NIKE NFL Uniforms

[illini1]

In watching the Cowboys and Raiders pre season game on ESPN I noticed something weird about Orton's jersey. He wears an ideal cut that older quarterbacks tend to use. His sleeves go down almost to his elbow but the sleeve stripes are way up almost near the shoulders. Kinda odd. Any other teams with sleeve stripes have this issue with players that use a longer sleeve cut?

Edit: also noticed Romo's jersey has the same problem with the sleeves. Bothersome.

Not your imagination.

2011:

2012:

The Dallas QBs are the only ones who continue to wear real, honest to goodness sleeves. Nike :censored:ed it up by moving the stripes too high, like they do with every other player. Sleeve stripes should never be above the numbers on the front of the jersey, regardless of what position you play. Every Dallas player should be wearing the exact same sleeve length exhibited by Romo and Orton, albeit with the stripes at the bottom of the cuff.

The stripes on Romo's and Orton's jerseys are positioned as if they were wearing the shorter sleeves. I'm guessing someone (NFL, Cowboys or Nike) made the decision that regardless of what type of sleeves you wear, the stripes should be positioned in the same place on every jersey.

[TheOldRoman]

If you are agreeing with Dennis, you need to take a look in the mirror. He is wrong about everything and is most likely a troll.

How is having an opinion other than your own wrong? Each of us have varying opinions and I don't hate against anyone who has one different from me. Besides, he has been a member since 2005 and he only has 800+ posts, so if he was trolling I would think he would be over 4000 posts by now.

Having differing opinions is fine. But Dennis is wrong. Always. And I don't know why he only has 800 posts, but they are all the same exact thing: "You guys are nuts. The jersey's (sic) are great and you all want dumb throwembacks when it's not 1960 anymore. "Traditional" jerseys were out of style in the 1970's. Some teams are fine looking like a team Grandma liked watching, but others want to have cool new jersey's (sic) and look like they play in this century because they aren't a million years old. Old farts need to ditch the throwembacks because the teams switched for a reason." And so on.

[Pizzaman7294]

It's preseason, and like the spring thaw, or geese flying south for the winter, dennisbergan is back to tell everyone their opinions on football uniforms are wrong. He's so reliable you can mark it down on the calendar.

Listen, genius, my disdain for the Seahawks new uniforms, and I imagine many feel this way as well, has nothing to do with whether they're modern or anything like that. I'm 24, by the way, not exactly an old fogie. My disdain with the Seahawks new uniforms is because they're unattractive, make the players look silly, the helmet is worse than the two previous iterations, and they threw away a unique color for an overused navy blue.

If they had gone with a modern uniform that was an upgrade over the previous two, I'd be okay with it, but it's a step back and that's a shame because they've always been one of the better dressed teams in the league.

I believe if they kept the previous colors and changed the design to the current set, then it would look amazing. However with that being said, I think the green makes the new uniform pop and that the modern design is a welcome change the North Pacific needs. By the way, I am 39 (an old fogie) and I base my opinions on teams not doing the same old, same old. I believe certain teams need to stay close to their origin by updating their designs, but not going full modern. But teams like the Seahawks who have been around since 1976 are relatively new to the league and a modern changes fits the team and the city. Kinda like when grunge was introduced out of Seattle, it was a change that needed to happen and it spurred alternative and indie rock that is popular today.

I agree, I havent been a huge fan of the new uni's since they came out. But when I saw video of game highlights, WOW did that Lime Green pop! Theyre still a little crazy but that much lime green helps a lot!

[Gothamite]

Sorry, I haven't been keeping up with this thread, or this site to be honest, recently. Has there been any release about the collar slogan on each teams' jersey?

I've only seen it inside the Panthers' collars, and it says 'Keep Pounding". I think they are the only ones to actually have one. Either that, or the other teams have been hiding it really, really well.

Redskins' 80th Anniversary uniforms:

I don't have a pic, but the Seahawks also did this, with the number "12" inside the collar.

[BrandMooreArt]

But you certainly could (and should) design the uniform in such a way that the bolt doesn't need to have the same background color to appear consistent. That type of versatility is surely more desirable than being painted into a corner by a logo that can only appear on a white background.

