Seahawks Sported Sans Serifs, Silly

Last summer, in the initial months of the Gridiron Uniform Database Blog, I used to write articles every day about database updates and related items.  In September, when school started back up we decided that the time that I had to devote to the website was better spent working on the database rather writing daily blogs, Uni Watch style.  Every now and then, however, an item comes up to blog about like this one today, so for today at least, blog style, we are going to party like it is 2011 and bring you a full write-up.

Here at the GUD, we are anxiously awaiting the new season and the 2012 Seahawks Nike re-design, (part of which is pictured at left -- I don't have permission from Bill to show the complete image yet, but I hope he doesn't mind me giving you a little taste!) My attention on Saturday, however, turned to earlier Seahawks uniforms.

For the most part, until the 2002 redesign the Seahawks wore a fairly unchanged uniform.  The uniform that Jim Zorn wore in the late 1970s was pretty much the same one Shaun Alexander donned in 2001.  I had always thought that the Seahawks of earlier years had larger numbers than later years in the pre-2002 era, and that didn't seem to be reflected in the database.  I had thought about this awhile ago, but decided to not pursue it due to varying number sizes being something that is somewhat hard to quantify -- the pre NOB NFL 1960s, the 1940s Redskins, among other uniforms had differing size numbers and I figured it was something that Tim and Bill had already discussed and I didn't feel it really warranted a change, as it wasn't really that much of an issue.

Those of you who are regular readers of the GUD blog know that I am a huge Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan, and I have a collection of many of their games.  For whatever reason I found myself watching the Bucs' 1996 game against the Seahawks, it was early in Tony Dungy's first season as coach, a particularly memorable game that saw the (0-3) Bucs take a 13-3 lead deep into the fourth quarter only to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, as Dungy's Bucs, in their last creamsicle season, were well on their way struggling to a 1-8 start.  They would rebound and close the season with wins in 5 of their last 7 games and this would be the beginning of the team that would go on to win the Super Bowl six years later, albeit a year too late for Tony Dungy.

Some Seahawk O-Linemen with unserifed 7s in 1996 at TB

While watching the game, as I do while watching many old games, I pulled up the GUD images of 1996 Seahawks and Bucs.  Noticing that the #11 on the Seahawks graphic had serifs, I was a little puzzled when I saw a 7 on a Seahawk OL-man that didn't. 

This doesn't necessarily mean that the 1s we had in the database were incorrect, but it was something that would require further investigation.  First of all, it was the shoulder numbers I noticed, not the main jersey number.  The shoulder numbers and main numbers are very nearly always the same font, but first I would have to confirm that the main uniform number was unserifed as well.

On the next play, I saw the lineman #74 again, this time lying on the ground and could see that his main uniform 7 was indeed unserifed.  Now was the 'one' the same?  Again, we could assume it was, but here at the GUD, we never assume anything.  When a team has a single-digit wearing signal caller like the Seahawks had with Rick Mirer in the mid-1990s, it is sometimes harder to spot a player wearing a one.  You have to hope you'll see a kicker, punter or back-up QB in the teens, or a WR with a 81 or a CB with a 41.

Midway through the fourth quarter, as the Bucs were preparing to collapse and fail to give Dungy his first victory as a NFL head coach, I saw Seahwks punter Rick Tuten on the sidelines.   Clear as day, his #14 featured an unserifed one.  This was now officially a GUD discovery that would eventually necessitate a database change.

The question now became, how far back did the un-serifed one go?  I was sure, in my mind's eye, that Jim Zorn's 10 did have serifed ones back in the day, but after thinking about it I now wasn't so sure.  Would the whole 1976-2001 era uniform set be affected by this change?  My first stop was to Google Jim Zorn...sure enough, his one was serifed, and as you can see in this black and white posed picture of him with Steve Largent, boy were those numbers huge!

But here was another difference I hadn't anticipated, the one was "squared-off" at the top.  Here's another picture of him (to the right) in game action with a squared-off one.  This apparently didn't last for all of Zorn's career, as most pictures of Zorn show him with the "slant-cornered top" one.  

A picture of Zorn with the squared-off
one, presumably from 1976.  Most Zorn pictures...

...show him with a "one" like this one with the diagonal cut corner.... and this 1977 picture of Weaver....

Punter Herman Weaver, who only kicked for the Seahawks from 1977 through 1980 is shown in this picture below, which was dated 1977, with what I believe to be a slanted-cornered top one, so unless the date is wrong, or the Seahawks used different ones at the same time, I suspect the Seahawks only used the squared ones in 1976.  Terry Beeson, a MLB who started 16 games a season from 1978-80, was a rookie in 1977, so it is more likely that he would be being used on special teams that first year, although that certainly isn't conclusive as starters can play on special teams as well, and he did start 13 games in 1977.  But the photo was alleged to be from 1977, so without doubting the veracity of that, we'll conclude they wore the squared one only in 1976.

...also seems to indicate a slanted-cornered one...

And this previous picture of Zorn against San Diego is undated, but presumably it was from sometime around 1979-81, and like most of pictures of him, it seems to have a diagonal-cut one, like the one that Weaver seems to sport in 1977.  More research is needed on the top corner of the ones in the 1977-83 years, but for now I can seem to conclude the square-one was only 1976.  

Now on to the main attraction of the serif vs sans-serifed foot of the one.

Later pictures of the Seahawks, like these of Warren Moon and Brock Huard, seem to indicate that in the later years the sans-serif stayed throughout the run of this uniform set through 2001.  In the database we have all the ones from 1976-2001 as being traditional serifed, and it was a 1996 image that led me to delve into this research.

Warren Moon in 1997 or 98 and Brock Huard in 2000 continued to sport the sans-serifed one

So I went back to my Bucs' games collection and checked-out the 1984 Hall Of Fame Game against the Seahawks.  In this game the Seahawks 1s were....

