Tampa Bay Times Sports editorial: Save us from the Buccaneers’ hideous uniforms

[hettinger_rl]

Apparently the community (or at least the writer) can't stand the team's uniforms any longer.

 

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/bucs/2018/11/21/times-sports-editorial-save-us-from-the-buccaneers-hideous-uniforms/

 

By Times Staff Writer
Published November 21
Updated November 21
The Buccaneers might be content with the way they look on the football field, but we are not. It’s time for a historic change. Though the team doesn’t have plans to redesign its uniforms, it should reconsider immediately. They are not only an unflattering look on the players but also a stain on the Tampa Bay community.

When the team introduced new uniforms in 2014, it claimed they had been “energized” with richer and more vibrant colors. It called the look — which featured an angrier skull logo, a darker shade of pewter and reflective chrome embellishments — “revolutionary” and “technologically advanced.” The XFL knockoffs, however, have not invigorated the team and have come to symbolize the depths to which this moribund franchise has sunk. This toxic blend of bad football and an ugly visual identity has contributed to dismal merchandise sales nationwide. Fortunately for the Bucs, the NFL allows teams to make changes to their uniforms every five years. That means the Bucs soon can leave their costumes where they belong: in the smoldering ash of the 2018 season.

The first thing that needs to change is the names on the back of the jerseys. Get better ones.

The second thing: the numbers. No one looks at that typeface and thinks, “They remind me of historical Buccaneer blade carvings.” Instead, people make snooze button and “80085” calculator jokes.

As for the colors — red, orange, black, gray, pewter, white — there’s no need for that many. The color palette looks as if someone felt inspired after vacuuming Nana’s Persian rug. We recognize that the Bucs are trying to balance the tastes of their older fans who were raised on orange and their newer fans who were raised on pewter. We recommend, however, that the team scales back its palette. Choose no more than four colors. Pay homage with red, orange and white, or push forward with red, pewter and white. Embrace one combination; don’t try to do both.

The beauty of the Packers', Bears' and Giants' uniforms is that they’re simple. They don’t need reflective chrome or blinking lights. They say Green Bay, Chicago and New York. The Bucs’ uniforms say identity crisis. That’s what happens when you “collaborate” and take a design-by-committee approach.

We don’t come to this conclusion lightly and understand that others have learned to tolerate the terrible terribleness. We appreciate the Bucs’ effort to experiment and refresh a late-1990s design, but for the good of Tampa Bay, it is time to acknowledge defeat. To be sure, the team spent a lot of time, effort and money on its current look, but that’s no excuse for waiting to right a wrong. Consider the sensible changes teams in Florida have made recently. The Jaguars ditched their two-toned helmets. The Marlins ditched their apartment complex logo. Drive over the Howard Frankland bridge into St. Petersburg and watch the Rays. They’re proof that you don’t need to wear all the colors in the rainbow. (Just don’t trust their taste in typefaces. They stole theirs from a bag of Rold Gold pretzels.)

Fans have suffered enough. They deserve a better-looking product that is worthy of their hard-earned dollars. The Bucs should start by fixing their uniforms. In a lost season, that would be their biggest win.

[WSU151]

Keep red (jolly roger) and orange (classic Florida color). Pewter should be tertiary. 

 

The creamsicles were ok but could be improved upon. 

 

 

[FiddySicks]

The Bucs current uniforms are miserably bad and should be tossed in a furnace immediately. But there’s a better chance they’ll go closer to what they wore originally, which is the absolute worst idea they could have. 

 

The switch to their current trash from the Super Bowl era set was a downgrade all across the board and absolutely infuriates me because they’ll no doubt over correct and we’ll end up looking like a pastel Errol Flynn nightmare again. They shouldn’t have ever touched that set, and it depresses me because there’s no way they’ll ever wear it again (as much as I hope they do). 

 

As a Bucs fan, them ditching the last set actually kind of crushed a good chunk of the fandom I had for this dumbass team. 

[joekono]

I know it's unpopular to like Bucco Bruce, but the Buccaneers quickly made me forget about him with those 1997 beauties. I also am not one that like to tie a teams success with their uniforms(or the Los Angeles Kings would have been parading the cup around the ice in yellow uniforms) but  not only were those 97's nicely put together, they won the Bowl in them. Glad to see the push back on these abominations. 

[Gothamite]

16 hours ago, joekono said:

I know it's unpopular to like Bucco Bruce

 

Not all that unpopular, actually.

[The_Admiral]

Go back to the Bucco Bruce color palette and design a logo that doesn't make people go "LOL YOUR GAY," problem solved.

[Dilbert]

Ive never been a fan of the pewter. Id say focus on red and white with black and orange as an accent

[Matito]

Red, orange, and a touch of either black or pewter (not both) is all the team needs. You don't have to choose between the dainty Bucco Bruce or the unnecessarily aggressive current skull. There's a happy medium that isn't too soft or edgy.

[Sec19Row53]

44 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

Not all that unpopular, actually.

I thought the rest of the post you quoted was pretty nonsensical, frankly.

 

Winning doesn't matter, but they won in these [paraphrasing].

[msu]

I like their uniforms except for the numbers.

[Kaz]

If Nike can't make pewter pants anymore, then I'd like to see the Bucs in red with creamsicle accents.  Flat brown just isn't working for them

[daniel75]

Keep em they look great. Just wear your red socks with pewter pants dummies! Also winning helps.

[FiddySicks]

Y’all are absolutely killing me. 

 

If the pewter dies, so does my fandom. The original colors SUCKED, and NOBODY liked them until they were long gone. If you say otherwise you’re either misremembering or straight up lying. I’ve been a fan of this team since before the move to Raymond James and that look was absolutely, damn near universally, derided. This revisionist history people have about that set has always baffled me to no end. The current look is garbage, but I’d rather see a thousand years of alarm clock Jack Sparrow football then ever see that flamboyant Pirates of Penzance look return full time. The most memorable win in that set came in a throwback game with Josh :censored:ing Freeman throwing the ball. Stop it. 

 

At this point, that pewter color IS the Bucs. It represents every sliver of success this team has had. The original set only brings up nightmares of “Yucks” football and cheap ass Hugh Culverhouse mistakes. Sans Lee Roy Selmon and losing a 9-0 NFC title game to the Rams in a hurricane, it has no other good associations. 

 

Y’all are really making me feel some sort of way by trying to stomp out the last few vestiges of joy this idiot football team brings me. I SAID STOP IT NOW. 

 

 

Sigh. This is why I was built for a place like this.

[squamfan]

[nash61]

[Beer Barrel Man]

I think they should go with Orange, Red and White with maybe some Pewter accents. 

[Olmec]

Creamsicle FTW! 

[Pengin.]

I thought the last Bucs uniforms were one of the best in the league. And then they mucked it up with trying to over-modernized it. The new unis are the worst in the league. 

[mjd77]

I think orange/pewter with red accents could be a good combo.  I don't know if Nike can lighten the shade of pewter, but it is now too dark

[Gothamite]

18 minutes ago, mjd77 said:

I don't know if Nike can lighten the shade of pewter, but it is now too dark

 

Not all fabrics lend themselves to metallic colors. 

 

The old uniforms could do it because the fibers were bright and shiny, but these new matte fabrics really can’t.   You might as well ask the Gap for a metallic silver polo shirt.