That's part of my point. Having the bolt go on whatever background the jersey/pants are - great. Having the bolt always go on either white or navy - great. Having the bolt go on white on the navy jersey/pants but on navy on the white jersey/pants - bad. It's fine that the bolt is versatile to go on more than one background, but the way they apply it is bad.

Those original Seahawk uniforms were dull and completely out-of-style by the late 1980's.

Not EVERYBODY in the NFL has to have "classic" uniforms. Not EVERYONE in the NFL has to have "block" numbers. Not EVERYONE in the NFL had a franchise 500 years ago and still think anything that was around in the 1960's is "traditional" and worth remembering.

Seattle is a relatively new franchise in a progressive part of the country with a new-age company (Nike) in its backyard. There is NO reason why they shouldn't be different. There is NO reason why they should be lumped in with the Chiefs and Browns and Bears. Let those old franchises still trot out their 40 year old uniforms, that Grandpa and Grandma used to love and enjoy. Let the Seahawks be unique to the rest of the NFL. Its not going to kill anyone to not have everyone dress the same and look the same (except for some of the old foggies that frequent these boards).

Well said!

If you are agreeing with Dennis, you need to take a look in the mirror. He is wrong about everything and is most likely a troll.

How is having an opinion other than your own wrong? Each of us have varying opinions and I don't hate against anyone who has one different from me. Besides, he has been a member since 2005 and he only has 800+ posts, so if he was trolling I would think he would be over 4000 posts by now.

in this case i side with Dennis as well, he is spot on about the brand. the Seahawks problem is their uniforms are horribly designed. right direction, and a big miss on execution

[Sodboy13]

It's preseason, and like the spring thaw, or geese flying south for the winter, dennisbergan is back to tell everyone their opinions on football uniforms are wrong. He's so reliable you can mark it down on the calendar.

Listen, genius, my disdain for the Seahawks new uniforms, and I imagine many feel this way as well, has nothing to do with whether they're modern or anything like that. I'm 24, by the way, not exactly an old fogie. My disdain with the Seahawks new uniforms is because they're unattractive, make the players look silly, the helmet is worse than the two previous iterations, and they threw away a unique color for an overused navy blue.

If they had gone with a modern uniform that was an upgrade over the previous two, I'd be okay with it, but it's a step back and that's a shame because they've always been one of the better dressed teams in the league.

Thank you. There's nothing wrong with a modern design when it's done well. Seattle is a progressive city, and it's not like the Seahawks are a storied franchise. But outside of connecting the helmet logos in the back, everything about this feels like a downgrade. They gave up their proprietary shade of blue, marginalized the green on their away and alt uniforms to the point where it'll only be noticeable on the swoosh, switched to a numeral font that looks like my attempts to make block numbering out of construction paper in 5th grade, and created a profoundly lazy alternate which takes the road uniform and swaps out white for gray.

There's a lot of potential in a Seahawks uniform that combines a modern aesthetic with traditional Pacific Northwest imagery. This is a failed attempt, and as Nike's "showcase" entry back into the NFL, it's twice the failure.

[seahawk9]

Thank you Blue Sky, missing the classic royal blue, green, and silver. It was clean, bright, professional classic, like the uniforms of the Packers, Bears, Steelers, Cowboys, etc. Don't recall anyone ever complaining about those unis up until they decided to change for the sake of change back in 2002

Those original Seahawk uniforms were dull and completely out-of-style by the late 1980's.

Not EVERYBODY in the NFL has to have "classic" uniforms. Not EVERYONE in the NFL has to have "block" numbers. Not EVERYONE in the NFL had a franchise 500 years ago and still think anything that was around in the 1960's is "traditional" and worth remembering.

Seattle is a relatively new franchise in a progressive part of the country with a new-age company (Nike) in its backyard. There is NO reason why they shouldn't be different. There is NO reason why they should be lumped in with the Chiefs and Browns and Bears. Let those old franchises still trot out their 40 year old uniforms, that Grandpa and Grandma used to love and enjoy. Let the Seahawks be unique to the rest of the NFL. Its not going to kill anyone to not have everyone dress the same and look the same (except for some of the old foggies that frequent these boards).

Well said!

Once again I contend, back before 2002 before there was nothing to compare them to, no one was complaining on how the uniforms looked or colors. Classy, clean, timeless.