1984 Pro Football Hall-Of Fame Game

...serifed, but the research would continue on.  Size wise, it appeared that I would find that all of the numbers pre-1993 were indeed somewhat larger than the currently indicated size, but it seems the 1976 numbers were the largest, while numbers from 1977 through the serif era were not as much larger than what we have in the database than the 1976 digits were.  The size for the sans-serifed images would seem to agree with the size of numbers that we presently have in the database.

A picture from a 1987 MNF game against the Raiders -- you may remember Bo Jackson running over Brian Bosworth and also disappearing into the Kingdome tunnel that night -- reveal that in '87 they still had the old style one, but in a later MNF game, 1992 against the Broncos, they were still wearing the same serifed style, but they now had a rounded top to the one.

Dave Krieg in 1987 who is glad he didn't have to
tackle Bo Jackson...

...and backup QBs Kelly Stouffer and Stan Gelbaugh, with their
curved-top numbers, go over some play calling with
head coach Tom Flores in 1992...

...while in 1994 Dan McGwire (brother of Mark) faces away
from the field, sporting a new style "one".

But then back to my Buccaneer collection and a 1994 game against the Seahawks, which showed Seattle with the new style ones, and the only question left was to determine which style did they wear during the 1993 season.

I didn't have any '93 Seahawks games in my collection and a Google search was less than helpful.  I thought I had struck paydirt on this page chronicling the Seahawks' 1993 Season, as #41 Eugene Robinson is shown returning a pick at Denver.  Robinson, who played for Seattle from 1985 through 1995, however, did not have an interception in the 1993 game at Denver, and further research shows that this picture was most likely from the 1995 game at Mile High.

I then came upon wide receiver Michael Bates.  Bates, who wore #81, only played two seasons with the Seahawks, 1993 and 1994.  A quick Google search of Bates will show him wearing both the old style and new style ones.  The simple fact, however, that he didn't join the team until 1993, however, indicates that the sans-serif one can be pinned down now as being worn exclusively from 1994-2001.

These two football card images of Michael Bates (1993, left and 1994, right) were the final link in our research

Now back to the top of the number one.  With the 1987 Dave Kreig pic showing the slant top, and the 1992 Dan McGwire pic showing a curved-top, the only thing left is to figure at what point between 1987-1992 did they switch to the curved topped one.  We will save that for another day, but for now, to sum up best as I can discern, the Seahawks jerseys need the following changes and these will be forwarded on to Tim and Bill for inclusion in the database.

1976: Largest numbers and squared off-top serif-foot one

1977-87: Larger numbers, slanted-cornered top, serif-foot one

1988-91: Larger numbers, unsure if slanted corner or curved corner, with serif-footed one

1992-93: Larger numbers, curved-cornered one, serif-foot one

1994-2001: Current size numbers, sans-serif footed ones

If anyone wants to delve further into the slant-top vs rounded-top 1, be my guest, in the mean time, we'll leave it there for now.

(Added:  After further research it appears that the Seahawks may have used the curved top numbers in 1983-84, so they may have gone twice from the slant numbers to the curved numbers, back to the slant numbers, and then finally with the curved numbers again in 1992-93.  And the Weaver picture may indeed shows the curved numbers in 1977.  The only thing definite is that 1976 was square numbers, and 1994-2001 was the sans serif numbers.  1977-1991 definitely needs more research regarding the Seahawks number font.  I have so far seen no evidence, however, that they used two different number types in the same season, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily didn't either.)

Dave Krieg, 1990: Large numbers, rounded-top "1"
(Sacked seven times by Derrick Thomas)

(Added #2: Our Bill Schaefer popped in with a couple 1976 pictures to show they indeed did have the slanted-top numbers, and offered that the square-topped numbers were likely just a publicity image and not actually used in a game.)

10/17/76: Seattle at Tampa Bay

11/28/76: Seattle at N.Y. Giants

 ~ ~ ~

Also added to the database, are the 2011 AFC North team pages as well as the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins team page. Coming Tuesday we will be releasing the highly anticipated 1922 season, and soon we will be hearing from Larry Schmitt again with another in his "Matching Rivals" series, this time a breakdown of the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions.  Also upcoming an exciting breakthrough featuring a forgotten 1946 AAFC team.

1920 and 1921: Before the NFL - The APFA Years

Last week we announced plans here at The Gridiron Uniform Database to gradually roll out the 1920-1932 seasons here in the database.  Some would call this the most exciting research we will have -- it is the very earliest years of the NFL and it features many teams that no longer exist and a game that is the most removed and different from the one we know and love today.

It is also the hardest era to conduct the kind of research that Tim & Bill are doing in trying to nail down accurate graphics from these years.  Many of the games have no surviving photographs, many of the teams played a haphazard schedule, and some played very few games.  The 1921 Tonawanda Kardex, for example, only played one league game.

The 1920 Akron Pros will forever be the first champion of the league that
is now the National Football League

The league was known as the APFA - The American Pro Football Association - in it's first two years before changing it's name to the National Football League in 1922.  In that first season, games against non-league opponents actually counted in the standings, but tie games did not.  Twelve teams competed in the league, and the Akron Pros went an undefeated 8-0-3 to capture the first championship.

The second season saw the number of teams swell to 21 and the Chicago Staleys (who competed as the Decatur Staleys in the first season and would go on to become the Chicago Bears) won the 1921 title with a 9-1-1 mark.

We have added these first two seasons to the database and next Tuesday we will continue our march through the roaring twenties with the first "NFL" season, 1922.

