Tim's been a little busy this week, so Rob here pinch-hitting. My uniform sensibilities may not be exactly the same as Tim's, but I'll give it my best. As Tim says, this is only one man's impression of how the games looked to me this week, and may rank entirely differently if viewed at a different time. One thing that is one of my pet peeves when it comes to uniforms is I prefer pants and jerseys to contrast (no mono-looks) and I hate when both teams wear the same color pants. The perfect matchup for me is a classic looking color-over-white for the home team and white-over-color for the road. And as a avowed Bucs fans, I hate the Bucs' pewter pants, and really like the red-over-white look for them, but if they went back to orange full-time, I wouldn't hate that either.
First of all lets acknowledge the dreadful news out of Kansas City. Our heart goes out to all affected by what happened there. A lot of people (media pundits and what-not) compared the Chiefs playing Sunday with the NFL's decision to play after JFK's assassination 49 years ago, but I think that no one can criticize the Chiefs for their decision to play. Apparently they left the decision up to the team captains and if the team wanted to play and they felt that it helped them take their minds off of the tragedy for a few hours, I believe no one outside of the organization has any place in telling them otherwise. Sam thing if they had decided not to play, as well. With that being said, let's go on to the rankings....
#16. Jaguars-Bills: Both teams in white pants and a boring mono-white look from the Jags, means that even with the Bills' new unis, this matchup came in last.
#15. Texans-Titans: Both teams in dark blue pants drop this down in the rankings, and the Titans using only the two combos they've used this year (as opposed to as many as seven in 2006) make this matchup less than stellar.
#14. Colts-Lions: Well at least this matchup had contrasting pants, and I can't really fault either team -- it was the Colts' standard road fare against the Lions' standard home fare, so no surprises here. It just was kinda blah to me.
#13. Cardinals-Jets: Thirteen out of sixteen is probably three higher than this game would rank if you ranked it on the merits of the game rather than the uniforms. None-the-less, this game could have looked better if Cards wore red pants, instead of the mono-white.... Come to think of it this game would have been better in 1991 both uniform wise and QB wise with Ken O'Brien vs Timm Rosenbach, too.
#12. Bengals-Chargers: Two teams not really going anywhere out of the AFC (even if the Bengals grab a Wild Card, it'll be one-and-down) both wearing white pants in a late start that not much of the nation saw. Ho-hum.
#11. Panthers-Chiefs: Another game with both teams wearing white (don'tcha think against a color-over-white home team, Carolina would look better in the silver pants like they wore once at Indy in 1998?) Even with a good-looking classic Chiefs uniforms, this matchup still misses out on the top ten.
#9. Saints-Falcons: The Falcons went throwback on Thursday night, but due to the Saints over doing the white-over-black this year, this matchup comes in at #9. I like this outfit of the Saints, but not every week. I like this Falcons throwback, but for the fourth year in a row, it no longer is a "blast from the past" I'd like to see a red-helmet gray-pants 1981 Steve Bartkowski era throwback from them in the future.
#8. Vikings-Packers: What can one say about the classic Packers' green-over-yellow at Lambeau. It even makes the Vikings look good in mono-white, although had they gone with the purple pants (sorry Paul Lukas), this matchup may have been even a slot or two higher.
#7. Patriots-Dolphins: Just what is expected these days from these two teams. The Patriots (outside of an occasional Pat The Patriot throwback) never stray from their standard, and the Dolphins are apparently allergic to their aqua pants this year.
#6. Eagles-Cowboys: Another typical look, in fact we usually see this one twice a year, since the Cowboys always wear white at home. I guess unless they meet on Thanksgiving or the Eagles man-up and wear white at home like Vermeil and company did in the 1981 NFC Championship Game to force the cowpokes into their under-rated blue duds. Or maybe the NFL will schedule Dallas to play at Philly in September one of these years and they'll go white at home for weather's sake. Otherwise it's more of the same to come in this divisional matchup.
#4. Buccaneers-Broncos: For two teams that both used to wear orange at home, this is the first game between these two with an orange jersey since they played in Denver in 1996 on Sunday Night TNT. (When the Broncs had their old orange jerseys and the Bucs wore orange pants.) This game looked good too, as sharp as a Peyton Manning touchdown pass.
#2. Browns-Raiders: Another classic matchup, again the Raiders in their silver pants redeems the Browns all-white. Although, personally I prefer the Brian Sipe-era orange pants, I can see the merits of this classic look, both for the Browns and the Raiders.
...and that leaves as our number one matchup for this week...
#1. Giants-Redskins: This was a great looking game... the Giants in their road white-over-gray, the 'Skins in the maroon-over-yellow. The colors were vibrant, the game was under the lights, it was an exciting game with RGIII playing like Michael Vick did in this very stadium a couple years ago on MNF, throwing and running for scores, before Michael Vick started playing like Jeff Blake.
Well, there it is.... Tim should be back next week with Week 14's rankings, and we'll see how he likes the Hall Of Fame patches all the NFL teams will be wearing this week and next.
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