Bathysphere

I consider my prediction post to be at least half correct until the Panthers inevitably announce all-black full time. (You thought this was a wishlist??)

I come with no knife, as I did remember him saying at times that he was skeptical about the differences in the helmet and rumored color scheme. That just made it even harder for me to believe that it could possibly be real. It’s understandable that he wouldn’t have assumed not only that his words would have so much power but also that his readers would have so little reading comprehension as to take his word at gospel. Nobody acknowledged TruColor when he expressed skepticism in the rumors, just continued to speculate on how they would be really implemented because they were so obviously real. I even caught @oldschoolvikings implying it was real because TruColor said it was (last chance to say ‘sike,’ big dog). It just feels like a lapse in form for the boards on the whole. Again, not saying that anything TruColor has done is wrong. Just pointing out a rather seismic cause and effect.

With all due respect, this all utterly perplexes me. Youre a connected guy who has provided invaluable information, whether archival or new and noteworthy, to these boards across decades. Youre so deep in that, of course, you already saw the actual helmet that was to be unveiled: white with silver speckle, a silver face mask and the airbrushed normal Cardinal logo from the alt helmets in the normal Cardinal logo color scheme. All of which is very plausible based on what they’ve done before and recently. That’s just the TruColor power at work. Then, along comes Some Guy From Reddit, or, in this case, u/ISniffButts50. No credentials, no established credibility, hardly so much as an internet footprint whatsoever; just a guy who likes smelling rears and made a post telling Cardinals fans to wait to buy jerseys. He then goes on to describe then render the most schizo idea possible for the Cardinals to try to revive their tired brand: change their 100 year old color scheme that theyre literally named after to maroon, orange, and silver. Basically a rejected Virginia Tech pro combat alt from 2009. Probably the dumbest idea of all time. It was enough for you to go investigate, and somehow in this interaction, he relayed to you enough specific information for you to feel confident coming back here and saying “Yeah this might happen.” Even though youve already seen the real helmet which completely contradicted the entirety of what u/ISniffButts50 was telling you, yet those hex codes and “regional” color names that he gave were enough to make you consider that they could possibly put that helmet with a red and yellow cardinal on it with uniforms that look like that. That was all we knew before that he gave you, hex codes that anyone can look up to specific colors and color names that anyone with a little sly creativity could come up with. The gradient pants is news to us, which drives the idea even further into stupid hole. Which is just the thing: the whole idea was just so incomprehensibly stupid that I refused to believe for a second that an NFL team would destroy their brand on such a caliber. Nike has done some weird things, but there are some things that if you’ve been paying attention, you know they won’t mess with till the end of time. The Cardinals are a red and white team and they proved that final last night by committing to that for at least another five goes round the sun. It was absolutely surreal to just watch 100+ pages of pure discussion fly by assuming that the Cardinals were really going to do that, just because of your credibility when you took the plunge and semi-verified them. What’s truly crazy is that I’ve only posted here for ten years, and already I’ve seen a million incidents, like @IceCap said, of Some Guy On Reddit turning out to be full of complete horse:censored:. It just feels like it should’ve been a no brainer to dismiss him swiftly and completely for no other reason than that his credential was Reddit. I’ve felt that this entire time, yet felt like I was going insane reading page after page of maroon and orange fantasies when it was so obviously false. Just exhausting to even think about engaging with from what ultimately turned out to be the sane standpoint. Its like nobody’s been paying attention to how NFL teams actually carry their brands; all they can do is say “Nike bad” as though that justifies that they could actually do something as bad as what u/ISniffButts50 proposed. Guess what: they haven’t to date and they probably never will. I really don’t want to grill you for something like this since the difference in our legacies here speaks for itself. I just wanted to provide some context to this being probably the most bizarre two weeks I’ve experienced on here, and as a cautionary tale about the responsibility that comes with credibility. There is a lot that could have been avoided here by simply never ever believing “leaks” from Reddit.

Presented without further comment:

Im more than glad to see silver stick around. A uniform doesn’t have to be considered dated just because it doesnt look like it was designed either in the 1960s or 2030. The Bucs, Ravens, and Panthers carry on as vanguards of peak 90s design and Im all for it. It does make you wonder, though, how they plan to use silver going forward. They’ve really diminished its fabric usage, though insist on keeping it around for at least another five years despite seemingly giving themselves the chance to get rid of it. Wait. Oh god. They’re making all-black the primary, helmets and all. Nothing stated so far deconfirms it, and it’s the only thing left that could be exciting enough to hype up an unveil for at this point. Black-white-black-black for the aways. The ‘they should wear all-black to look just like panthers’ crowd ought to be stoked…

Right. How quickly we forget our history…

How could these possibly be missed in favor of the throwbacks that they are cheap replicas of?

This is the highest quality post in this thread since people started fantasizing about a crappy Va Tech alt becoming a 100-year old NFL team's primary home.

Is the helmet still confirmed to be some manner of white??

Just what every fan wants: to suddenly be told that all the shirts in their closet are now useless.

Shoutout to @DCarp1231 for being the first one to point out the Cards' dubiously uncanny header image from last training camp which featured a player wearing an ill-fitted #23 jersey with most of the current details obscured. I usually don't support this degree of social media detective bull, though this one just felt too good to not be smoke.