This brings us to a couple other changes to the site.  As you know if you've been with us for the year that we've been around, it is our goal to make the site as easy and intuitive to navigate as possible.  In the past I have received emails and comments complaining that the site navigation can be somewhat confusing.  We have tweaked it here and there but have been unable to come up with an ideal format -- until now.  You will notice that the "week-by-week" links are now gone -- you will now be able to merely click on any team thumbnail and that team page will have the full-size graphic and the week-by-week schedule below it.  Our goal is to have the site complete -- with the exception of the 1920-1949 week-by-week game combos -- by September.  You will now see that on the year pages from 1950-2009 there is a link to the "Season Chart" at the top so you can view the head-to-head matchups worn each particular week in the mean time.

We will be rolling these team pages out in no particular order, however, we intend on having 1994, 2010 and 2011 completed this week, as well as the additional 1920s pages completed as these seasons are released.

Last week we did an update to the 1985 St. Louis Cardinals, adding a third uniform combination when it was pointed out to us in our forum that the Cardinals did not wear the white sanitary socks for their Week 14 home game against the New Orleans Saints.

This to the right gives us an opportunity to demonstrate the new team page you will find by clicking, either on the Cardinals team page or the 1985 year page, the Cardinals' thumbnail.  There on this one team page you will find the full-size Cardinals team graphic and the week-by-week uniform combos they wore.

You will also find easy navigation arrows that will allow you to browse to the previous and next seasons of that team as well as alphabetically through all of the 1985 NFL Teams.

You will find this new style already present on the 1920 and 1921 teams as they are released and throughout the summer it will propagate throughout the rest of the site.

You can see by the example of the Dayton Triangles here to the left, that even though we are not releasing the week by week uniform combos for the pre-1950 period, this style of team page will make its way to all teams throughout the database.

Another feature we are working on is continuing to expand the collection of weekly pages on the site.   Due to popular demand the 75th Anniversary Throwbacks of Week 3 of the 1994 season (along with all of the individual matchups of that week) have been added to the site.  We hope you'll enjoy those, and we'll continue to add various weeks from throughout NFL history until they all are done.  As you can see, the 1920 season has already been added (albeit without individual team graphics) and we be doing the rest of the 1920s as we releases those new graphics as well.

Our goal would be to have everything on the site immediately, but that of course is impossible.  We are, however, going as fast as we can to add stuff ASAP. By clicking the "Matchups & More" link at the top of the main pages, you can follow along on which of the team yearly pages and weekly pages have been added already, and as always if you have any particular items you'd like to see on the site sooner rather than later, let us know, and we'll move it to the front of the list.

We do not have a time-frame for releasing the 1920-49 week-by-week data, but the 1950 through the present data is available and on the site and will soon be displayed on all of the team pages completely as we go along.

Along with completing these pages we also intend on rolling out all of the game head-to-head matchup pages.  These are time consuming to do, and while we would like to have all of these in, we don't have an exact time frame on when they will be complete, however, rest assured they are on our radar as well.

There is one other small change we're not sure if you noticed or not, the Super Bowls are now represented by slightly larger thumbnail graphics than other games.  You'll notice this with the Super Bowl XLVI thumbnails on the current main front page, and you can see how it will be implemented in practice on the team pages by looking at the 1994 Chargers and 49ers team pages.  With the new format of five games per row on the team yearly pages, you can see how it just made sense to make a larger graphic for the Super Bowl teams as twenty weeks, or four rows of games, in the current 17 week + playoff format would go through the Conference Championships.

Thank you again for your continued interest, and we hope you find the site navigation easier to use and enjoy the site that much more.  If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, we'd love to hear them in our forum, and if you spot any broken links (other than stuff that just hasn't been put in yet) .... be sure to let us know.

Matching Rivals: Chargers & Rams

Royal blue and yellow, perfect colors to represent southern California, evoking images of the Pacific Ocean and abundant sunshine. It's not surprising that the professional football team residing in Los Angeles and San Diego chose to adorn their teams in these colors for significant portions of their respective histories. For 11 seasons spanning 1974 - 1984 the two teams looked remarkably alike.

The Rams were born in Cleveland, and moved west in 1946, bringing their royal blue and yellow uniforms with them. Yellow was the color of their primary jersey through most of the 1950's. However, they were difficult to distinguish from opponents wearing white on black-and-white TV's, so they made the switch to blue jerseys with yellow numbers and Northwestern stripes on the sleeves. Yellow was nearly absent on the white away uniforms, only being seen on the famous horns on the helmet and center pants stripe. That trend continued to the extreme in 1964 when yellow was abandoned altogether during the Fearsome foursome era of Deacon Jones and Merlin Olsen.

In 1973, following an ownership change, the Rams completely redesigned their uniforms. Not only did yellow return to prominence, but the entire design was ingenious. The iconic Ram horn from the helmet was incorporated onto the shoulder of the jersey. The effect from the front view was similar to the over-the-shoulder UCLA stripe, but the horn continued around the back of the sleeve, encircling the TV number. On the white jersey the horn was blue and the sleeve was yellow. The Rams wore this jersey in their near upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XIV.

The Chargers are most well known for their white helmet and powder blue jersey from their AFL years. However, for fans of the Air Coryell era of the late 70's and early 80's, the images of Dan Fouts carving up secondaries are somewhat different. They got there in part by drawing inspiration from a longtime NFL franchise.

Sid Gillman (who played for the Rams while they were in Cleveland and coached them when they were in Los Angeles) was an admirer of Vince Lombardi and the success he achieved in Green Bay with the Packers. Given that yellow was already in the Chargers color scheme (seen in the Air Force Acadamy inspired arced lightning bolts on the helmet and inside the UCLA stripe-like jersey stripes over the shoulder), Gillman's changing the Chargers white pants to yellow in 1966 was easy. In 1973 the numbers on the blue jersey changed from white to yellow.

