8BW14

Doing my duty as a member here and posting my “fix” of the Cardinals new uniforms. I should be working but I spent the morning throwing this together. 
Top 5 issues (in no particular order) with Arizona’s new uniforms:

duct tape silver…WTF

plain red pants

huge ARIZONA

Black uniform

Monochrome primary uni combos

I did update the logo a little bit, just because. Silver trim is replaced with a “desert Cardinal” warm gray color. If they were gonna add a color I think this makes more sense than shiny duct tape silver. All of the pants have double stripes now as well. The biggest leap is the gray alternate with the oversized feather tuft graphic. Black is boring and played out so I stepped outside the box a little bit with the gray alternate. I’d love to get your thoughts. Thanks for having a look.

I’d be less annoyed with the Cardinals new uniforms if they were totally and irredeemably bad, like full of gradients or some other bs gimmick. I could just write those off as being sucky and move on, but they came so close in so many ways but still missed the goal pretty badly IMO. There are just so many odd decisions made. The shiny silver :censored: is the biggest head scratcher for me. Why not just make it black? Silver doesn’t really fit. Hell, even a sandy gray/brown desert cardinal color makes more sense. The red pants are desperate for a double stripe and ARIZONA is waaayyyy too big. The BFBS uniform is tired and boring. Going with the desert cardinal theme for the alternate would have at least been more interesting. Simple can be great when it’s thoughtful and deliberate. The Cardinals are simply boring. 

I don’t understand how it always happens…you can see how they started down the right track and then it just veered off into the woods. This reminds me a lot of the falcons. The gist is there but there are just so many WTF decisions in the details.

kinda like the helmet though

Boooo…the silver trim sucks ass. ARIZONA. Really? They’re not the absolute train wreck I was expecting, but they feel uninspired and thoughtlessly simple.

Just now, heavybass said:

At least it'll be better than what they had.... and the 2000s can burn in the trashfire of history after today.

Famous last words. I’m expecting an absolute train wreck.

The Titans uniforms suck. The combos suck. The lack of light blue socks sucks. The pants “stripe” sucks. It’s all just so over though and undercooked. The navy helmet makes another outline on the logo necessary and it makes the logo at least look too small. The pit stains look like they said “oh :censored: we need more light blue” so they stuck it in under there. The dark numbers on the light blue jersey suck. I honestly can’t think of a single thing I like except for maybe the general shape of the yoke.

The Falcons are kind of in the same boat, but I do like some of what’s going on there. The number font doesn’t really bother me, neither does the side shadow. I really appreciate the simplicity of the white and black jerseys. The only parts I really don’t like are the silver face mask, helmet finish and the giant ATL on the jerseys, and of course the red gradient jersey. Like others have said, when the falcons wear the right combos with contrasting socks, it’s really not half bad. They just need some tweaks IMO. The Titans need to be blown up.

I actually quite like the Wazzu’s uniforms when the stick to crimson and gray, despite the starkness.

8 minutes ago, bowld said:

Cards current set is the worst in the league so regardless I expect this to be an upgrade

Never underestimate the power of the dark side. The black jerseys suck but the Titans are worse overall than the Cardinals. Frankly I’d put AZ above Washington based on what that replaced (logo/name nonwithstanding). I’m totally expecting Jaguars and Bucs level bad or worse.

The suspense is killing me…every time this thread gets a HOT tag it’s just everyone else taking about how the suspense is killing them. This can’t be good for my blood pressure

8 minutes ago, BBTV said:

The black pants don’t bug me at all. I think there’s a few teams that could go with dark pants with their light tops. It seems a little soft ballish at first, but i think that’ll fade pretty quickly. 
 

 

I’d have to disagree with that. Of the “non-standard” baseball uniforms, light over dark is by far the worst option, IMO. It has a very “slow pitch steroid bro” feel to me, especially with long, baggy pants. I don’t really like a colored top over white or gray pants, but it I can live with that. I do really like matching colored jerseys and pants though and shame on the Rockies and Dodgers for gutlessly abandoning their colored pants.

Do not like the white jersey over black pants. If there’s ever been a “softball” look, that would be it.

That Titans concept is great. I also really like the idea of double blue for Denver. I think their logo is one of the best, so that’s a downgrade for me but I wouldn’t be mad if they went this direction.

@mahnkej Thanks for the feedback. this is kinda the look I was going for with the “city” style muscle car alt:

This style of racing number is almost always black. That was my rationale for black in the alternate. I was designing it as a sort of Lions adjacent uniform, not necessarily in line with the primary brand. Maybe I need to go in another direction? I just didn’t want to retread a throwback or icky gray jersey.

As for the Jaguars, I messed around with gold trim on the jerseys/pants but I never came up with something I was happy with. I just don’t like the look when teal touches gold. I’ll mess around with it a little bit more.

Hopefully the Panthers stripe fix turns out more like the Texans than the Colts. If the stripes taper to a point, that will be great

A year later I be got couple tweaks for your viewing pleasure.  Starting with the Jaguars, I cleaned up the spots and ditched the lighter gold shade in the logo. The uniforms are largely the same, save for the addition of the logo on the pants and an outline on the numbers. I really like the simple contemporary look the Jags have, but I think my tweaks take it over the top.