[Billy B]

In watching the Cowboys and Raiders pre season game on ESPN I noticed something weird about Orton's jersey. He wears an ideal cut that older quarterbacks tend to use. His sleeves go down almost to his elbow but the sleeve stripes are way up almost near the shoulders. Kinda odd. Any other teams with sleeve stripes have this issue with players that use a longer sleeve cut?

Edit: also noticed Romo's jersey has the same problem with the sleeves. Bothersome.

Not your imagination.

The Dallas QBs are the only ones who continue to wear real, honest to goodness sleeves. Nike :censored:ed it up by moving the stripes too high, like they do with every other player. Sleeve stripes should never be above the numbers on the front of the jersey, regardless of what position you play. Every Dallas player should be wearing the exact same sleeve length exhibited by Romo and Orton, albeit with the stripes at the bottom of the cuff.

Yeah, because linemen, RBs, WRs, etc. want to wear long sleeves...

Who cares what they want? Half of them would probably wear next to nothing if they could. The fact is that hiked up sleeves/stripes look terrible. Romo (who needs full range of motion in his arm) has proven that one can excel wearing traditional sleeves, putting a lie to the notion that they put you at a competitive disadvantage. The idea that they impede performance is a farce. This is all about form, not function.

Dez, take a cue from your QB and lower those sleeves.

Maybe some players think it looks cooler to have short sleeves, but the primary reason that most players have them is because they're better to play in. And saying Romo doesn't need the short sleeves to be successful is an entirely different thing. Almost all quarterbacks wear long sleeves because they find it easier to throw in. If you're playing a skill position, the shorter sleeves make it much more difficult for your opponent to grab onto you by your sleeves. Not to mention most players find it more comfortable and every little bit can help.

QB is a skill position, just like WR. If Romo is not impeded by a few ounces of fabric above his elbow (and he isn't), then neither is Dez or his fellow wideouts. Hundreds of HOF players put up stellar numbers wearing sleeves mid-bicep and lower. The notion that they could have had even better careers sans sleeves is a flat out joke. People who think that short sleeves make a difference probably also believe that it's faster to get to first base when you slide.

Comparing the QB to any other position in football just doesn't make any sense in this situation. The quarterback is there to throw the football. Most of them wear long sleeves because they feel most comfortable throwing the football in them. They're rarely, if ever, in a position where a defender would need to hold them and could use the sleeve as an advantage, so they don't have anything to worry about as far as negative effects of wearing long sleeves. Linemen, WRs, LBs, and everyone else wears short sleeves for a reason. I never said that wearing long sleeves prevented anyone from putting up great numbers. Wearing shorter sleeves may not make any visible difference on a stat sheet, but nobody is claiming that happens.

Let's say an offensive lineman is wearing sleeves the length of Tony Romo's. The offense is running a run up the middle and this lineman has to move up to the second level and block the middle linebacker. He's going to move past the defensive lineman to the linebacker when the defensive lineman is able to grab his sleeve and slow him down for just a second. The linebacker is free for just a second longer and is able to make the tackle for a 2 yard gain instead of a 4 yard gain. These are the kind of plays that could happen to someone if they're wearing long sleeves instead of short. And it's not going to happen every play, but it's something small that might happen every once in a while.

[Gothamite]

Thank you Blue Sky, missing the classic royal blue, green, and silver. It was clean, bright, professional classic, like the uniforms of the Packers, Bears, Steelers, Cowboys, etc. Don't recall anyone ever complaining about those unis up until they decided to change for the sake of change back in 2002......Love to see the old colors with the new logo..

I agree. Didnt realize how much I missed that color combo until Vancouver brought it back.

[BBTV]

The collar, sleeves, pants, helmet center-stripe, and inside the numbers is without a doubt Pacific Northwest Indian inspired. Even our new connecting Seahawk logo on the helmet now resembles a totem pole.

But this is all I will say about this. Of course everyone has opinions and God bless us all for having them. Agree or disagree. Love or hate the uniforms. We are all unique and I love that about forums.

What he's saying is this: Picture the uniform with a blank helmet, no collar trim, pattern-free numerals and a single solid pant stripe. On it's own, the design on the sleeves has, at best, a far-fetched connection to the native art of the northwest, especially when viewed by someone not familiar with that style of art. When placed in the context of native art, you can see the connection, but otherwise, it's about as arbitrary as you can get while still maintaining some semblance of a connection to native northwest art. That's not necessarily bad, but it is reality, even if you have the Seahawk blinders on. I mean, that green shape looks more like a Hershey's Kiss than anything, but that's not what we associate it with because we have the benefit of context when viewing it. Take that design element off a blue and green jersey that says 'Seahawks' on it, and it's probably going to score very low if you want people to try and guess what it is or what style of art it is.

