Blast_Brothers

I like the horns on the sleeves, if only because it feels like a natural evolution of the crescent wedges they had before. But it's only on two of the four jerseys, and putting it on the red helmet is overkill. The H-Town helmet is surprisingly not terrible - I think the finish gives it a significant lift. But the rest of the uniform just doesn't connect to it. Who sees a helmet with a two-toned blue H and designs a uniform with red and light blue accents? The thing I like the least is the lack of confidence. If the Texans really think that candy paint, blackletter, and bull horns are what connects with their fanbase, then those things should be on all the uniforms. I don't think the Broncos needed to put "5280" on every uniform of their new set, but at least they had the guts to full send it.

I can't get over how the Bronco head is all these flowing curves and then Nike said "let's put a really geometric/angular mountain design on the sleeve caps".

The Broncos remains unchanged.

The Broncos trade Russell Wilson just in time to steal the Seahawks' helmet stripe. Am I seeing a total lack of a front stripe? This is going to be weird. It makes me irrationally angry that the triangles get cut off at the edges of the decal. Surely it wouldn't be that hard to print the decal in such a way that it doesn't happen? The Saints alternate helmet is the same way, and for the life of me I can't understand why.

Scattered thoughts on the Lions: The color grading is a factor, but the white accents in the stripes really jump off the page. I like the effect, but I can see why other people would prefer the last set's color balance better. You don't realize how much a mediocre custom font drags down a set until it's replaced with block. Big improvement. Striping system is a success. Wish more of the pants had stripes - matching the stripes shouldn't be a problem. If the Bengals can have two sets of white pants then the Lions can have two sets of blue pants. Not sure how to feel about the blue facemasks. The blue being lighter than it was the last time they had them makes it look different. Not sure I would've gone for that glossy of a finish, either. At first I thought the silver pants were shinier, but I think it's just the lighting? Tough to say. Anyway, the reflective shade used on the jerseys looks great. The black uniform is unnecessary, but it's competently designed. I'm not going to bother hating it. I don't get the hate for the chest wordmarks. They're not obnoxiously large or anything - I'd rather they be this size than the tiny EAGLES mark that's debuting this year. I wish the blue jersey had one just to be consistent. And my thoughts on the Texans: There are many things that are obviously bad, but in spite of that, there are a few smaller details that are... just as bad. Why are there three shades of blue? Why is the star subtly different than the one in their primary logo? Why is it on the right of the H when it's on the left of the Texas flag? Why didn't they clean up that blob of red outline under the serif in the top-left corner? I'd be more willing to go along with this direction if it didn't feel like they flubbed the execution.

If the swoosh was in the horn, Nike would've made it white so it would be even easier to see.

Teams deciding which bottom feeder they're going to sit their stars against would make for comedy gold This ""solution"" was also thrown around when the schedule went to 17 games. It's not going to happen.

I feel like the Indiana outline would be better-served in the spot where the little 'B' currently is. Other than that, not bad.

My guess is that they wanted to keep those trademarks in active use, and didn't want to file new ones. I would say that it's related to brand equity... but unless they really promote each individual conference in advertising, it seems like they've already thrown that away.

I wouldn't mind if the NFL experimented with adding more divisional games. If each divisional opponent was played three times, that would be half of a hypothetical 18-game schedule. That feels like a little bit too much - maybe each year you only play one team three times. I dunno. Of course, this will never happen, because one of the advantages (from the NFL's perspective) of the extra game(s) is that there are more "unique matchups" to market.

The current set isn't awful in a vacuum, but: I will always prefer the Rams in yellow/gold pants, the gradients don't really do anything for me, and the bone is way too close to white to work when actual white is right next to it. It's the third-best uniform set in team history, and feels like it was designed (at least at first) to depart from team tradition as much as possible - new horns, less of the yellow pants, new numbers, new shades of yellow and blue, etc. For me it's less about the design itself and more about what the team could be wearing instead. So here's a hot take: put this design in red/white/bone on the Cardinals (replacing the ram horns with the Cards logo) and people would be a lot more forgiving of it.

The funny thing to me about the all-black or all-white uniforms is that they don't even accomplish their stated goal of being "special". It's hardly even a "trend" at this point; it's just the norm now. When 90% of football teams in the country have an all-white and an all-mono look... what's so special about yours?

