Carolingian Steamroller

Taking up the subject of alternate helmets, I have to issue a correction to an earlier post. The Cardinals were not the last team to employ a non-throwback alternate helmet in 1957. The Eagles wore both a white helmet with green wings and a green helmet with white wings in 1969. So a 2 helmet aesthetic, while not seen in 50 years is not without precedent in the Super Bowl era.

It would be interesting to see. For now I'm just talking minimal tweaks to the current aesthetic, which happens to already include true silver in the logo and the helmet. Might be interesting to try and track the relative place of silver in the Eagles look since their inception. It's risen, fallen, and risen again.

If we're being honest though what's keeping the midnight from feeling bright is that they don't use a true silver in the uniform (unlike the logo), they use more of a charcoal. Swap that for a true silver and the light switch gets flipped.

I'd prefer the current set to this and I've not been a fan of double-green concepts for the Eagles. As a general rule, I don't like it when teams try to split the difference between two different historical aesthetics. This was a complaint I had about the Brewers before their 2020 redesign. I much prefer when a team commits to a theme and rolls with it. For example look at the Chargers pre and post 2020. They made about as good an effort at combining the navy blue and powder blue era as they could but increasingly it looked to me like they couldn't quite nail it. The 2020 redesign completely changed that and (two alternates aside) the Chargers have been committed to powder blue and gold to G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S effect. If the Eagles want to use Kelly green, great just make it the primary color. If they want to stick with midnight, that's good too, there's nothing really wrong with their current look and I'm sure lots of fans have a strong emotional connection.

Some of the first looks at the new Royals in action. https://twitter.com/Royals/status/1504906793570295812

While I disagree on the placket piping for the Mets black jersey (I happen to really like it), I agree wholeheartedly that occasionally breaking the rules to make something look right is the way to go. That's why I prefer the navy on navy version of the Braves road alternate while breaks several of my cardinal rules of design but I always was attracted to regardless.

Also the Guardians winged double-G logo on the sleeve is just outstanding.

I kind of want to see the NOB in mono-color (plain blue or plain white) just as a way to distinguish it from the stylized fonts. By having it in the same color schema (red outlined in white), my eyes want to see the NOB and the number as being the same font, even though they aren't. If I were to make a suggestion, it would be to scrap the outlined lettering for a more plain design to highlight that it is different.

Something about the blue over bone clicked for me the last time I saw it. I have no idea why but something clicked.

The Bears were ranked as #1 in Uni-Watch's original 2014 NFL Power Rankings.

I'd be very curious to see the Niners wear their 94 Fauxbacks with their gold pants. They tried to do that with their '96 rebrand (well technically when they added gold pants in '98) but I think the extra gold outlines on the numbers, the logo and shadows on the sleeves muddled things up too much. Just wearing the plain black shadowed numbers with the simple red jersey with their tan/gold pants with red/white stripes would be a good look. *whispers* also gold facemask....

Ah, see I don’t want the Eagles to use Kelly green as an alternate. For me, it should be Kelly green all the way or nothing. I think it would be cool if they went with the 1990 uniforms (Kelly green with silver wings, green jerseys, silver pants) as their full time home uniform and the 1970 uniforms (white helmet with green wings, white jersey/pants) as their full time road uniform. Swapping out the jersey only when they either wear white at home or play a team that wears white at home.

Forgot about the Jets. Though I suppose that's more of a throwback look than a straight alternate.

I recommend a white helmet with white uniform for exactly two teams on that list. One of which already wore that look: The other was part of the team's initial aesthetic. Indeed I'm also recommending colored helmets for otherwise white capped teams (Bills/Cardinals) and in the Cardinals case, explicitly moving away from an all white uniform.