The first major change to the Chargers uniforms occurred in 1974, and it included an alteration to their familiar color scheme. Gone were the powder blue jerseys and white helmets, replaced by the royal blue worn by their neighbors to the north. Creating even more synergy with the Rams was the absence of the lightning bolt on the Chargers pants. They instead featured a basic blue-white-blue stripe pattern, which was identical to Los Angeles. The Chargers also sparked a revolution of sorts with their new uniforms - they were the first team to paint their facemasks in a team color instead of going with the manufacturer's stock grey. By the turn of the decade most teams followed suit, which included the Rams changing theirs to blue in 1981.

Though they played regularly during the pre-season, because the two teams played in different conferences, they only met on the field twice between 1974 and 1984 during the regular season.  They met in 1975 in San Diego, and then again in 1979 in Los Angeles in a game in which the Rams wore white at home, so both times the Rams wore their white jerseys and the Chargers royal blue. Confusion among fans in the cheap seats of the Los Angeles Coliseum or Jack Murphy Stadium trying to distinguish the two teams would certainly been understandable.  That 1979 Rams team went on to Super Bowl XIV, while the following years the Chargers made it all of the way to hosting the AFC Championship Game, where they lost to the eventual Super Bowl XV Champion Oakland Raiders.

San Diego made slight diversions when they switched from solid blue socks to blue stripes on white in '78, and reintroducing the lightning bolt returned to the pants in '79. In 1984 the lightning bolt was set inside a solid blue stripe.

While the Rams uniform remained unchanged for the duration of their stay in Southern California, the Chargers continued their journey away from their powder blue roots. In 1985 they returned to white pants, but darkened their tone of blue to navy. The next season yellow took a further step back when the numbers on the blue jerseys became white. Two seasons later San Diego was outfitted in their starkest contrast ever: an even darker tone of navy with white lighting bolts on the helmet and jerseys, and plain striped pants. No one could ever confuse the Chargers for the Rams again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In our next installment we'll take a look at two silver and blue teams who crossed paths several times during the late 60's and early 70's, including a postseason contest in which neither team scored a touchdown.

Our One Year Anniversary

Today is the one year anniversary of launching this website.  While recently I have begun working on spinoffs of this site that showcase baseball and basketball, this football site, which is the best collection of pro football uniforms anywhere, will always be the "flagship website" of this whole venture.  It began as simply "Tim & Bill's Pro Football Uniform Project" over at Uni Watch, so now I will let Tim and Bill have the floor to celebrate our anniversary.  First up here is our head historian, the person who got it all started, Tim Brulia:


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

June 12, 2011 was one of the most important days in my life, and I'm not overstating that.

With the help of my dear comrades Bill Schaefer and Rob Holecko and of course, our friends Paul Lukas and Phil Hecken at Uni Watch, the Gridiron Uniform Database (GUD) was launched. The site's intent was to pick up where the dormant Football Uniforms of the Past and Present site left off and present the most accurate historical pro football uniform database available.

I want to focus on what has transpired since we launched a year ago today and where we hope to go, at least from my eyes. The most obvious, at least from my point of view, has been the numerous changes and alterations to the uniforms on the site. Some of these changes have been from our own continuous research, but most of them has been from the generous contributions from those of you who visit our site. When we launched, we received so many contributions of revisions and corrections, that, frankly, we were overwhelmed at first. But we took much comfort in the fact that so many of you are like us, football uniform fanatics!! We estimate that as many as 200 or more changes have been made to the GUD since our launch. This is proof positive that we are as determined as always to "just getting it right" for all of the uniforms that are displayed on our database.

From my personal end, since 6/12/11, I have made five visits to the Library of Congress in Washington for additional research for the 1933-1949 years, as well as a special trip to research the 1960 AFL season. And just last month, I made a journey to Canton to research our missing era of the GUD, the humble beginnings of the National Football League, from 1920-1932. For my partners in this venture, Rob, has continually tweaked the site to make it cleaner and easier to navigate. Rob has been more than up to the task to make the updates to the findings and corrections that have been unearthed since our launch. He has also pushed for perfection from Bill and I to maintain the accuracy that makes the GUD what it is. Bill has also found a very keen sense of digging for the truth as well. Bill has made extreme use of online newspaper archives and his findings have been a major source of finds along the way. In other words, we are all intent on making and keeping the GUD as up to date and as relevant as possible.

So where do we go from here? Now you will see the GUD go all the way back to 1920. We have many other projects in the till as we speak. We hope to continue our uniform matchup research, probably our most ambitious project, going back in time to 1950. We have an ongoing project with the Pro Bowl uniform history. We hope to start up a graphic history of game officials uniforms going back to 1920. And of course, like last year, we will roll out the 2012 uniforms on a weekly basis, literally as the players take the field. Rob did such an awesome job with that in 2011.

In closing, I want to thank Bill and Rob. I truly owe every bit of gratitude that I possibly can to them in bringing the GUD to life and keeping it as healthy as possible. Thank you, gentlemen.

And I also want to thank you, the major contributors to our site. While I would like to single out a few of you individually for your contributions, I am hesitant to do so, lest I unintentionally omit someone and that would be embarrassing. The kind words and constructive criticism from the rest of you have given us at the GUD a tremendous amount of satisfaction and the incentive to be even better than we are.

Stay tuned.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thank you, Tim.... and now with his take on our anniversary, here's our graphics wizard, Bill Schaefer:


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A year has gone by.

When Tim and I began we went through so many changes and alterations with the hundreds of images we worked with, if you'd asked me at the time if I thought we'd missed anything I'd have probably told you that maybe viewers could find a handful of things - maybe.

Wow. I really low-balled that answer. Granted, a lot of the errors were small but they were still there. I think the thing that surprises me the most is that there are people out there that were becoming (or already were) as obsessed with the accuracy of this site as Tim and I are. That thought gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Here I was, a high school algebra teacher, messing around with technology (MSPAINT) that I'd never used before doing something to occupy my summer break and stay out of my wife's hair.

