Are You Ready For Some Football?

We are back from our summer vacation here late on a Friday afternoon, and while there will be much time later to go over many new and exciting things that have been going here at the Gridiron Uniform Database, including part two of our historian Tim Brulia's Library of Congress research, we first wanted to catch up with everyone with a short abbreviated entry as the NFL kicks off the preseason.  Tim followed up on his work from last month with an in-depth scrubbing of the 1945-48 database images, and we will shortly be bringing you the results of that research.

I caught up with Tim last Saturday in Washington, DC and learned quite a bit about the process that goes into his research before it goes down to Florida where our graphical engineer Bill Schaefer turns it into the great images you see in our database.

So stay tuned here at the website for these and other database updates in the coming days.

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In the meantime, the most important matter of business is that the 2011 NFL Preseason kicked off last night.  While a few short weeks ago we didn't even know if there would be a season, all of that labor animosity was set aside Thursday as the Eagles-Ravens, Cowboys-Broncos, Jaguars-Patriots, Cardinals-Raiders and of course the Seahawks-Chargers nationally on ESPN kicked off the season on the field.

Our first look at a uniform variation also occurred in the New England game, as we saw the memorial patch for Myra Kraft that the Patriots debuted last night, as worn in the picture above by Wes Welker.  I'm sure Bill is working as we speak to add that to the Patriots 2011 uni graphics as we prepare to open up a new season in the database when Week 1 kicks off early next month.

The Bills will be wearing their new uniforms for the first time Saturday night, and as mentioned at Uni Watch the other day, we are all anxious to see how the fifth-year captains will be recognized as the Captain's Patches that teams have been wearing since 2007 only have room for four stars.   While much was made over new Viking Donovan McNabb getting #5 from punter Chris Kluwe in Minnesota, I heard on Washington radio while on my trip that QB John Beck has switched from #3 to #12 (followed by an inane half-hour of sports talk radio where local DC jocks discussed how with all of the great #12 QBs in NFL history the 'Skins had never had a great #12.  These same guys were discussing their playoff chances in the NFC East and how "great" the Redskins would be in 2011 with Beck & Grossman at QB, while not seeming to grasp how an ESPN.com poll could show that 48% of respondents thought the Redskins were the worst team in the NFL, easily defeating the Bills, Bengals and Panthers.) Also last night Vince Young wore #9 in his first appearance for the Eagles, ostensibly to honor the late Steve McNair, but also probably because DeSean Jackson didn't want to give it up, although since he had been holding out up until recently, maybe he just didn't get a chance to ask him for it yet.

So as we get ready for the 2011 season here at the Gridiron Uniform Database, let us know if you spot any other uniform changes, as you watch the rest of the games this weekend.  Speaking of which, I get to watch my Buccaneers live on national TV on FOX tonight in a couple hours.  Whether you will be watching the Bucs-Chiefs game or your favorite team locally, I hope you enjoy tonight's (or tomorrow or Monday's) game and enjoy the fact that our "long national nightmare" is over and for each of the next twenty-six or so weekends we'll have football until we again plunge into that great abyss that is known as the off-season once again.