I don't care for this argument. Primary because I don't think a team having one particular helmet for a long time means that its reached an evolutionary end point. Especially when it comes to helmets because the single helmet aesthetic really only came into being in 1950's and 1960's. The Cardinals used a white helmet for home and red helmets on the road as recently as 1957. We accept different helmets for home and away in hockey without even thinking about it. So here's my list of teams that could benefit from an alternate (non-throwback) helmet design: Eagles: White helmets with green wings with the all white uniform Commanders: Gold helmets with burgundy "W" Carolina: Black helmets with the blue over black uniform Falcons: Red helmets for division games Rams: Same shell but bring the white horns/facemask back with a plain royal/white uniform Cardinals: Red helmet for road games (also powder blue or sand road uniforms) Seattle: Grey paired with grey pants Bills: Red for division games Jaguars: Gold Texans: White helmet with solid white uniform Steelers: Gold helmet when wearing the color rush Ravens: Purple for games against the Steelers Raiders: Black helmet one day a year A few things stick out to me about this list. Almost all of these teams have changed their uniforms at some point or another in the last 50 years. They aren't that many "iconic" NFL looks left. A lot of this is in keeping with the current aesthetic or similar to past designs. My conclusion is that there's a lot of wiggle room when we look at alternate helmets.

I mean that term very broadly. Take the 2018-2019 Rams. Essentially they had two different aesthetics: white/navy and royal/gold. The horns and facemasks were different colors. A unifying element can be the helmet design or emblem or number font. In the case of the 2020 Rams, even though the jersey templates for home blue and road bone seem completely different, they're unified by the yellow stripe on the bone jersey matching the blue gap in the "horn" on the home jersey. They echo each other, even if they're not exactly the same. It's not a stretch to do that with helmets. Especially if its done right. If you compare the Bears home and away jerseys, the striping pattern is different. The home has three identical orange stripes with white trim while the road has three alternating solid blue and orange stripes. One could very easily change the color of the Bears road helmet to solid white (which they have done in the past) while maintaining the theme. I wouldn't do that because of my preferences for my team but I could see something like that technically working.

I'm going to disagree there. It's very possible for a team to have different template, color balances, even logos across their overall look. We see it all the time in hockey and baseball where it works well (just think about how many teams wear pinstripes at home but not on the road). I think it works quite well in football so long as you get some kind of unifying element (defined broadly). Think about how different the NY Giants home and away looks have been for the last decade and a half, and especially since the team switched to white britches at home. Its definitely possible if its done well and there are tons of examples of teams that have done it well.

According to the GUD, the Cardinals used a blue jersey as their "change" uniform for 20 years. It maybe nuts but that would be interesting to tap into. Sort of like the powder blue roads in baseball. Always wearing their cardinal jerseys unless they play another red team on the road would be an interesting idea.

I swear this is a Mandela Effect. I could've sworn that those pants had the two plain red stripes.

White facemask for the Vikings, please and thank you.

I am genuinely curious in the *how* and the *why* of this process. It would have been so easy to to a black/burgundy recolor of the home jersey, with burgundy replace gold and black replacing white. But that's not what happened. Instead we got a DC flag gradient pattern that's nowhere else in the entire brand identity.

Some but its pretty vague. The identity article mentions fans and focus groups but doesn't mention Nike. I keep looking at the shoulder cap on the away uniform. That's a very specific, intentional design. It's essentially a negative image of the home jersey stripes with empty space where the gold stripes are on the burgundy jersey but it also has the gradient pattern. There's a story there.

I'd be very curious to see how exactly the process played out. We know that some teams like to keep a tight clamp on the reigns and others will ask the designers to push the envelope. Have we gotten any articles about the process? Also, I'm absolutely certain we're going to see mixing and matching. For the Rams it was as clear as it could be that you weren't supposed to mix and match elements but that's exactly what the team did. Right away we should see burgundy over white, white over burgundy, white over black, and maybe black over white.

The Cardinals are a good example of how a design can change when the template changes. The 2006 version looked a quite a bit different than it does today. The angle on the shoulder yoke has changed. The pants pattern is a little different. The collar lacks the inner black piping. The white armpit inserts have different shapes. I've always had a theory that the original idea was to have a red, rounder shoulder yoke that extended to the sleeve cuff with the side panel being its own thing. The black trim is just extra. however, over time it just became a single insert.

It looks good. Just want to note its effectively a red/black version of the Houston Oilers.