Here I am now, three years into this project, literally working daily to refine and extend this body of work to a level of perfection that I never could have imagined with people I've never actually met. To this day, Tim and I have never stood in the same room yet I can't imagine a week going by without hearing from him several times - even more now recently with our current project extension to include the pre-1933 era. Paul Lukas and Phil Hecken helped get us in contact with Rob Holecko - a kindred spirit to Tim & I with the tech savvy to help our work see the light of day. Football fans from around the country like BigBlueLarry and BDSullivan as well as friends on the other side of the planet like Mako Mameli have become trusted comrades in this project despite no stake in it whatsoever other than an interest in the topic and as much desire to 'get it right' as Tim and I had in 2009 when we started.

It's funny. After the initial maelstrom of corrections sent our way last summer I was thinking 'It's gonna slow down now. We got it all set.' Then came a steady diet of thread postings for miscolored belts, misplaced manufacturer's logos, different nameplate fonts, and wrong colored shoes. For a while I dreaded turning on my computer in the morning to find out what errors needed to be corrected today. It got to the point where my wife was asking me who I was talking to when I was muttering to myself "Really BBL? Another Giants font? Really?" But that all came with the understanding that what this project is, beyond a tremendous labor of love, is a way for fans of the game to bond together in an effort to do something that truly has never been done before. Anyone can throw a site together to trace the history of the game by posting the scores and the championships and the memories of their favorite teams and individual games. What we have done and are doing is organizing the most obvious aspect of the sport. The laundry.

I'm remiss in not knowing who first coined the expression 'rooting for laundry,' (I know I first heard that phrase in a Jerry Seinfeld stand up bit. -RH) but nothing could better explain what being a fan, of any sport, means. I got my first Walter Payton football in 1979 at seven years old. Despite being born into a Steelers household with Bills fans to my east and Browns fans to my west, I was a Bears fans and continue to be 30+ years later. But if the Bears pulled a man-for-man swap of the entire roster, even with the Indy Colts (sorry, Colts fans), I'd still be a Bears fan.

Even though some no longer fit the way they used to 20 years ago, I still have my first Bears jersey (#21 Donnell Woolford), a #52 Bryan Cox, a Payton throwback, and jerseys for Hester, Urlacher, Peppers and Cutler. Of all of them, though, my favorite remains one my wife got made for me a few years ago for Father's Day. My lucky #13 with SCHAEFER on the back. (This was the year before Johnny Knox was drafted and took to wearing #13.) I'm not ever going to play for the Bears, but, for 16 Sundays each autumn - and hopefully 3 or 4 more this coming year - I'm a part of the team. No one can tell me I'm not.  The players will come and go but my connection to the team, their laundry, endures season after season.

This site documents the history of these uniforms. Some of our fathers rooted for the same colors we do now. Maybe it was a slightly different shade worn in a different configuration. Maybe a man could wake up from a coma after 30 years and instantly recognize his team because their look has changed so little.  I root for my team, but without the 31 others, my team is nothing. I believe I have put in as much effort and love into crafting images for the other 31 as for my own team. Each team has fans each believing they are the most loyal, most rabid, and most knowledgeable. Here's hoping this site has added to your knowledge, your love, and your passion for the game the way these last three years have added to mine.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Awesome, Bill.  I don't know what else I can add.  This blog entry has gone on long enough, so wanting to not completely bore our readers, I will simply say that it has been my pleasure to bring this website -- Tim & Bill's awesome work -- to the public.  As I said last year in the Uni Watch article launching us, I initially got involved because I wanted there to be a website that I could go to see the information...  When I couldn't find one (at least that had been updated since 2003) but learned that the information was being compiled just was in need of being put on the web, I felt I had to help.

So here we are, our partnership now a year old.  And our website stronger than ever.

Eventually we will be "complete" -- all the weekly pages, all the yearly team's week-by-week pages, all the head-to-head matchups.  But first we need to add the 1920-1932 yearly research, and as we told you in Uni Watch on Saturday, today we will be adding the 1920 graphics to our site, it will go live around 6 PM Eastern time tonight, and then each Tuesday we will add another year. Here again to tell us a little more about the pre-1933 graphics, is Bill:


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As we roll out the first offerings from the 1920s, I need to go through a few ground rules that Tim & I have set for these earliest 13 years. Despite variations in the pants during this time, we are (no pun intended) uniformly sticking with one model. We are sticking with the black belts even though we have observed nearly as many brown belts in extremely close-up photos. Sanitary socks have been noticed as early as 1925, however, they didn't become a regular part of the wardrobe until 1932 so they will not be included any earlier. Many shades of khaki/canvas for pants and helmets are based on whether they appeared darker or lighter than other clearly shown aspects of the uniform.

What I'd like to see is the GUD universe pull together and fill in the blanks. We've all but exhausted Google newspapers. Tim's dug through the Library of Congress and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. However, there is still a lot that is missing. Those readers and contributors, especially throughout the northeast and midwest, dig into your local newspaper archives and locate traces of those teams and seasons where we are lacking. Post some dated photos on the Forum. Let's finish this project at the back end so we are no longer fighting the battle on two fronts.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So check with us later today and throughout the summer as we continue to build this website, now into our second year of existence.

Here in the blog, Larry Schmitt will be back Wednesday with another installment of "Matching Rivals" as he looks at the Chargers and Rams.

Matching Rivals: Browns & Bengals

We are starting a new feature here at the Gridiron Uniform Database today.  Earlier this year, you'll remember that Larry Schmitt profiled for us each of the new inductees of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's class of 2012.  Beginning today Larry is back with a new feature, and he'll be taking a look at throughout the summer -- every two weeks -- instances where NFL teams have had very similar looking uniforms...here's Larry:

~ ~ ~

In today's modern NFL, there are a wide variety of uniform styles and themes that serve as a treat for the eye every Sunday. Most teams see their uniform as a way to identify themselves on the field and as a means of connecting to their fanbase. From the enduring traditional looks featured by the Chicago Bears and New York Giants to the modern, trendsetting styles of the Denver Broncos and Tennessee Titans, to the just plain weird of the Seattle Seahawks. Throw in the occasional alternate jersey or throwback uniform, there's something for every fan to enjoy.