Hell, I would have even snatched up one of the generic ones by now to wear to games if they weren’t going in the hundreds on eBay. They’ve almost got a fauxback feel to them. And not all of them were generic either. Whoever made this one went to all of the effort to design a jersey that was basically lateral to the one revealed in terms of football jerseys with 90s basketball overdesign sensibilities. Such an insane piece. Would hate it on the field, but would offer up a kidney to anyone I saw walking around with one.

Wait, they made retail versions of these jerseys? Often in my vintage searches, I come across generically-designed jerseys with the lawsuit logo slapped onto them from that period, but I have *never* seen an actual reproduction of the original leaping cat jerseys on the market, in anyones collection, anywhere. I assumed that the only ones that existed were the ones from the original unveiling, probably buried in a box deep in Wayne Weaver’s closet. If there are retail copies out there though, that would be immediate white whale status.

The brand for the game is bigger than the league itself at this point, let alone the two conferences. This event is not made for football fans; its made for every man, woman, and child alive. I wouldn't be surprised if, out of the 100 million people worldwide who tune in, only a small percentage of them even know what the 'A' and 'N' even are supposed to mean at this point. To vast majority of viewers, it's just visual clutter on the field that leaves them spending more time thinking about what these mysterious markings are supposed to mean than about how sweet it would be to be sipping on an ice cold Bud Light or going for a smooth drive on some quality Bridgestone tires right about now. The brand is paramount, and clutter is bad for the brand, so they simplified.

Because they decided it would be their best look with their white jersey to represent them on a national scale. Im pretty sure they just see it as their “main” away look at this point, not the least reason because it’s reminiscent of the color rush. Last year, for their first playoff run with the set, they put their cards on the table and decided that WWB was their best choice on the road. I don’t think there has to be any voodoo involved for them to simply run back that same sentiment a year later. Idk, I think the recent climaxes in the mix and match era have just broken our brains to where we can’t see a team acting consistently with precedents that they have set for themselves without analyzing it as though they’re going out of their way to do so.

It’s not a coincidence because teams always lock into one home combo and one away combo for the playoffs. Awhile back, I combed through the playoff combos of all of the mix and match teams in the mix and match era, and there was only one instance of a team wearing more than one color of pants with the same jersey in the playoffs (the 2013 Saints wore white over black in the wildcard and white over gold in the divisional). Aside from that one exception, I’m confident in peddling my theory that teams must designate one home combo and one clash combo that are to be worn throughout the playoffs, and that the Rams would have worn white in Tampa if the Bucs wore red. That aside, I feel like I’m going insane seeing people argue that there’s any reason the Eagles would wear their greens for this game other than the fact that it’s their home jersey. They never wear white at home as it is. There was never a second thought within the organization as to which jersey they should wear and why. Superstition is an exception and usually makes actual sense when it happens. Here is every non-Cowboys example of WAH in the Super Bowl all time: -Bucs in LV (historical WAH precedent) -Pats in LII (6-0 in white then, 0-3 in not white) -Broncos in 50 (0-3 in orange, 2-0 in not orange then) -Steelers in XL (First 6th seed to ever make it, won all playoff games on the road) -Washington in XVII (historical WAH precedent) I think the only reason this becomes a discussion at all year in and year out is because it’s tough to have to go from having a dozen matchups per week to discuss throughout the season to having only one left before having to go through another dark age until next August (God help us if there isn’t a new uni reveal to tackle during that time). Sometimes, crazily enough, a matchup is just the home team’s home jersey versus the away team’s away jersey.

Alright, we get it. It’s black and white. Strangely, this is also the combo that they initially announced for their game at KC earlier in the season, but they wound up in black socks anyways, which is what I would have expected to be their preferred road look for the big stage.

No need.

Ah.

At 7:47, Pederson pretty much confirms teal jerseys with white pants, and also deconfirms my conspiracy about the poll. Only question now (which should be answered within the next few hours) is will they go with the white socks combo that they haven’t worn since week one? Or the teal socks version that they haven’t worn since last year? Or, perhaps, just maybe, the OG combo that hasn’t seen the field in TWO YEARS?? Should be a good matchup regardless of what pants the Chargers choose (please yellow though), if even a little bland should they go with white leggings.

Wait, I have a new theory. What if they intentionally rigged the poll because they knew they were gonna go with all teal anyways, but they’re gonna use the rest of the results of the poll to decide whether to wear black or teal socks with the black pants in the playoffs? Those tricky Jags.

On top of the issue of common fans having no taste, they just had to split the vote between their two teal over black combos, which I consider 1a and 1b in my book. Im sure there are a lot of fans like me who wish to see teal over black who also aren’t going to quibble too much over which socks they use with it. But when I voted, the poll sat at 42% for all-teal and 22% apiece for TBB and TBT. That’s 44% of fans who would at least like to see black pants regardless of the socks, yet they’re just gonna get eaten alive by the color rush since there’s no consensus on which sock is better. Good grief. EDIT: Now 40% for all teal, 24% for TBB, 22% for TBT. GO VOTE FOR TBB, BOYS.