MJD7

It’s funny how opinions are different; I think those changes make them look more like the “Cowboys” than the actual uniforms do…

I never said that Houston would or even should (in any sort of objective sense) get the Oilers back. I was simply suggesting what I would do from purely an aesthetic standpoint. It really was not that deep.

This is fair. My issue is more with the use of the sword inspiration from the beginning, I guess, and then the extension of it with the new redesign only exacerbated it. This is a fair point, too. Not to rehash the Oilers discussion, but my personal solution would be to make the Titans navy & athletic gold (harkening back to the New York Titans, recovering a color scheme that the Rams & Chargers both discarded, and connecting to the Nashville Predators). Meanwhile, Houston could have the Oilers back, and go back to light blue & red.

I agree that this seems to be the key of why the Titans redesign was so disappointing. Objectively speaking, I don’t think it’s a terrible uniform either, at worst it’s pretty boring with so much navy and gray. I don’t mind the number font, though, and even the sword motif isn’t anywhere near Bucs alarm-clock-numbers or Jags two-tone-helmet bad. However, It’s pretty impossible to separate the redesign from the knowledge that the Titans could have owned columbia blue. It’s one of my personal favorite colors, and one the Titans could have really made their own. It’s part of why the Chargers redesign was so beloved, that they finally embraced the powder blue (and gold) that made them unique, simplifying down to the core of their brand. Instead, the Titans elevated a boring double-silver that was nowhere to be seen in the previous color palette to essentially secondary colors, and columbia blue is barely visible on either of the primary jerseys. As I said at the start, it’s just disappointing, more than anything. I think the reason that the Rams (used to) work along with the Bengals where the Titans don’t is that the Rams and Bengals more directly and obviously represent their mascot, where “Titans” is more of an abstract concept that is difficult to design for, and one that doesn’t seem to be directly tied to swords in the public conscience. For Rutgers it makes more sense, since knights are more directly tied to swords. If the Titans leaned more into a Greek pattern motif, a la Michigan State, I would have probably enjoyed that. That’s part of why I like the number font, since it resembles Greek stenciling. Similarly, if the primary logo truly was originally inspired by Prometheus (the Titan who gave humans fire), that could have been interesting to delve further into as well. In essence, I think there were a lot of directions they could have gone that more clearly referenced the Greek Titans, but instead they embraced “swords,” which is a pretty uninspired choice, to me.

I think navy numbers look better on an orange Bears jersey than white numbers do.

The jerseys with the navy stripes on them are the Spring Training jerseys from 2015: I have no idea about the Rawlings variants without stripes, maybe they just didn’t have enough of the regular Majestic ones. Fun fact about that jersey: I believe they were worn once or twice in the regular season, prompted by Torii Hunter in order to turn around a losing streak at the time. I believe he did something similar during his first stint with the team in the early 2000’s.

I don't hate the flaming thumbtack logo. I don't necessarily like it, it's definitely not among the best NFL logos, and I'd absolutely rather see them try to come up with something better rather than just keep it around. I think it's still the best of the bad logos they've had though (I've never liked the sword T because of its warped perspective). I like the number font too, especially the thicker version on the columbia jerseys. This font the team used on social media around the time of the unveiling would have been really nice too, though:

I came to a similar conclusion for the Titans, as well: (I don’t say that to accuse you of copying at all, @PERRIN, if anything I think your rendering is better than mine. Rather, it’s to show how interesting it is that we both came up with similar and viable solutions to the Titan’s current uniform mess, while still retaining some of the ideas the team employed, but in a more restrained manner).

The single biggest missed opportunity of the Titans’ last redesign was not going with a light blue helmet. It could have looked beautiful and would have immediately set them apart from the rest of the NFL. Although I think UNC’s uniforms are perfect, for Tennessee I’d like them to keep a bit more navy in the color balance, because I think it’s still one of the best color schemes out there if balanced properly. I like the navy numbers for the Titans on the light blue & white jerseys, for example.

Going back to the Oilers would be such an upgrade for Houston over their mostly bland and uninspired “Texans” identity. Then again, anything would be an upgrade over the Titans’ current uniforms. I don’t really care who has the name, I just want a team to embrace light blue & red as a full-time color scheme & to use those classic Oilers stripes.

For me, when the announcement video came out, I honestly lost most any interest I had in this unveiling. I’m not normally this pessimistic, but after the sneak peeks and the supposed leak of the Commanders name, I’m not really expecting anything more than a generic militaristic identity that doesn’t hold a candle to the previous uniforms. I’m glad other people are excited and wanting to investigate into the details and leaks, but me, I’m not in any rush to get to February 2nd. Which is unusual, for sure, I’m always excited for new uniform unveilings.