I had always rationalized Tampa Bay's continued use of the new flag logo as "it's simpler, so it's better suited for digital/social media use", but seeing them side by side, I don't even really think that's the case. It's like they got rid of the weathered/textured look and then felt obligated to add visual noise back in somewhere else. But I think the worst thing the Bucs could do their brand would be to pull a Miami and get a full throwback set instated as alternates. I feel like the Dolphins only pull it off because their normal and throwback sets aren't radically different from each other.

I think a lot of throwback uniforms that debuted as part of Color Rush are in this weird place where some people see them primarily as a throwback and some see them more as a regular alternate. This Giants set falls into the first category for me, despite the Giants not having a navy shell to wear with it for the first couple years. So even though it's not an aesthetic improvement, I feel like navy is the right choice here.

Did some basic Googling and found out the company who owns last season's USFL is called "National Spring Football League Enterprises Co, LLC". (I think this is because the LLC predates Fox's purchase of the USFL trademark.) So the new trademark could be just for that, but they could also use it for the merged league. I'm still holding out for something like "USXFL" myself.

Poor guy looks like he's about to die of yellow fever

I think the Broncos wearing their white helmet with an all-blue uniform would be just as likely as them wearing it with a sensible combo in that situation. I don't think that's much of an improvement.

The helmet is fine. The uniform combo is not.

It feels vaguely Panthers-ish, which is probably a bad thing. Also, no black below the waist. Why? It's a C-tier uniform that I really don't think justifies it's own existence.

The blue stripe on blue helmet is especially bad. Do Lions fans have any nostalgia for this logo? This feels... forced. Like they wanted a throwback logo on a helmet but wanted something more obviously different than their previous one.

What bugs me most about the Panthers' black helmet combos is that the helmet stripe is the same base color as the pants stripe (and the jersey stripe with the black jerseys), but it doesn't have the outline. I feel like being a different color entirely is the only reason the stripe on the silver helmet sort of works with their normal home and away, and it technically also matches the blue jersey.

I'm going to miss these. The Texans added a red jersey after one year in existence, and then didn't touch the uniform (outside of adding more pants options) for thirteen more years. And they didn't need to do anything, because the uniforms were done. They didn't need any tweaks or adjustments, which we almost definitely won't be able to say about whatever comes after them. The color blocking is probably my favorite part. Across the whole set, the rules are simple - mostly navy and a lot of white, with splashes of red. Even though the numbers on the away jersey are red, everything else on the jersey is navy, and the all-navy helmet and navy pants (or white pants with a thick navy stripe) keep the hierarchy in place. But there's still enough red distributed around the uniform for the numbers to feel like they belong. Even the red jersey, which sort of breaks this rule, still has a lot of navy on and around it (so long as they stay away from the unnecessary red helmet). Most Texans concepts I've seen end up doing something with the helmet, but I actually really like it the way it is. They're [definitely not, whoops!] the only team with a navy helmet and navy facemask. And, the blank navy helmet feels especially connected to the blank navy socks they should be wearing most of the time. The navy-heavy logo isn't the best match for the helmet, but it comes with a thick white outline, which helps a lot. The sleeve inserts were unique to the NFL at the time (and to an extent they still are). And, because they're not technically a stripe, it doesn't feel weird that the pants stripe is different. It also further justifies not having a helmet stripe by being different from both the pants and helmet. The number font is extremely legible. It's not too thin and not too thick, and the angled cuts suggest the logo and sleeve inserts without sticking out. While many newer custom fonts feel 'square' or 'angular' with sharp edges, serifs, or cuts, the Texans' font feels smooth. Any team could've worn these uniforms, but only one team did, and (as far as I know) few teams ever copied their look wholesale. It became the 'Texans look', not because of the design itself, but because they wore the same design for so long. The designers kept things simple, and focused on making a good-looking uniform first, and something that fit Houston second. I appreciate that level of restraint. The new uniforms could be good. And, there's definitely a lot of room for them to connect to local culture, the Oilers, etc. But I just wish the new uniforms were replacing a set I liked less.

If you set aside the expectations of what a MLB uniform should look like, I think the design is pretty strong. The black pants, while odd, seem like an integral part of this set, tying together the other black elements of the uniform, and the black undershirt. Given that the City Connect designs have been untethered to the 'rules' of baseball uniforms from Day 1, I find it hard to really complain about this set.

For your consideration: I don't know. It's okay.

Shoutout to the new template pushing the wordmark down weirdly far on the chest