Next up in Big Cat Country is the Detroit Lions.  Obviously the colors are great, and I like the meat of their uniforms but the double gray is muddy and the italic numbers aren’t substantial enough for a football uniform. I added some white into the stripes, ditched the white pants and the gray alt. I don’t really love the blue pants but I kept them around because most people around here seem to like them. I took a chance in the alternate, with a muscle car/racing theme. 

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks for having a look!

Nice work. It’s definitely interesting. I do like the color scheme and I wouldn’t be very offended if the Cardinals did something like this, but I expect something far less tasteful with lots of drip that’s really .

Could it be we’re getting info about an alternate uniform? Do the new alternate “rules” allow for a “city connect”style alt? Those colors are very desert sunset/southwest, just a though.

7 hours ago, Kiltman said:

I think comparing the Cards to either of them is a stretch. Chiefs have maintained their AFL heritage look for most of their existence. The Steelers uniform became iconic with the success post merger. Colts and Raiders also in those tiers.

 

When did the Cardinals look ever move into that zone?

 

Beyond just like simplicity and retro vibes in a uniform are they really an iconic team look wise that is worth the ire? Especially since they ditched the design part of that. If you really want to look at success the times they’ve actually been relevant have been when they have additional colors in their scheme. Tan at the beginning, black and a bit of yellow in the last 18 years.

 

I totally get wanting to stick to the old, especially here where most people slant that way, but seems like an odd hill to die on when that simple just red and white uniform died almost two decades ago. And by a giant margin when it was what they wore they were one of the worst franchises in the league.

 

 

I don’t think they should change the color scheme  because I don’t think it will look good. If they did add yellow trim I would find it ugly because I don’t think red/black/gold/white is a particularly attractive color scheme and red/white/black has been their schtick for over 100 years.  Like I said, the uniforms design isn’t my issue, I’m saying it would be an odd choice to add another trim color to their uniforms out of the blue. In that sense it would be similar to the Chiefs putting black trim on their stripes or numbers.  I don’t care about their long history of being irrelevant losers. I don’t think putting yellow on the uniforms will look good. It’s hard to balance 4 colors on any football uniforms. I just want the Cardinals to look good. I think their best look is red/white, maybe with some

black trim. Doesn’t have to be “old” but I think simple is the way to go. I said before, they should look like the Jaguars in red and white, simple, but with some contemporary touches.

You can’t really say they used tan as a part of their color scheme in the past, everyone wore tan-colored canvas pants back in the day. They can sell all the yellow fan gear they want but it should keep itself to the Cardinal’s beak on the uniforms, IMO.  If they insist on adding/changing a color, I’d change that beak to tan or copper. I’m not anti-change. I’m anti-crappy football uniforms. It’s not that I think yellow belongs to the Chiefs. I just don’t think it looks good on the Cardinals in any of the thousands of concepts I’ve seen around the internet. I’m not dying on the “old is good, change is bad hill” I’m dying on the “I think it would look :censored:ty and be a mistake hill”

2 hours ago, Durden said:

 

The Chiefs and Steelers have mostly kept to tradition with their uniforms, so I have to reject your comparisons. The Cardinals don't have that tradition like the Chiefs and Steelers so I believe yellow would be fine as a complementary color since yellow is the color of the beak in the logo.

I'd have to see the uniforms with the yellow in them, but as of now I don't hate it.

Why? All three are professional football teams who have used the same logo/colors for decades. I’m  talking about adding a color that’s used in the logo that has no place in the actual uniforms. The cardinals have changed uniforms over the years, but the uniforms have always remained red/white with some black trim. There is precedent for updating/changing uniforms, but not for the colors. Adding colors to the uniforms isn’t the solution. If anything, subtracting a color is ( I’m talking about black).

If the Cardinals really are using yellow in their new uniforms I think that’s a huge mistake. It’s like the Chiefs adding black trim or the Steelers adding red or blue to their uniforms. The Cardinals don’t need anything besides red and white. I don’t even think they need the black trim but I can live with that.  Adding yellow would give the uniforms a very gimmicky/minor league feel IMO. I don’t know how to articulate how I feel other than to say it would be wrong and I don’t like it.

Yeah i always thought the former looked like a possessed beaver. The new logo is unremarkable in every way

I’d like to see the Cardinals look like the red and white version of Wazzu or the Jaguars, simple, but contemporary. I think the yoke on the white jersey is a salvageable idea if you want to have a little more going on with the white jersey. Maybe a copper or sand colored beak would be a nice local nod. I hope I’m wrong but I’m afraid we’ll get something less Jaguars/Bengals and more Titans/gradient helmet Jags…with LOTS of black.

shameless plug: (3 years old, don’t really love the sunburst anymore)

I’m so tired of matte football helmets, especially with gloss decals. It only works with black and it only works sometimes on black. Gloss or metallic are better 99% of the time

This seems like a really busch league level move on the surface. Fanatics retail stuff is garbage and they’re not an athletic uniform/equipment company. They’re a merch/retail company, with lower perceived quality than Nike Adidas or the big brands. I know all of these league uniform deals are merch/advertising programs at their core but this one isn’t even pretending to be anything else on the surface. Yuck

Blueboys, Illinois College NCAA division III. The nickname is in honor of students, alumni and faculty who fought for the Union in the Civil War.