Using that as our starting point (mainly generic jersey with a very minimal connection to native northwest art), the entire uniform can be completed simply by using this northwestern wing shape in a line up the pant and along the collar, and using it as a repeating pattern in the numbers and on the crown of the helmet. This design element is common among all those items, but it's used at different scales, in different colors and in such a way that the parts still don't visually connect very well. It's not integrated in very innovative or seamless ways. It's like putting native northwest wallpaper in your suburban colonial and proclaiming you live in a rustic cabin overlooking Puget Sound.

That's probably a more eloquent way of stating my point, which was basically just trying to understand the disconnect between the jersey and pants. It's entirely possible that everything was designed together, however it looks to me that (as you put it) they took a starting point (the generic jersey) and completed the uniform by using the wing shape.

That being said I still like it overall, besides the Nikebox and too-dark color. I'm really curious to see how the gray jersey looks on field.

[BlueSky]

For the record, the Seahawks' last unis would have been very worthy successors to the original look IF they had used the white pants with the blue jerseys and reserved the scuba suit look for occasional big games (and had a sleeve logo bigger than a Chap Stick). It was those awful monos that ruined it for me. As someone pointed out from my "tiny sleeve logo" pic of Marshawn, the blue was especially beautiful when seen with the contrasting colors of their palette. But having everything from head to toe that color just made it awful (the "too much candy makes anyone sick" concept).

[John in KY]

In watching the Cowboys and Raiders pre season game on ESPN I noticed something weird about Orton's jersey. He wears an ideal cut that older quarterbacks tend to use. His sleeves go down almost to his elbow but the sleeve stripes are way up almost near the shoulders. Kinda odd. Any other teams with sleeve stripes have this issue with players that use a longer sleeve cut?

Edit: also noticed Romo's jersey has the same problem with the sleeves. Bothersome.

Not your imagination.

2011:

2012:

The Dallas QBs are the only ones who continue to wear real, honest to goodness sleeves. Nike :censored:ed it up by moving the stripes too high, like they do with every other player. Sleeve stripes should never be above the numbers on the front of the jersey, regardless of what position you play. Every Dallas player should be wearing the exact same sleeve length exhibited by Romo and Orton, albeit with the stripes at the bottom of the cuff.

The stripes on Romo's and Orton's jerseys are positioned as if they were wearing the shorter sleeves. I'm guessing someone (NFL, Cowboys or Nike) made the decision that regardless of what type of sleeves you wear, the stripes should be positioned in the same place on every jersey.

I believe this must be a Nike thing - I was watching part of the Chiefs game last week and noticed that their 3rd stringer (Stanzi from Iowa) had the longer sleeves. And while I think the Chiefs change to move the stripes up on the sleeves overall was a good change it did look really strange on someone with longer sleeves. For the Cowboys I always thought Romo's jersey looked odd with the stripes so low in the sleeve; if you go back to the Cowboys jerseys of the mid-70s where the stripes were a bit higher (when they first went back to having the TV numbers on the shoulders after a few years of having them down on the sleeves).

[dmhtfld]

In watching the Cowboys and Raiders pre season game on ESPN I noticed something weird about Orton's jersey. He wears an ideal cut that older quarterbacks tend to use. His sleeves go down almost to his elbow but the sleeve stripes are way up almost near the shoulders. Kinda odd. Any other teams with sleeve stripes have this issue with players that use a longer sleeve cut?

Edit: also noticed Romo's jersey has the same problem with the sleeves. Bothersome.

Not your imagination.

2011:

2012:

The Dallas QBs are the only ones who continue to wear real, honest to goodness sleeves. Nike :censored:ed it up by moving the stripes too high, like they do with every other player. Sleeve stripes should never be above the numbers on the front of the jersey, regardless of what position you play. Every Dallas player should be wearing the exact same sleeve length exhibited by Romo and Orton, albeit with the stripes at the bottom of the cuff.