There have been instances in history where teams have blurred the lines as bit as to their identity. Similarity in color and striping patterns, particularly in the 1960's and '70's, at times may have left fans watching wondering just which side they were on. We'll take a look at these match-ups and try and lend a historical perspective to see just how things may have turned out this way.

First up: Ohio rivals Cleveland and Cincinnati.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~~

Paul Brown "The Father Of Modern Professional Football" was an NFL innovator the likes of which will never be matched. He was the first coach to introduce film study (using the All-22 high endzone view) into regular practice, invented the Screen Pass to maximize the talents of Otto Graham and Marion Motley, standardized the 40-yard dash as a measure of a football players ability to cover punts and kickoffs, and even pioneered helmet radios to get call in to his quartebacks decades before technology caught up to his genius.

One other feature he brought to the pro game that is mostly likely overlooked by most fans - Brown introduced orange (his favorite color) as a primary helmet color for two two unique franchises.

The Cleveland Browns of the AAFC wore white leather helmets for four seasons. Up[on joining the NFL, they added orange leather helmets to their ensemble for night games. Making the switch to hard plastic shells in 1952, the Browns helmets were orange forevermore. A single white center stripe was the lone feature, until brown player numbers adorned the sides from 1957 - 1960. In 1960 brown stripes were added, and 1961 the side numbers removed. The old, reliable Cleveland Brown helmet has been the same ever since, even after it's creator Paul Brown was relieved of duty following the 1962 season.

The basic uniform also saw relatively minimal changes over this period. Usually favoring white jerseys at home (while most NFL teams would wear their primary colored jerseys) Cleveland had plain, dark brown block numbers with contiguous 5-stripe sleeves and socks, alternating brown-orange-brown. Their white pants had contiguous 3-stripe pattern of orange-brown-orange.

In 1968 Paul Brown returned to Professional Football as owner and head coach of the AFL expansion franchise Cincinnati Bengals. It was no coincidence that the new team looked an awful lot like the one that had been named after the Ohio coaching legend. In fact, the substitution of black for dark brown as the primary jersey color and a stripe-free helmet were the only real differences. If one were to just glance quickly, it would be understandable to mistake them for the Browns.

Following the AFL-NFL merger, the intra-state rivals met on the field for the first time on October 11. Fans in the cheap seats of Cleveland Municipal stadium may have had a hard time telling the opponents apart. The Browns continued with their white-at-home tradition, forcing the visiting Bengals to wear their black jerseys. The Browns may have inadvertently made a move to looking like their Cincinnati counterparts the year before. In 1969 Cleveland made the first ever alteration to their sleeve and sock striping pattern when they went from the contiguous pattern to an offset one. The Bengals themselves switched back-and-forth between their 3-stripe sleeve patterns between the contiguous and offset versions during the early '70's.

The rematch in Cincinnati later that season saw the Bengals going white-at-home, meaning Cleveland's brown jerseys would make a rare appearance. The same was true for 1972, with both teams wearing their whites at home. For the 1973 and '74 match-ups, Cleveland continued with white at home whole Cincinnati returned to the traditional primary colored jersey at home, so all four meetings saw the same uniform sets displayed.

In 1975 the Browns made a drastic move that helped distinguish them from their rivals - orange pants. In 1981 the Bengals move even further in that regard, when they retired their conservative, traditional look for the tiger striped helmet still in use today. Ironically, Paul Brown himself said when asked about the design change, "you couldn't read 'BENGALS' from a distance. When you were far away it looked like Cleveland's helmet."

In two weeks we'll feature two Southern California teams with colorful uniform histories - the Chargers and Rams - who looked like near replicas of one another for a 10 year stretch in the late 70's and early 80's.

Timmy B returns from Canton

Last week, May 15th and 16th, I spent two days of research and touring the facilities at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.  As reported last week in this space, my objective was to find as much information as possible regarding uniforms worn by National Football League teams from our missing uniform era of the Gridiron Uniform Database (GUD), 1920-1932.
I had said that I had no idea how (un)successful I would be.  As it turns out, I was able to track down roughly 30% of the uniforms of the era.  My most successful season was probably 1931, where it looks like I found information on 6 of the 10 teams that season.  My least successful season would have to be 1924, where I was only successful in nabbing 2 of the 18 teams.

Jon Kendle, Researcher at the Hall, was more that kind enough to assist me with the project. All day on the 15th, he dug through the photo archives of the Hall for the team photo files for the 1920-1932 years.  I had to wear a pair of white gloves as I sifted through the files in search of these ancient pictures.  The files were listed by team.  There were also negatives mixed in with the available photos.  Alas, many of the files were empty.  But still, I was able to gather a lot of information.  Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures of the material that I sifted through.  However, I was able to log descriptions of the photos as best as I could.  In due time, we hope to bring you the results on the GUD.

I also went back on the 16th to finalize my findings, and came across a couple of surprises.  We hope to include these as well in the coming days and weeks.  I thanked Jon for his help and then I did a tour of the Museum itself.  It's $21 for a tour of the facility.  I took as many uniform-themed photos as I could, most of which accompany this blog.  Two interesting items of note: One was the "Super Bowl Experience" where there was a "tease" of training camp footage from years past and the 2011 season, with some regular season footage from the 2011 season up to the Conference Championships.  Then we entered the theater for a 25 minute feature from NFL Films, exclusively for the Hall, of Super Bowl XLVI.  It was done as only the creative geniuses at NFL Films could provide.  The seating at the theater was movable.  We saw all of the stuff of the lead-in to the Big Game and when it was time for kick-off, the seating area moved from one screen to another.  The exit led us to a display of all 45 Super Bowl rings.  Talk about bling!


