Carolingian Steamroller

Horrible idea.

Given how slim and easy to heat seal or glue on, I'm a little surprised we don't see more sleeveless designs with patches. Probably incredibly fast with today's tech to just run a bunch of base layers or different lengths for players. I don't know how many they go through in a given season but they don't do a new one every game right?

The letter "J" in our alphabet is just a capitalized "I." In the Classical and Medieval periods, there was no distinction. Elongating and curving the bottom of the vertical was just a way to make it more distinctive when writing with a quill nib. In modern Italian, there isn't even a "J" in use except for loan words with the soft "Gi" or "Ge" being used to represent the J sound. It's why you see inscriptions in churches that say INRI over the crucifix (Iesus Nazerenus Rex Iudaeorum). It's also where we get the great gag in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. "Idiot! In Latin Jehovah begins with an "I"."

Deleted by author. Kinda needless.

Stares in Articles of Confederation.

One thing that's interesting is how different the wordmarks are. You get some teams where the mark is really short and tall so it fills the space well vertically but leaves a lot of horizontal space. You get marks like the old Eagles arched lettering that leaves negative space. I wonder if it might be an interesting idea to kinda do what Madden used to do which was use the teams regular home end zone designs. Maybe just ask them to apply a team color as the base but let the team greenskeepers have a go at it. With two different groups doing the end zones there's a slight chance of a "Who are the Chefs" moment but it would be cool to see the two clubs contrasted more directly.

1. I don't know if it's really 2 BPs but the Spring hats are out and the white/grey split might just be fashion. 2. Looks like trucker hat style on the back. Very vinyl feel. 3. To make it easier on the suppliers, Nike wants teams to limit their "regular" uniforms to 4 jerseys, not including 1 City Connect.

Wear it full time on the road. I like KC's road greys. I like all of their stuff that they brought in last year. But this would be such a bold move.

Not a terrible idea. Could work in the right context. We give a lot of leeway to the Astros Tequila Sunrise.

I think if there's going to a particular reorganizing of incentives with the 4+1 format its going to be in favor of making more substantive changes more frequently. I think recently teams have used the addition of new jerseys as a way to slow drip or beta test new ideas or designs. With adding a new jersey requiring the swapping out of an old one, that would means either a willingness to drop the old jersey or just opting for a full rebrand.

That was a weird year for the Cubs generally.

Remember when the Padres tried to go with only the brown over sand road uniform and MLB said "No you still need a clash kit for the road" so they cobbled together their AWESOME road pinstripes on the fly? Is that policy still in place?

Do you like the idea of the Cubs featuring red on the road but don't want to attract similarities to St. Louis? Well do I have a solution for you:

Do you really want the answer?

Yeah the throwback is a little more green than blue. I've come around on the current Dolphins set. It's quite nice with the white facemask. In particular, I like the white over white with teal socks. Maybe you could adopt the throwback colors, but that'd be about it.

I will reserve judgment until we do get new uniforms from the Texans but I will say this: Be careful what you wish for.

For the record, the Oilers were in Houston for 36 years and departed 26 years ago with the Texans arriving 20 years ago. I think part of the motivation (beyond pure nostalgia) is that the Oilers look, specifically the 1975-1996 look, achieved a degree of iconic status in its own time while the current Texans set has fallen more into the category of underappreciated modern classic. The Texans design, while very good has never reached the same appreciation (probably unfairly). I think the equivalent might be if the LA Chargers switched to a version of the navy blue color rush as their primary (unlikely but here me out). With an opening in the league color pallet, you might see San Diegans push for a new team featuring powder blue.* *I actually think if a team does move into San Diego, you'd be more likely to see navy or azul references to the Seau or Fouts era, since both of those uniforms really defined the team's time there.

Wasn't a reason some of us got interested in this racket was that we noticed the Cowboys have these mishmashed elements in their uniform? If the Cowboys just looked like K-State, there'd have been one less entry point to *gestures wildly* all of this. I don't think the Cowboys really need to be fixed (at least not the white uniforms). It's not consistent but it does tell a story.

There isn't a great solution because the flapping sleeve creates far too obvious a target for an opposing player to grab onto. This was especially true in the era of wider shoulder pads when there was a significant shelf to drape the sleeve over. Unless your arms were as inhumanly jacked as 90's comic characters, there was going to be loose fabric. In the 80's and 90's, that was usually solved by taking some string, folding the sleeve up and tying it off just above the bicep. This is what led to the elastic sleeve end, since player could roll their sleeves up and they would stay put without having to be tied. If there's an solution to adding space to jersey sleeves it in once again making them wrist or forearm length, like they were in the early days of football when shoulder pads were similar in size to the small ones we see today. Essentially turning football jerseys back into something like a hockey sweater. I don't think that's likely to happen, especially since players already have very different tastes on undershirt styles. But honestly, I don't mind. If anything we've reached an era where sleeve striping is practically in vogue with teams like the Browns and Lions heavily favoring wide stripes and the Patriots returning to UCLA stripes.

Personally, I loved a lot of the original facemasks.

Here's what the uniform looked like the year before, with stripes on the pants and teal numbers:

I think what really did it in was the shading on the sleeve stripes. You add that to outlining and drop shadow in three color numbers plus 5 stripes pant stripes (which don't match the helmet) and it just becomes too much clutter. If they went with plain mono color sleeve stripes or used the NW stripe from the pants alla the Lions of that era, they could've really had a look that stuck.

To be honest, I've always liked the idea of the Niners wearing the throwbacks full time and rotating the white and gold pants depending on the situation. (And wearing gold facemasks.)

Always this option...

They had settled into a really interesting blue/gold at home, blue/white on the road set up. I'm sure it was a pain to reapply the helmet decals week after week but it really was a unique and enjoyable example of bifurcated color palettes working for a team. There's an alternate history where they just roll with that strategy in 2020, clearing the road of gold and going with navy blue at home.