NFL 2023 Changes

[henburg]

I definitely prefer Nike's matte finish fabric 9 out of 10 times to the Reebok dazzle fabric, but there are definite exceptions, and specifically teams with metallic colors have suffered since the switch. The Saints metallic gold becoming more of a khaki color immediately comes to mind for me.

[tBBP]

5 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

I would say Nike does most things better than Reebok, but I can't take anyone seriously who drinks the Nike kool-aid this completely.

 

And as for the handful of things that were better pre-Nike, I would submit...

 

This...

 

Over this...

 

 

And to be specific, the pewter hue itself—though, to be fair, a/ Wilson produced the original '97 uniforms, and b/ I believe the pewter was a custom swatch at the time which made it irritatingly difficult to match across certain media. All that said, yeah, the dark gray masquerading as pewter in the Nike reproductions may be easier to match across media, but is a definite downgrade from the previous pewter.

 

All that said, in certain instances I feel like the dazzle fabric "adds something"—and at any rate, I DEFINITELY miss metallic fabrics in the pants (looking at you Raiders, Saints, Niners, and yes, even you, Buccaneers). 

[HOOVER]

5 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

I would say Nike does most things better than Reebok, but I can't take anyone seriously who drinks the Nike kool-aid this completely.

 

And as for the handful of things that were better pre-Nike, I would submit...

 

This...

 

Over this...

 

I would submit that your argument is entirely subjective.

 

And I stopped drinking the Nike Kool-Aid years ago when their product no longer put food on my table.

[monkeypower]

15 hours ago, HOOVER said:

I can’t take anyone seriously who thinks Reebok did a better job with NFL uniforms than Nike, in any capacity.

 

Reebok did better with the Jets previous set than Nike did. Nike messed it up with the mismatching greens and the more pronounced shoulder cut out, which is because the Nike jersey was the Colts jersey with a coloured sleeve, so it added an extra white line that didn't need to be there.

 

 

The one improvement Nike made, I guess, would be the moving down of the logo onto the chest.

[GriffinM6]

In other news, the Steelers have been posting some media day pics and players are still in the Vapor Untouchable template. Not sure if that'll be the case during the season, but TJ Watt, George Pickens, and Pat Freiermuth are still wearing it. 

[IceCap]

17 hours ago, tBBP said:

And to be specific, the pewter hue itself—though, to be fair, a/ Wilson produced the original '97 uniforms, and b/ I believe the pewter was a custom swatch at the time which made it irritatingly difficult to match across certain media. All that said, yeah, the dark gray masquerading as pewter in the Nike reproductions may be easier to match across media, but is a definite downgrade from the previous pewter.

Nike's a victim of their own marketing here because they've spent so much time and effort convincing us all that they're on the cutting edge of athletic wear and athletic wear design. And it's like "ok why can't you replicate a colour Wilson managed to make in 1997?"

[DCarp1231]

I will die on the “Nike made the Eagles Midnight Green look better” hill

[IceCap]

17 hours ago, tBBP said:

All that said, in certain instances I feel like the dazzle fabric "adds something"—and at any rate, I DEFINITELY miss metallic fabrics in the pants (looking at you Raiders, Saints, Niners, and yes, even you, Buccaneers). 

Agreed. 
The whole "matte vs dazzle" stuff is pretty pointless because why can't we have both? The teams with metallic pants can use dazzle fabric and the teams that don't can't use matte. It seems like this Orwellian-esque double talk some people engage in to convince themselves flat grey is better than silver shouldn't be necessary. It just requires that Nike get out of the "one solution for everyone" mindset. 

 

2 minutes ago, DCarp1231 said:

I will die on the “Nike made the Eagles Midnight Green look better” hill

It was funny how they had to take a half a year longer to figure it out though. Or how the Eagles' kelly green throwbacks had to be delayed because Nike couldn't make them in time. Again, Nike being a victim of their own marketing. You can't present yourself as the pioneers of tomorrow's designs and technologies in the field and then turn around and go "green is hard." 

[The_Admiral]

It's especially vexing when it comes to the Raiders. They are supposed to be the Silver & Black and they can't even get silver right. Of course, the Raiders can't get anything right.

[upperV03]

11 hours ago, the admiral said:

It's especially vexing when it comes to the Raiders. They are supposed to be the Silver & Black and they can't even get silver right. Of course, the Raiders can't get anything right.

Huh? The Raiders still wear the ripon pants with dazzle fabric. They have since Nike took over the contract.

[DCarp1231]

18 minutes ago, upperV03 said:

Huh? The Raiders still wear the ripon pants with dazzle fabric. They have since Nike took over the contract.

Funny how that stuff works out. Packers are still using rippon jerseys. I wonder if they’ll ever be pressured into switching to Nike’s actual jerseys.

 

Teams have all the power to choose what to carry over. Probably more so because Nike doesn’t give a :censored: about the pants. Props to Las Vegas for doing just that.

[Sec19Row53]

30 minutes ago, DCarp1231 said:

Funny how that stuff works out. Packers are still using rippon jerseys. I wonder if they’ll ever be pressured into switching to Nike’s actual jerseys.

