Carolingian Steamroller

Any wagers on the color of socks/undershirts?

Looks like we are getting a grey uniform with pinstripes alla the Padres.

The Bears have their own shade of navy blue and its demonstrably darker than any other navy used in the league. For most the history of the NFL, they wear the only team to wear it. If they switched to Cubbie blue, they'd storm Halas Hall with pitchforks and torches.

The question for me is not the positives or negatives of grey (or powder blue) road uniforms per se, it's the use of a softball top (a jersey that's a different color from the pants) that I find troubling. To me, a baseball uniform (or at least your standard home/away) ideally has a radial symmetry with the jersey/pants being one color and the socks/undersleeves having a different color. I think it has something to do with how the jersey and pants in baseball traditionally being the same material with the cap, stirrups, and undersleeves being different. This is also why I'm not crazy about long pants or randomly colored (typically white) compression sleeves.

The late 80's - 00's Twins had the same split of the Twins mark at home and arched Minnesota on the road.

This goes hand in hand with the road look. Arguably the latter road uniform (with red socks and numbers) was more distinctive and more "Falcons" than the earlier black focused version even if maybe it didn't work quite as well with the black home jersey (at least for me).

Did you prefer the original striping on the silver pants or the reversed later striping?

I would not be surprised if this was the actual home uniforms but with blue front numbers. The navy jersey appears similar to what the teasers have suggested. The big question remains pant shades. The Rays going with Columbia blue for a road jersey is nothing, what really counts is whether the pants will match. Recall that the Padres wanted to go full softball top on the road but MLB would not permit it and so the glorious sand pinstripes were cooked up at the last minute. Similarly, it wouldn't shock me if they opted for a navy blue jersey on the road but I would want to see matching pants.

My unpopular opinions is that this was better:

Would've been nice if the powder blue was just the road uniform.

Do we know there's even going to be a grey jersey for Minnesota?

In hand written script, the left minim of the "n" always starts at the top. It has to because the old pen nibs couldn't be pushed upwards on the page, you had to pull it downwards to get that shape. That's why letters that aren't linked cursive tend to have the little extra tab in the top left as a starting point for the down stroke:

But its not random. When the Twinkies did their rebrand in 1987, they chose that specific underlining to emphasize the WIN part of the team name. Minnesota had been a historically bad team and at the time it was seen as trying to push the club forward. Then they promptly won the World Series.

Technically the jersey collar is blue on black but I see what you mean. It might be worth it to do a *shudders* blackout version with the silver elements switched to blue and the interior blue stripes switched to black, maybe even going with plain blue numbers. Change everything that is white/silver to blue and everything blue to black.

I think the Panthers helmet would have looked better if it was a different finish. You get the phenomenon of the black edge of the logo being distinct from the rest of the helmet because the decal has a different finish from the helmet shell.

Look at the very top of this image. That looks like the edge of a sleeve patch:

One other idea would be to use the silver numbers with white outlining, something Air Force currently does to great effect (and using a similar blue):

You can even take this further by deepening the shade of blue and making the silver even more pale. That's how the OG Lions were able to get the necessary contrast. You can see from this photo, just how close the silver on the pants is to the Bears' white (also side note: Sayers with a white facemask). The sleeve treatments and numbers look almost white. I actually think think the shiny Oregon style numbers would work better with the flat finish fabrics that are used today, providing even more contrast.

Actually, if Nike would like to get a little creative with reflective fabrics, the Lions might be a good place for that. Imagine this but instead of green and yellow, Honolulu blue and silver: Aaaand maybe a chrome helmet.

Not exactly. We don't really have the league involved beyond big picture stuff. We have a single uniform manufacturer but that's not so different from the days when 2 or 3 companies did everything. The individual team promotions departments have a lot of the power and its rare that one of them goes to Nike and says "go crazy." So much of the Cowboys/Lions similarities stem from teams in the 60's working from more or less the same tool set. The three stripe pattern became more or less the standard for pants in the mid-60's. In 1964, only Washington and Los Angeles a different pattern and on the Steelers. With helmets, of the teams wearing stripes, 5 had three stripes with 3 with one stripe. The Cowboys started with very obvious metallic blue helmets and pants and the Lions used a very, very pale silver that contrasted with a much deeper blue. By 1968, the two teams already looked very similar. As time went on, the Cowboys veered into a much more silver metallic shade, you can only really see the original color on the helmet. The Lions switched to white numbers as well. I think I like the idea of the Lions distinguishing themselves against Dallas by wearing Honolulu blue pants with white jerseys in the unlilkely incident the Cowboys opt for navy blue and making sure the blue jersey always has silver numbers. They could go a step further by making the silver extra pale. Much lighter than the current shade, which would have the added bonus of showing more contrast against the blue jersey.

Good day for the Chargers to go white over white.

I'd still want silver numbers. So for me, I'd reverse the white and silver there. Remember that the 90's set was tweaked version of the 70's set which had silver numbers:

People are going to hate me for this but: This came very close to greatness. Here me out. We have the updated logo and a tri-color design ordering is consistent across every element except the home jersey (black on the outside, followed by the lightest non-background color, with the interior color the middle ground [silver/blue]). The black really creates a sharp line against the silver on the helmet/pants and the Honolulu blue on the home jersey that helps it stand out. The helmet stripes are way too narrow but in an interesting way. I think with a slightly better number font that matched and silver numbers on the home uniform, this might be a winner. The Lions also made the playoffs multiple time wearing this. That having been said, I do like their current set because I think it successfully cleaned up some of the issues with the old set, namely making the helmet stripes a more reasonable width and opting for a silver facemask. I think a happy medium would be to swap the black for the interior most color (silver on the blue jersey / blue on the helmet, pants, and away jersey).

See it more as 1910's fashion coming back.

God I love that uniform. This team belongs in all black with pinstripes. They had a win streak this past season wearing it at home and I was hoping they'd just wear it for every game, home and away.