The other item of interest came near the end of my tour.  A couple of volunteers lugging around a large trunk happened by where I was taking a break. They said, "Are you here for the helmet presentation?" As I muttered "no," they said, "Too bad!!"  They opened the trunk and pulled out about 10 helmets, some very old, some reproduced and some that were experimental.  It was an enlightening 15 minutes of the history of the pro football helmet, from when it was just a thick woollen cap, to a projected model that was still on the drawing board, that featured safety features to deter concussions as much as possible.

The Hall is undergoing yet another expansion that will culminate next year, to coincide with the Hall's 50th anniversary.  It is worth the while of any football fan, to visit this facility.

Getting back to the task at hand.  To be honest, because of the rather ship-shod way that the NFL kept track of things before 1933, and based on my research last week, it will be a most monumental task to have a complete database of uniforms from before 1933.  I think it could be possible to have complete years back to maybe 1928 or so.  But beyond that...

Still, we think this will be a great step forward as we go backward more in time.  Again, I wish to thank the staff, volunteers and Jon Kendle at the Hall for all the courtesies extended to the GUD.

To view all of Tim's pictures from the Pro Football Hall Of Fame trip, click here.

Timmy B goes to Canton

On May 15th, I will be on the road before the crack of dawn to make a 6 hour drive to the mecca of Pro Football, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Once I arrive at the shrine, I will be getting right to work to document as much as possible over a two day stretch as many uniforms as possible of the teams that played between our missing years on the Gridiron Uniform Database between 1920 and 1932.

To be honest, I have no idea how (un)successful I will be in this endeavor.  The research that I have done from 1933 through roughly 2003 has come from on-line newspaper archives, on-line photography databases like gettyimages, AP images, and of course, frequent journeys to the Pennsylvania State Library in Harrisburg and the Library of Congress in Washington.  However, the research for the "B.C." era of the National Football League will have to come from such a place as the Hall of Fame.  As I researched the 1933-1940 years, photographs from game action shots became more of a hit or miss thing.  They were there, but not in the quantity or quality of 1940 to date newspapers.  Without question, pro football game action photographs in newspapers prior to 1933 will be minimal, if not altogether lacking.  Add to the fact that so many small cities dotted the NFL landscape in the '20-'32 years, like Pottsville, Rock Island, Portsmouth, Duluth, Hammond, Dayton, etc.  And access to newspapers that served these smaller cities would be - apart from travelling to these communities in person - virtually impossible.

So, the best alternative is to make the trip to Canton and make use of the Hall's research facilities.  I have used them once before.  It was in May of 2006 when I was on a similar mission to unearth the TV commentator crews for NFL games from the 1968 - 1982 era, after the TV team specific commentators era (e.g. Ray Scott and Tony Canadeo doing Packers games for CBS) and before the debut of the USA Today newspaper, which immediately began to chronicle all of the week's TV crews.  I was moderately successful with the key sources for that information coming from the teams' game notes distributed to the working media.  This assignment though, will make exclusive use of visuals.  It is said that the Hall has the most extensive collection of pro football photographs in the world.

Without question, all of the photographs I will find will be black and white.  Fortunately, through Wikipedia ("always with a grain of salt") and ColorWerx, a very reputable website specializing in team/college colors, I have been able to track colors for all of the pre-1933 squads, except for the Louisville entries.  My plan is to hone in on the team group photographs that are in the Hall's collection.  I will try to document as much info as I can find on whatever I come across.  One item of personal relief is that in probably 90%+ of the time, I will not have to worry about helmet colors or pants colors.  The earliest instance that I (currently) know of a team coloring its helmets would be the c.1931 Chicago Bears, who used a Michigan "wing" style of helmet with their familiar navy and orange colors.  As for pants, the move from a natural canvas khaki-type color to team specific colors didn't start to trend until the early-mid 1930's.

From the limited number of pre-1933 team photographs I have seen, a typical photo will show the great majority of players in matching uniforms, but then several players will be wearing something different. Normal these variations might include friction (or grip) strips on the front, or some type of contrasting color material that is stitch into the ribcage portion on the jersey.  While I will document this in my research, I am not fully certain that we will list these variations in the Gridiron Uniform Database.  It must be noted that the NFL and their teams were very much on a limited budget and thus could only have enough money to outfit maybe a dozen or so players in one style, and then shop the Salvation Army or other surplus stores for spares. 

Whatever my findings, I will report in a follow up blog later in the week.  Hopefully the venture will be a success. I can't really say at this point what I consider a "success", but usually if even just one morsel of knowledge is gained from the journey, than I personally will think the trip worthwhile.

Stay tuned and wish me luck!!

Gridiron Uniform Database Goes HD

As the 'art' man for the site, I would like all of you to know the plans for the coming season.

I've already been hard at work for the last month working on the new NIKE uniforms. I've been doing what I can with the little information I have. Paul Lukas' notes from NIKE's unveiling were immensely helpful.  I'm still not sure why we didn't get an invite! However, through no fault of Paul's, little information has been provided on each team's 'other jersey(s).' I've had to reference NFL Shop to try and grab some peeks at the white-jerseys for each team to confirm or refute whether changes exist or not.

With the exception of a few alternate/throwback jerseys that I'm pretty sure we'll get to see, and others that I'm even more sure about (like the Bears moth-balling the orange jerseys in favor of using the 1940 throwbacks again - right), there are some that I'd just rather wait for firm confirmation of before I try to put each into graphic form only when it becomes apparent that I really need to.

The other issue that I am unclear about and am still awaiting confirmation on is whether or not the NFL is doing away with the whole 'base white/base black' footwear requirements in light of the very flashy cleats that were showcased with the rest of the uniforms last month.

