for new stuff, I love it, but time and time again Nike has proven it can't be handed off a project without spewing out something that's overdesigned and clearly more of a canvas for them to highlight their own "technology" as opposed to designing something that looks good

This is interesting. We also got color vs. color with the Broncos vs. Cleveland in 2020 and last season against the Buccaneers. More proof the NFL's uniform standards are crap. It would be so much better if we could scrap the "league wide rules" if the trade off was having actual collaboration and thoughtfulness behind uniform matchups between equipment managers on a weekly basis

As someone who has a taste for both traditional uniforms and contemporary ones, the Washington white jerseys grew on me seeing them in action today. They're very different, but I like the diamond pattern. I will get run off the boards for saying this, but if they had a black facemask I would dare to say the helmet and jersey could gel together and work. The biggest issue I have is the same issue I have with the rest of the league -- the plain white pants, white socks/leggins, and white shoes. We don't have uniforms in the NFL anymore, we just have "colorways" that are half the time "ICY WHITE" and apparently the players and young people like it. Give me a black facemask and burgundy pants and I would actually sign off on that uniform with the current white jersey for the Commanders.

The NFL has got to get collaboration behind these schedules, but it also simply baffles me the people in charge at these individual teams don’t think more about what they’re doing. Atlanta is scheduled to wear white at LAR while the Rams will be in bone. How will that work? Also saw Washington is wearing black against Atlanta. Why? Another random observation is Atlanta will be in white for every road game. That’s super rare considering the Saints and Bucs are in their division. Atlanta also wore white at home once the last two seasons but won’t this year.

SOOOO GOOD. Just take off the TV numbers, they aren't required and would let the actual design breathe.

I had heard from a few people connected to the team that that was the plan, including the original concept by Nike. Whether that actually happens is anybody's guess.

The funny thing about this is people will buy these jerseys like hot cakes, because yes, they look good... ...but also they'll likely get stopped places from people saying "Go Bills!" There's nothing on the jerseys to differentiate these from the Bills jerseys of that era other than the block font and stripe width being slightly diffeerent -- things the average person doesn't notice

Few people on these boards where I admire their personal taste more, especially based on your concepts which are always great, but to play devil's advocate -- where's the fun in only wearing what's been worn before? I am excited about what the two helmet system can bring to the table. The only one that just flat out makes no sense and doesn't look good, so far, is the Saints one. If the NFL -- and this is a big if -- actually enforces the rules around when these can be worn, it'll be fine. It's only an issue when teams like the Saints make just asinine decisions, like wearing a Seahawks-esque contemporary style with a throwback. Are teams still going to find a way to screw this up? Yes. Are "all non-throwback helmets" bad? Nah, so far we've gotten some fantastically complementary new pieces to teams uniform sets.

This is one of the rare occasions where a contemporary concept that we've seen on these boards multiple times was actually adopted in real life. I would have expected them to mess it up by putting a key-line around the logo, or using a nonsensical logo sticker like the Saints did down the middle, but the Panthers didn't overthink this and unveiled a phenomenal lid. I wonder if this was why last year they designed the blue jerseys as home. Good call, these are really good

Alright, time for Georgia Tech to leave adidas. These are a downgrade. Yes, the previous uniforms weren't traditional, but they weren't gaudy either and most combinations looked good. These have major issues. Just b/c they are going back to a traditional look doesn't mean these are improved. The disagreement between the shiny gold material and the flat gold is just so atrocious, and I have no clue why the pant stripes are truncated. These are not good

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I see the white Bengals helmet and uniform (whether it's worn with the standard away set or the color rush uniform is brought back into the rotation) as more of a clean up of a bigger issue than it is enhancing their look. I get that Bengals fans have fantasized about white helmets even before the redesign last season, especially after college teams like Memphis showed what a white tiger stripe helmet could look like. But, to me, this new helmet is fixing an issue--for a game or two a season, it seems -- that is the fact their road jerseys don't have enough orange in them. I mean, this whole "icy white" fad with white socks is already my biggest pet peeve in football garb these days, but wearing an all-white and black uni just looks washed out to me. The bigger problem is the away jersey and the standard white pant they have are almost void of orange and obviously, as many pointed out last season, the road uniform doesn't look quite right unless they wear the black pants to add some color balance, since they have orange in them. Their same issues with color balancing even explains why they concocted the "Finding Nemo" alternate pants. They definitely went in the right direction with the simplified redesign, but I think they didn't quite run it through the filter enough before signing off. The white helmet looks more like a fix for an unbalanced white jersey than it does an enhancement. IDK, maybe I am jaded because I am so tired of all the "ICY WHITE SWAG" crap that has diluted football, especially in college. I prefer when away uniforms have color, which is totally possible even when the jersey base is white. Teams have just given up on that.