This combo is the only thing that hasn’t grown on me with this new Falcons set. The Falcons are not a team that needs a white-out look. Black socks & accessories would greatly help this particular combo.

The burgundy jersey looks fine, although a definite departure from previous branding for Washington. The white jersey, though, looks like it could very well be disastrous. Whatever those gradient squares are, I don’t wanna know. The inclusion of black doesn’t look promising, either. I’m holding out hope that the name will end up being Redtails, I like that better than any of the options that seem to be finalists. They showed a lot of concept art with that name; that seems to suggest that it made it at least close to the final stages. Something hog related such as Pigskins or Warthogs would be unique, too. Overall, I’m anticipating that I’m going to prefer nearly everything about their current “Football Team” identity over what they’re about to “launch.” As others have said, slap the current W logo on the helmet and bring some helmet stripes back, and they’ve already got a pretty nice uniform. No need to reinvent the wheel here, even though it seems like they’re going to try to do just that.

These are all great examples, Browns-Bengals might take the cake as not only being a matchup between two less-than-stellar uniforms, but also being an absolute eyesore to watch. It perfectly exemplifies my point in the 2021 NFL Matchups thread about the need for contrast. Jaguars-Titans is another great example of that; even though those particular combos are among each team’s best, the teal and the light blue just clash in a way that makes it tough to watch. Just out of curiosity, was that Bengals-Bucs game in the preseason? I don’t recall ever seeing them pair the white pants with the red jersey during that era, especially with the red “stripe.”

I’ve had a similar concept for the Jets, I think it would be a nice solution. Maybe you could try making the white stripe on the sleeve proportionally smaller and/or make the “spike” a little bigger, so it somewhat resembles the 80’s jet logo:

Yeah, the main reason the ASG gold worked where the Twins’ current shade doesn’t is that the the ASG gold was a significantly lighter shade, and didn’t muddle with the red as much. This is an old comparison I made: Regardless, I’ve resigned that the gold was a failed experiment for the Twins. Go back to either of the pinstripe eras (preferably the 60’s) or try something completely new, it doesn’t matter. The gold just needs to go away.

All of the concepts have been great so far, I just have one suggestion for Texas: I don't think the orange looks "burnt" enough. I think that's been a criticism of the uniforms in real life as well lately, but I'd be curious to see you try a different shade for the Longhorns.

I feel like their current uniform is about halfway there. They’ve got the split blue & red striping, but the red brim on the cap would be an immediate improvement. I honestly don’t mind the current Western font either, I just wish they’d go back to it on the home, or even go back to the 80’s script. The current script is just as lifeless as can be.

@BBTV Fair enough. My point of that was to say that the actual colors of the uniforms and the designs of the jerseys mostly aren’t bad, I’d even say they’re visually appealing, especially the Titans’ columbia blue against the Jags’ gold. @throwuascenario put it nicely, pointing out that not only are the colors more bland in Rams-Cardinals (dishwater gray vs. black), but both uniforms are about as poorly designed as it gets. Those Broncos-Browns and Browns-Bucs games are definitely contenders, though.

I honestly didn’t hate any of these (colorblind issues notwithstanding), definitely not as much as Rams-Cardinals. If you give contrasting pants to any of those teams, I think they’re actually pretty nice color-vs.-color matchups.

This might have been discussed before, but @BBTV’s Best and Worst thread got me thinking, what are some of the worst uniform matchups of all-time in the NFL? I’m genuinely curious if anything can beat this: Comment below if you have an idea.

This is sort of off-topic, but I’ve always thought the “red version of the Texans” should be the Texans. Switching to red as the primary home jersey would do wonders for them, and I’d love to see them try red pants on the road, as well. I even think a red helmet would be interesting and could set them apart. The point is, I find the navy to be boring for them and brightening their brand up with some more red would really help.

I think either option would look great, honestly. I’d never thought of color vs. color for Ohio State vs. Michigan, but I think it would work beautifully. For my own unpopular opinion: I don’t mind black-out or white-out looks in football. Most of the time, wearing the primary combo is ideal, but I sometimes I like the look of the all-white or the all-black, especially in primetime, albeit used sparingly.

Although Tom Brady obviously didn’t have anything to do himself with Tampa’s uniform change, I could see how a return to a more traditional uniform and an immediate Super Bowl win might start a trend toward more traditional uniforms for other teams, especially those that “Nike-fied” themselves over the past few years. However, even if that were the case, we wouldn’t be seeing the effects of that yet, since they just won the Super Bowl less than a year ago, and it takes years to develop a uniform redesign. Plus, we’ve already seen a trend of returning to tradition even before the Bucs’ Super Bowl win, with Cleveland, New England, and Jacksonville all returning to more traditional looks as well. Here’s to hoping that a team like the Cardinals or maybe even the Titans follows suit.