Despite that, I have been working hard with our webmaster Rob Holecko to fine tune our game plan for this coming season. While we don't foresee wholesale changes, changes will be made - hopefully you will see them as a good thing.

Rumors abounds on the interwebs
that this is Carolina's new helmet.
Source: nikeblog.com
(But it's not)

If you've stopped by the site recently, you may have noticed that Rob has put up a blank/generic template for the Opening Game of the 2012 Regular Season.  The thumbnail image includes the new Nike template for both teams. We decided that, despite teams like Green Bay and Philadelphia opting not to partake in the technology advances of the Nike Elite, we will keep things simple by using only one version of the blank template for all teams. The template also shows a new, modified helmet. We at the Gridiron Uniform Database decided that this change from Reebok to Nike was a perfect opportunity to change away from a moderately outdated helmet model to something more current.

If you click on the blank thumbnail an image will appear that is the same size as what you've come to expect from Gridiron Uniform Database. However, due to the detail of the work involved with new cuts, collars, and (Lord, help me) new numbers with ingrained patterns (Thanks, Seattle and Nike - grrr!), we wanted to try to present the uniforms from this year additionally in a much crisper fashion.

Clicking on the normal-sized versions will take you to a larger version that will enable you to see the intricacies of the uniform in much greater detail.

More: from Seattle Post-Intelligencier: Seahawks unveil new helmet

Additionally, on the 'normal-sized' matchup pages, you will be spotting new navigational tabs for "Opening Games," "Monday Night Football," "Thanksgiving Day games," "Super Bowls" and more

It is our hope that you will find this year's graphics even more vibrant and realistic than ever before. Enjoy.
 

---

The Gridiron Uniform Database mourns the passing of Junior Seau and extends condolences to the entire NFL family.

Junior Seau

1969-2012

One-Time 1953 Colts Lid Confirmed

One-Time 1953 Colts Lid Confirmed
by Rob Holecko

Last week in our forum a visitor asked us about our depiction of in the database, the "cross style helmet" worn by the Baltimore Colts in their inaugural season in Baltimore.  In fact, this was their first game in Baltimore ever, as they moved from Dallas and were the Texans in 1952.  The previous "Baltimore Colts" entry in the league, which was absorbed into the NFL from the AAFC in 1950 along with the Cleveland Browns and the San Francisco 49ers, was unrelated to this franchise.

The visitor, identified not by a name, but simply by the moniker "Frizz's All Helmets" asked about the existence of this helmet:

Is there any pictures of the 1953 Baltimore Colts Cross Helmet available. Trying to collect all mini helmets and have not found any evidence of this helmet. I don't want to go through the trouble of making this helmet and it is false.

Our Bill Schaefer responded:

It was worn for Baltimore's (version 2.0) first inaugural game on 9/27/53 when they hosted the Bears during Week 1. After this game the cross stripes were removed for the following 7 weeks that they wore white helmets. Additionally, on 4 occasions during the season, Baltimore wore blue helmets instead of the white ones. Tim uncovered this on one of his research trips to the Library of Congress but was unable to take with him a copy of the photographic evidence.

I am glad to announce that through additional research, we have procured a copy of the photograph of this helmet as it ran in the September 28, 1953 Chicago Tribune.

We are glad to be able to bring this data to you, and also happy to provide FAH with the photographic evidence he requested.

However this brings to light an important question regarding our research.  Everything we have listed in the database is there because Tim Brulia, our historian, certifies it is correct to the best of his knowledge.  As we get further back in time, a lot of our research is by necessity incomplete.  There are some games from the 1920s and 1930s that simply we will never see photographs of.

As Tim generally says, if you have photographic proof that something we have is wrong, we'll change it.  But what about as we go further back and we have to fill in the holes between confirmed data with merely educational guesses?  This is an issue that won't be solved overnight, but calls for a definite spelled-out policy as we begin to tackle the 1921-1932 era.  How will a visitor be able to tell the difference between a graphic that we have confirmed versus one that we are merely presenting as our "best educated guess."  I want the future Frizz's All Helmets that come to our site to know that if they see a graphic as listed as being worn by, for example, the 1925 Pottsville Maroons whether it is something we have confirmed, or merely an "educated" guess that we are going with in absence of more concrete evidence to the contrary.  Surely we can't provide photographic evidence of every single game ever played -- that's what our graphics are for.

If we see pictures from twelve of a teams' thirteen games in 1926 and see the same jersey, sure we can assume that they wore that same jersey for the unseen thirteenth game. But without confirming, we still can't say that they absolutely did wear that jersey. We can be 99.99999% sure that that's probably what they wore, but it's not the same thing as being definite. As we move further back in time, we'll let you know exactly what our policy is and how you will know that a game has been "photographically confirmed" or just an assumption.

This is what the Baseball On The Nines'
says the 1923 AL Washington squad
wore in 1923.  I guess we'll just
have to take their word for it.

I understand Frizz's reluctance to accept a graphic of ours as fact.  In fact I feel the same when I view other uniform databases on the web, such as the Baseball Hall Of Fame's Dressed To The Nines website.  I view things on there with a grain of salt.  I look at a graphic on there and I don't think of it as "that's what the Washington Senators wore in 1923"... I look at it as "that's what the Dressed To The Nines website says the Washington Senators wore in 1923."  There is a slight and subtle difference, but it is what it is.  Without referencing the newspaper photograph, our reputation is the only thing that (before viewing that photograph) that proves that the Colts actually wore that helmet.  For some people that isn't enough.   But until our policy changes, it's the best we can do.

But rest assured at the Gridiron Uniform Database, whatever you see in our database is correct*, whether the proof is transparent and available for you to see, or you're just taking our word for it.  (*-But if it isn't let us know, and we'll change it.)