gosioux76

I really like that Philly kit. I've never cared for the center placement of the crest. To me, it messed with the left-right balance between the crest and the Adidas logo. I know for a while they stacked the Adidas logo on top of the crest, but I thought that looked even worse.

This is so much better. SO MUCH better.

Take the helmets out of the equation and you could make the argument that these are uniforms for three different teams.

Portland, it seems, routinely comes closest to having bespoke kits as you can get in MLS, which I suspect has a lot to do with Adidas' North American soccer division located at its U.S. HQ in Portland.

You're probably right, but despite how nice it looks on the actual bird, I question how well it would pair with red as primary colors on a uniform. I could maybe see it working as a tertiary color, with white and red remaining the primaries. But even then, I fear it would be an unnecessary addition.

If this is all true, why use a different shade of green? Just create a kit that uses the fantastic bright green already in their color scheme? I get the general idea of change kits, and I appreciate when teams maintain a certain degree of consistency with them (Rose City Red for the Timbers, Arsenal in Yellow, etc.). But looking at this years MLS kits, it's become abundantly clear that someone, somewhere declared mint the 2022 trend color and everybody's jumping on the trendwagon. UPDATE: I could see how a bright green kit might clash with the Timbers, so a change kit using different colors would be necessary. But the point still stands: a green team choosing a lighter shade of green as its secondary seems silly.

I can see how it's close, but to be honest, it doesn't look fundamentally different from what they've always worn, color-wise anyway. It just goes from white to a slightly off-white. If the Cardinals go down the "desert gray" path, I fear they'd be inviting another "bone" situation.

That's a gorgeous-looking bird. However, I have my doubts that the colors would translate as well to a football uniform. I'm willing to be proven wrong.

I'm genuinely fascinated by the diverse array of ideas and thoughts on this board regarding the Cardinals, one of the most perplexing franchises in NFL history. It's tied for the status as the NFL's oldest franchise, yet it has one of its all-time worst winning percentages. Other than serving as a bookend to Kurt Warner's storybook career, it has to be among the league's most easy-to-forget franchises for people outside its core fan base. (Growing up in the '80s, they were one of those teams that only existed in the highlights. They only made the playoffs sparingly -- twice in the early 70s, before I was born, and just once in the '80s -- so I never saw them on TV.) So other than being really old, what legacy are they trying to build upon? This would seemingly make them a candidate for a complete soup-to-nuts overhaul. Yet for some reason, I can't help but want them to hew close to the clean and simple look of those largely forgettable '70s and '80s teams. It doesn't make sense, but there it is.

I agree that the Outlaws' addition of copper didn't work. While in OKC — much like a few other teams I mentioned — they unfortunately shared a color palette with Houston. They fixed that upon the move to Arizona by adding the copper pants, which only detracted from what was previously a really clean-looking uniform. They looked way better in Oklahoma. vs. And to clear, @heavybass, I never said the Wranglers logo was good, only that the Outlaws, on the whole, were a much better-looking team than they were as the Wranglers. I think the idea of the masked-bandit motif really works; it could easily be executed better with a more modern design. As for the love for the Wranglers, to each their own, I guess. But to me, a color palette that includes royal blue, bright yellow, red and copper (which comes off as a combination of dingy-meets-butterscotch) is the definition of garish. On top of that, they had a logo that looks like it belongs to a cheap steakhouse. I bet those cartoonish flames on the pants gave those steaks a nice sear, though.

I don't think any of these are untouchable, so in my mind it becomes a question as to degrees of change. Here's how I see it: SUBTLE UPGRADES Jacksonville Bulls: In my mind, only Michigan's immersive panther helmet can eclipse the charging bull that wraps around the helmet. The unusual blend of maroon/orange/silver/black is also a unique color combo. If anything, I could see subtle upgrades to this, much like we saw with the Seahawks logo a decade ago. Oakland Invaders: Another one of my favorite USFL helmets with a unique color combo. I've always liked how they found a new way to do a lightning-centric logo in a way that isn't a carbon copy of the Chargers. The fist might come off as cartoonish, but I like the shape of the overall logo -- a circle, but with elements that are allowed to break out of it. Like the Bulls, I'd be OK with modern tweaks to this. MORE-INVOLVED UPGRADES Pittsburgh Maulers: I love the Maulers colors, but was never enamored with the use of the hammering steelworker as the primary mark. In addition to modernizing it, I'd shift it to secondary status. I'd replace it with something closer to what the new USFL did as a secondary mark: a keystone with crossed hammers within. Tampa Bay Bandits/ Birmingham Stallions/ Philadelphia Stars/ Memphis Showboats: I've lumped all these together because they all suffer from the same issue. The Bandits/Showboats and Stars/Stallions need more color separation. I'd suggest, based on their relative levels of success, that the Bandits and Stars retain their current colors while the Showboats and Stallions eventually adopt a more unique color palette. As for logos, I've never been impressed by the variations on horses that the Bandits and Stallions used. I'd be open for something new. And I've said this before, but the Stars logo is terrible. I don't know if there's shape more easily identifiable than a star, yet the original Stars felt the need to shoehorn their name onto the primary/helmet logo. I'd prefer something that features the cascading stars (without the word) more prominently, perhaps even building from the back of the helmet toward the front. The Showboats logo is clever, but could stand for a touchup. COMPLETE OVERHAUL Arizona Wranglers: I've never cared for this look, from the color scheme to the copper helmets to the poorly rendered branding iron that makes their logo. They. looked much better during that period when they were the Arizona Outlaws. If the idea is to stick to the Wranglers name, I'd start all over -- colors and all. LA Express: I've always thought this was the least-inspired look in the entirety of the USFL. They took a bland color scheme and character-less font and tried to attached the Lakers motion lines to it. It just doesn't work. Another candidate to start over with.