The stripes on Romo's and Orton's jerseys are positioned as if they were wearing the shorter sleeves. I'm guessing someone (NFL, Cowboys or Nike) made the decision that regardless of what type of sleeves you wear, the stripes should be positioned in the same place on every jersey.

I believe this must be a Nike thing - I was watching part of the Chiefs game last week and noticed that their 3rd stringer (Stanzi from Iowa) had the longer sleeves. And while I think the Chiefs change to move the stripes up on the sleeves overall was a good change it did look really strange on someone with longer sleeves. For the Cowboys I always thought Romo's jersey looked odd with the stripes so low in the sleeve; if you go back to the Cowboys jerseys of the mid-70s where the stripes were a bit higher (when they first went back to having the TV numbers on the shoulders after a few years of having them down on the sleeves).

Here is a photo for reference.

[larrypep]

Here is the best uniform in the NFL right now.

[coogrfan]

In watching the Cowboys and Raiders pre season game on ESPN I noticed something weird about Orton's jersey. He wears an ideal cut that older quarterbacks tend to use. His sleeves go down almost to his elbow but the sleeve stripes are way up almost near the shoulders. Kinda odd. Any other teams with sleeve stripes have this issue with players that use a longer sleeve cut?

Edit: also noticed Romo's jersey has the same problem with the sleeves. Bothersome.

Not your imagination.

2011:

2012:

The Dallas QBs are the only ones who continue to wear real, honest to goodness sleeves. Nike :censored:ed it up by moving the stripes too high, like they do with every other player. Sleeve stripes should never be above the numbers on the front of the jersey, regardless of what position you play. Every Dallas player should be wearing the exact same sleeve length exhibited by Romo and Orton, albeit with the stripes at the bottom of the cuff.

4th string qb Rudy Carpenter was wearing the same type of jersey as Romo, except that his had been tailored to the open, shorter length sleeves that many qbs now seem to prefer.

[slats7]

In watching the Cowboys and Raiders pre season game on ESPN I noticed something weird about Orton's jersey. He wears an ideal cut that older quarterbacks tend to use. His sleeves go down almost to his elbow but the sleeve stripes are way up almost near the shoulders. Kinda odd. Any other teams with sleeve stripes have this issue with players that use a longer sleeve cut?

Edit: also noticed Romo's jersey has the same problem with the sleeves. Bothersome.

Not your imagination.

2011:

2012:

The Dallas QBs are the only ones who continue to wear real, honest to goodness sleeves. Nike :censored:ed it up by moving the stripes too high, like they do with every other player. Sleeve stripes should never be above the numbers on the front of the jersey, regardless of what position you play. Every Dallas player should be wearing the exact same sleeve length exhibited by Romo and Orton, albeit with the stripes at the bottom of the cuff.

The stripes on Romo's and Orton's jerseys are positioned as if they were wearing the shorter sleeves. I'm guessing someone (NFL, Cowboys or Nike) made the decision that regardless of what type of sleeves you wear, the stripes should be positioned in the same place on every jersey.

I believe this must be a Nike thing - I was watching part of the Chiefs game last week and noticed that their 3rd stringer (Stanzi from Iowa) had the longer sleeves. And while I think the Chiefs change to move the stripes up on the sleeves overall was a good change it did look really strange on someone with longer sleeves. For the Cowboys I always thought Romo's jersey looked odd with the stripes so low in the sleeve; if you go back to the Cowboys jerseys of the mid-70s where the stripes were a bit higher (when they first went back to having the TV numbers on the shoulders after a few years of having them down on the sleeves).

Here is a photo for reference.

Way too high. The bottom of the shoulder stripe should be parallel with the middle section of the front uni numbers. When they're above the numbers, they look awful.

[SCL]

Nike has been just awful in their return to the NFL thus far. This is the best they could do with a long leadtime for the king of American sports leagues? Russell Athletic could've done a better job to this point.

[BrandMooreArt]

i actually prefer the higher stripes. come at me bro!

[Kevin W.]

Way too high. The bottom of the shoulder stripe should be parallel with the middle section of the front uni numbers. When they're above the numbers, they look awful.

Wait, what? Parallel with the middle section of the numbers? The sleeves would have to be past the elbow to do that!

[buckeye]

i actually prefer the higher stripes. come at me bro!

Agreed, I think it looks way better!