 

Teams have all the power to choose what to carry over. Probably more so because Nike doesn’t give a about the pants. Props to Las Vegas for doing just that.

Ripon. It's a city in Wisconsin.  The factory is located in Berlin (accent on the first syllable since WWII), not Ripon. I'm not sure I remembered that!

Will they be pressured to change? No. The fact that the jerseys that the Packers wear are made by Ripon is one of those niched things that only we care about. Maybe a few more people care/know about it since this is a local thing for the Packers, but it's still an insignificant number of people.

[MCM0313]

2 hours ago, DCarp1231 said:

Funny how that stuff works out. Packers are still using rippon jerseys. I wonder if they’ll ever be pressured into switching to Nike’s actual jerseys.

 

Teams have all the power to choose what to carry over. Probably more so because Nike doesn’t give a about the pants. Props to Las Vegas for doing just that.

Yep. Raiders and Cowboys insisted on continuing to wear metallic pants. Wish other teams with metallic colors had done the same. 

[MrAstrodome]

49ers, Saints, Bucs, hell the Pats were looking at you.

[GoGreenGoWhite]

The 49era are wearing the same pants they did during the Joe Montana era. They don't need dazzle 

[Old School Fool]

11 hours ago, upperV03 said:

Huh? The Raiders still wear the ripon pants with dazzle fabric. They have since Nike took over the contract.

 

I really don't like that the black jersey has a black outline on the numbers though, they started doing it a few years ago and it's pretty unnecessary.

 

[Lights Out]

On 7/2/2023 at 12:18 AM, monkeypower said:

 

Reebok did better with the Jets previous set than Nike did. Nike messed it up with the mismatching greens and the more pronounced shoulder cut out, which is because the Nike jersey was the Colts jersey with a coloured sleeve, so it added an extra white line that didn't need to be there.

 

 

The one improvement Nike made, I guess, would be the moving down of the logo onto the chest.

 

This feels like cherrypicking. Reebok did a better job with the QB cuts, I guess, but for many players, their jerseys didn't look any better than Nike's. Maybe the shade of green looked a little nicer, but they had the exact same problems with the stripes:

 

 

[SoxSteeler]

On 7/1/2023 at 4:04 PM, SoxSteeler said:

 

Nothing is perfect for the 66 jersey. It was a horrible uniform that no one liked. The players hated it and it went away quickly. It's the only uniform they haven't thrown back to for a reason. Apparently the team said they'd never wear them in a game again but I can't find the actual quote. It's mentioned and cited on wiki but the citation link is dead. It will be unfortunate but I'm sure at some point they'll do it for the money since it's pretty much the only one they haven't done.

 

I think the better choice for something interesting from that era would be the 1962 all white with yellow helmet. I always thought the 1963 white jerseys with athletic gold diamonds on the sleeves was interesting but as well all know, sleeves aren't really a thing anymore. 

 

As a big steelers fan, if they were trying to justify adding a yellow alt helmet, I'd like to see these or a return of the home version they throwback to in the late 2000s. 

 

 

[monkeypower]

2 hours ago, Lights Out said:

 

This feels like cherrypicking. Reebok did a better job with the QB cuts, I guess, but for many players, their jerseys didn't look any better than Nike's. Maybe the shade of green looked a little nicer, but they had the exact same problems with the stripes:

 

 

 

I could say you're cherry picking too because the Reebok stripe issues were only with the lineman cuts. With Nike, every jersey cut had the striping issue of the Reebok lineman cuts.

 

You can see Revis with a cut similar to Sanchez and then #30 Coleman in a different cut which I would approximate to be the closest to the Nike cut around the shoulders for skill players that Reebok ever got. Coleman's jersey has some sleeve cut out, but it's nowhere near as pronounced as the Reebok lineman cuts nor Nike's cut for every jersey. 

 

Side note: this is the first time I'm noticing the different patch placements on the jerseys. You'd think I would have noticed that as a young Jets fan who was obsessed enough about sports branding to end up on this forum.

[monkeypower]

What Nike screwed up with those Jets jerseys was going with a straight Colts recolour and then slapping on the coloured sleeve and calling it a day.

 

The goal of this Jets look is for the striping to be sleeve colour/jersey/stripe of sleeve colour and not UCLA stripes with a coloured sleeve (I hope that makes sense). With Reebok, that is achieved by using UCLA stripes but rounding off the outer, in relation to the neck, stripe to make it look like it is part of the sleeve.

 

Nike wasn't able to achieve the same look as Reebok because the cut is different, so what they did was have the coloured sleeve and then do g/w/g striping (or w/g/w for the greens) on the shoulders. The outer green stripe, in relation to the neck, is intended to be part of the sleeve and that sleeve is intended to be continuously bordered by the white but it doesn't work because the white stripe at the top is disconnected from the perforated white jersey section below.

 

What Nike should have done, besides come up a different template for the Jets, was flipping the shoulder striping so that the jersey colour stripe is able to continuously border the sleeve. It wouldn't have been perfect, but it would have been so much better. Excuse the limited editing effort.