NFL 2023 Changes

[IceCap]

15 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

 

I don’t think I’ll ever understand the love that old Broncos D horse logo gets.

 

I'm not a Broncos fan but I absolutely prefer the D to the Cyber Horse. I'll explain it the best I can.

 

So I wasted most of my life up until very recently as a Chargers fan (the first year of my "official" Bucs fandom saw them win a Super Bowl, which was clearly a sign from the football gods that I'd made the right decision). 
As such I grew up despising the Broncos, but also kind of respecting them? Like how I HATE the Habs as a Leafs fan, but they're our oldest rivals. They can  themselves but also ok, it would be pretty boring without them. That's the sort of feeling I had towards the Broncos. 

 

Anyway that also came with a layer of AFL appreciation. And when you look at the original AFL/AFC teams... Denver feels like our Cowboys. They have a fanbase that's annoyingly larger than their home base. They're always promoted as a top team in prime time. It seems like people won't shut up about them even when they suck (Teebow anyone?) and they're an older, more traditional team in a western locale. 

Simply put? The Cyber Horse and Nike's futuristic-for-1997 redesign doesn't fit them in my opinion. It's too out there, too modern. Sure it'd fit if they were a 1997 expansion team, but they're not. 

 

I get the Super Bowl argument. I've seen Denver go 3-1 in Super Bowls in these uniforms/with this logo which is nothing to sneeze at. I get it. It just doesn't fit the "vibe" I get from the franchise though. The D/Horse, for all its awkwardness and association with face planting teams, does. 

[HOOVER]

9 hours ago, j'villejags said:

As a kid living 1,000 miles from Jacksonville, that was the first time I saw the Jaguars play. I thought they looked cool and adopted them as my team. 

Chiefs fan here but also an early 80’s baby - always have a soft spot in my heart for the Jags & Panthers; I think it’s a combination of them both being the first expansion teams I ever saw (I cool and alien experience as a kid), totally rad 90’s colors, and the big cat identities. 
 

My fiancée is a few years older, and there’s not a day that goes by that we don’t say to each other, “Can we just go back to the 80’s and 90’s?  

When I see the Panthers and Jags, I think it takes me back to that time a little bit, and that’s probably something all of us innately feel when thinking about our favorite teams as well.

[HOOVER]

9 hours ago, Cujo said:

 

Had Dan Reeves won JUST ONE championship this would be a totally different conversation.

 

I'm not saying there isn't solid tradition behind the D, but there's an even larger tradition behind the cyberhorse. You don't throw away unis you win three titles in. There was a reason they switched things up in '97. If the D meant anything at the time, Bowlen would've kept it. He didn't.

This doesn’t make the Cyberhorse Nike design better from a design standpoint one bit.  

Emotional/cultural?  Okay, I can buy that.  But from an objective design standpoint, the Nike redesign has aged horribly, while the previous uniform is still timeless and classic.

[FiddySicks]

28 minutes ago, HOOVER said:

But from an objective design standpoint, the Nike redesign has aged horribly, while the previous uniform is still timeless and classic.

I couldn’t disagree more. The current set still looks great, and the old set still looks hokey as all hell. There’s nothing “objective” at all about what you’re saying

[MJWalker45]

2 hours ago, DCarp1231 said:

The Nike logo not being flipped on the right sleeve of the ‘97 Broncos rebrand really irks me

They were simply copying the standard at the time, since Russell, Reebok and Puma all were set up in a way that they couldn't flip the logo around. 

9 hours ago, gothedistance said:

I thought Denver's current uniform was good when it was under Reebok. But with Nike it doesn't have the same charm. Same thing with other teams.

The problem was trying to keep that same design when templates were changing. It didn't really work with any of the Nike templates that were brought in from 2013. I don't know why they haven't moved away from that design since. 