I don't know -- maybe this is just the old-timer in me starting to emerge, but I still think this is one of the nicest and most unappreciated looks in the history of the league. I think the Cardinals can become a team that embraces white to its fullest. I didn't even mind the plain, red nature of the old home uniforms. An update inspired by this would be fantastic.

It's a real missed opportunity if we don't call it Dzingas.

It might have just been from that singular season, though. They wore white jerseys in Super Bowl XXI and XXIV, and I didn't notice them in either of those games, so it could also be limited only to orange jerseys. I might have to look into the AFC championship games in Cleveland in '86 and '87 to see if they both have this.

I just rewatched this Super Bowl on YouTube and came on here to ask this same question. There are probably a dozen different linemen on that Broncos (1987 season) team who are missing the white sleeve stripes in that game. I suspect it has something to do with linemen and their preference for shortening the length of their sleeves, much like we see today in modern-day uniforms. If you look at players in the skill positions in the picture below, the sleeves are much longer, with plenty of room for all the stripes and numbers. But No. 62 has the modified sleeves. The Broncos must have found a workaround by the time they made the Super Bowl following the 1989 season, because I don't see the sleeve variance in that game.

I was just coming on here to say this. I don't know that I'd call it perfect, but in a sports world with so many different variations of the cardinal, the logo used by the NFL Cardinals is easily identifiable as theirs and only theirs. You don't want a redesign that could effectively dilute brand recognition. I could easily see someone confusing this for the similar, cartoon-inspired renderings used by Louisville or Illinois State.

Or they think it's improved. I love the fact that the St. Paul Saints are now the Twins' AAA club. I also used to live next to a short-season Single A club, the Hillsboro Hops, that moved up to High A. If I still lived there, which I don't, that would have been a huge upgrade. .

To each their own, of course, but other than for the unnecessary BFBS, this is the type of uniform I'd have preferred from Washington. I don't consider a simplified, clean update to be boring. The opposite of "boring, college-style" in the modern NFL usually gets us to what the Cardinals, 2000s Bengals or 2010s Jaguars were donning. This concept not only brings with it simplicity, but you can almost trace the direct lineage back to the Billy Kilmer-era teams of the '70s. Considering the challenge of this branding exercise — creating a new identity for a team with a long and storied history — a look like this would've threaded that needle.

Not only that, but there's also the question of production efficiency. It would seem much more reasonable to produce one-off uniforms for an entire team (or simply use their regular game uniforms) than it would be to create a dozen or so one-offs for individual players. On top of that, you have to consider the production timelines. We only learned the all-star starters a few weeks ago, and I don't think the full roster was known until last week. Even if they prepped designs for every team in advance, that sort of turnaround seems like a tall order.

St. Louis CITY SC this year will field a team in the MLS Next League a year ahead of its first team taking the field. Today, the organization released its first MLS Next roster. But within the release, they also released a new brand mark for the lower-league team, taking cues from many of their MLS predecessors. You can see its new logo in the upper right.

You're absolutely right that the Rooney Rule is flawed. It also translates down to how teams communicate with sports media. Maybe it's always been this way and I never noticed it, but this off-season it seems like the teams are releasing a lot more information on who they're interviewing, or they're freely leaking it to sports media. Basically, it's like they're showing their Rooney Rule receipts. I've followed the Vikings closely, and the list of candidates receiving one interview was remarkably diverse. The list of four finalists came down to two black and two white. At that point, it all looks good. So before any hirings get announced, as consumers of sports news, we're left to believe that teams are choosing from a robust and diverse pool of candidates. But so far, eight of the nine openings have been filled or appear close to being filled, with Lovie Smith as the lone black candidate to be in line for a job. (The Saints have yet to announce a hire.) If anything, it's an outcome like this that gives more credence to Flores' claims than the actual incidents outlined in his lawsuit. Even if teams truly believe they hired the right people for their jobs, which is fair, at a macro level — where you compare the hired coaches with the pool of interviewees — you can easily see how someone would be left with the impression that there's some level of racism at play. And if not racism, an extreme injustice of another level.

This looks great ... right until it's ruined by the teal/gray and red all-star game uniforms that will look completely out of place on this court.

I just saw that. It wasn't so much that he walked back the comments, but when asked about them directly on a national platform it became clear that his circumstance was nothing at all like Brian Flores'. In other words, there's a difference between being paid to tank (Flores) and being paid to lead an intentionally weak roster (Jackson).

I thought this was clear, but maybe not: I wasn't suggesting this as a modern-vs-classic issue. I'm suggesting that this could easily become the latest example of a recurring theme of terrible new looks being replaced by iterations of traditional ones. And as such, perhaps that is the best we can hope for anymore from this league. I'm not even sure I'd consider this Commanders look "modern" in the sense that the Seahawks or others might be. But you can easily envision a situation playing out in which, somewhere down the road, some new owner looks back at the team's rich history and say, "we need to look more like that." That would be an ideal outcome.

It's kind of funny to think about, but I bet it won't be long before we see this return as a retro kit.