[Cujo]

3 hours ago, dont care said:

Patriots didn't have an issue changing after 6 super bowls 

 

Again, not a full uniform rehaul like we're talking about Denver doing. The Pats' helmet is unchanged. Colors remain the same. Flying elvis is still around.  Lmk when they go back to their 1985 unis/logo full time. (Hint: they won't)

[Old School Fool]

2 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

Again, not a full uniform rehaul like we're talking about Denver doing. The Pats' helmet is unchanged. Colors remain the same. Flying elvis is still around.  Lmk when they go back to their 1985 unis/logo full time. (Hint: they won't)

 

Pat Patriot is pretty much an alternate logo for them at this point though.

[WSU151]

12 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

Again, not a full uniform rehaul like we're talking about Denver doing. The Pats' helmet is unchanged. Colors remain the same. Flying elvis is still around.  Lmk when they go back to their 1985 unis/logo full time. (Hint: they won't)

 

At the very least the Broncos should bring back the 80s orange unis as a permanent throwback. They’ll sell a billion of them (especially in that pesky 20-40 year old demo…blech what do they know) and allow the Broncos to keep the modern logo around for the regular set. 

[Cujo]

19 minutes ago, Old School Fool said:

Pat Patriot is pretty much an alternate logo for them at this point though.

 

As has the Broncos D when they dropped the Color Rash unis

 

  

14 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

At the very least the Broncos should bring back the 80s orange unis as a permanent throwback.

 

Those'll come before the Broncos even replace their current set.

 

 

When the Broncos do unveil new uniforms in the next few years, which is happening since ownership is putting out feelers to season ticket holders, the "D" along with their pre-96 unis will undoubtedly be a permanent alternate uniform (as the Pats and Bucs are doing). There's just too much tradition behind the Cyberhorse for it to be scrapped. Much like Flying Elvis, the logo is far from being a thing of beauty, but it's evolved into a symbol of excellence around the league. Cyberhorse will stay on and their custom round numbers will also remain to keep it from looking out of place. But they'll blend those elements with more traditional striping (RIP sidepanels) and replace navy blue with royal. That's what I would envision, or at least hope.

 

Something along these lines:

 

[WSU151]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

Denver feels like our Cowboys. They have a fanbase that's annoyingly larger than their home base. They're always promoted as a top team in prime time. It seems like people won't shut up about them even when they suck (Teebow anyone?) and they're an older, more traditional team in a western locale. 

 

This likely stems from overall competitiveness and success… I wouldn’t have guessed this but from 1977-2016 (40 seasons and doesn’t include a pretty good 9-5 ‘76 season), the Broncos had more regular season wins than any other team. They were 8-8 or better for around 80% of those seasons. Since then they’ve been awful but that’s another yarn lol

[ManillaToad]

5 hours ago, Old School Fool said:

The issue with rebranding though is that it's planned in advance so the Rockets ended up winning right after the look was greenlit. Whoops.

 

Same thing happened to the Rams in 2000

[dont care]

1 hour ago, Cujo said:

 

Again, not a full uniform rehaul like we're talking about Denver doing. The Pats' helmet is unchanged. Colors remain the same. Flying elvis is still around.  Lmk when they go back to their 1985 unis/logo full time. (Hint: they won't)

You serious? Everything about the patriots uniform changed but the helmet. How is that not a redesign. Even the color hierarchy changed. They went from a navy and silver team with red only being on some outlines and face mask, to a navy and red team with silver only being in the helmet. 

[Cujo]

14 minutes ago, dont care said:

You serious? Everything about the patriots uniform changed but the helmet. How is that not a redesign. Even the color hierarchy changed. They went from a navy and silver team with red only being on some outlines and face mask, to a navy and red team with silver only being in the helmet. 

 

New but similar uniforms =/= Complete overhaul

 

Please explain to me how i get a "U SERIOUZ?" if the logo, helmet and colors don't change? Elvis is still in the building and the uniforms remain navy with red and white trim. Some causals might not even realize there was a change.

[Bmac]

Perhaps we can utilize "redesign" vs "rebrand" to clarify the different changes.

 

Patriots redesigned their uniforms. Same branding, different execution.

 

Broncos and Buccaneers rebranded in the late 90's. New everything.

[MJD7]

10 minutes ago, Bmac said:

Perhaps we can utilize "redesign" vs "rebrand" to clarify the different changes.

 

Patriots redesigned their uniforms. Same branding, different execution.

 

Broncos and Buccaneers rebranded in the late 90's. New everything.

This pretty much exactly describes my general rule of thumb when it comes to uniform changes. 
 

Some rare changes toe the line a bit between “redesign” & “rebrand” though, the Twins being the most recent example. I personally consider theirs to be a “rebrand” since, even though they kept the same basic color scheme, every single logo & wordmark was updated & made consistent into one new “brand.”

 

Most other cases are pretty clear-cut, though, such as the 2020 Rams being a “rebrand” and the Cardinals’ new uniforms being a “redesign,” since they kept their logo, colors, & wordmarks.

[BBTV]

29 minutes ago, MJD7 said:

the Cardinals’ new uniforms being a “redesign,” since they kept their logo, colors, & wordmarks.

 

I'd put the Cardinals in the 'rebrand' category, not 'redesign'.  They're trying to tell a whole new story and convey a new image (mostly through all the Nike BS-speak) and (*sigh*) emphasize their (*kill me*) "bond with the state" (*just vomited*). 

 

Plus the 3d logo on the helmet represents that they're moving past trying to merge "classic" with "complete trash".  How well they did... well, that's debatable in the other thread.

 

 

[Cujo]

12 minutes ago, BBTV said:

I'd put the Cardinals in the 'rebrand' category, not 'redesign'.  They're trying to tell a whole new story and convey a new image (mostly through all the Nike BS-speak) and (*sigh*) emphasize their (*kill me*) "bond with the state" (*just vomited*). 

 

Plus the 3d logo on the helmet represents that they're moving past trying to merge "classic" with "complete trash".  How well they did... well, that's debatable in the other thread.

 

Same logo. Same helmet. Same colors. They got new uniforms but everything else is pretty much the same. I'm putting the Cards in the same "they tweaked the uni" category as the Patriots, or whatever y'all wanna call it.

[oldschoolvikings]

I want to see the Broncos dump the current look and go back to something inspired by their classic 70's/80's look because I personally feel like;

 

1. The old bright blue/orange uniform just feels more like what the Broncos "should" be wearing... for all the reasons @IceCap outlined above.  Like the San Diego Padres... no matter how many years had passed since they wore brown it didn't matter, they were always going to me a brown and gold team, and eventually they just had to admit it.

 

2.  Navy and orange is already owned by an NFL team (Chicago) and is overused across sports in general.

 

And 3.  That modern side-panel-and-pointed-stripes look was interesting 25 years ago, and spawned a hundred sad copy cats thru the early 2000's but it's been beyond tired for at least a decade. And doesn't look nearly as cohesive with the orange jersey as it did with the navy one.

 

I actually like the current logo just fine, but I'm unsure how it would work on a helmet with stripes, and I feel like the bright blue helmet needs some sort of stripe to align with the classic look.

 

As for the horse head not facing forward on the left side... personally, that never bothered me on the old helmet.  However, if you wanted to, you could probably flip the horse without flipping the D. (This is a concept I've been fiddling with.)

 

[IceCap]

As good a run as the Broncos had with the Cyber Horse 1) everything old is new again and 2) you can't stave that off with incompetence.

 

Denver won back to back Super Bowls in 1998 and 1999. Then they set the record for worst record for a defending champ in 2000 that stood until the Rams prolapsed in 2022. They won another when an all-time great defence carried the burnt out husk of Peyton Manning to a second title, but that was in 2015. It's been eight years and a parade of failed coaches and QBs, the last of which is on a team crippling contract if he can't turn his game around.

 

Sixteen years of nothing between 1999 and 2015. Eight more years of nothing since, and becoming the joke of the NFL thanks to Russell Wilson's LETS RIDE mantra and bad sandwich commercials. Sooner or later the ratio of bad football to good tips in the bad's favour. And then the classic brand, which is the opposite of the slick Cyber Horse/Nike panelled look, becomes appealing. 

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

 

 

That's nice tinkering, but man does it look awkward to me.  I think this is a case of overthinking it... even for us uni-nerds.