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All but one of the first weekend of preseason games are in the books.  The Jets and Texans will wrap up the first week of games on ESPN tonight.

Cam Newton (1), in some opinions, outplayed starter Jimmy Clausen (2) in the Panthers game against the Giants Saturday night.  Should Newton become the starter, and Clausen the backup, along with third-stringer Derek Anderson (3), would this be the first time in NFL history that a teams quarterbacks were numbered, in order, 1-2-3?  The numerical simplicity of it would rival the early Yankees, when they first gave out numbers based on the batter's spot in the lineup.  (i.e. Babe Ruth was 3, Lou Gehrig 4, etc.)

Would this truly be a first?    Let's play a game, take a team (any team through NFL history) with three QBs, and take the starter's number x3 and add it to the #2 QB's number x2 and the #3 QBs number....In this example the 2011 Panthers (if Newton is starter and Clausen is backup) would be = (1 x 3) + (2 x 2) + 3 = 10 (the lowest total you could have)  Let's try to find the next lowest total.....  Here's a few examples:

2006 Buccaneers: Chris Simms (2), Bruce Gradkowski (7), Tim Rattay (13) = (2 x 3) + (7 x 2) + 13 = 33

1996 Vikings: Warren Moon (1), Brad Johnson (14), Jay Walker (6) = (1 x 3) + (14 x 2) + 6 = 37

1998 Seahawks: Warren Moon (1), Jon Kitna (7), John Friesz (17) = (1 x 3) + (7 x 2) + 17 = 34

1994 Falcons: Jeff George (1), Bobby Hebert (3), Perry Klein (7) = (1 x 3) + (3 x 2) + 7 = 16

That 16 is going to be tough to beat - and who was Perry Klein, anyway?

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In other games this weekend, we got to see the debut of the Bills new unis.  While still disappointed that they apparently won't be wearing nice bright royal blue pants with the unis this year...  (Does that still leave open the possibility they may add them in 2012 or beyond?) ...I have to say I liked the widening stripe on the helmet.  As our Tim Brulia said about the Bills new uniforms in action: "Too much white for me. And the helmet stripes look like they flare in the back, but only at the last minute."

 

Tim also pointed out another anomaly -- the Cleveland Browns wore brown at home, even though we had heard earlier this off-season that they planned to go white-at-home this year.  Did they change their mind, or is it simply a case of doing the opposite in the preseason -- in the past they've worn white at home in the preseason when wearing brown during the season, and earlier this summer we uncovered the 1986 Browns wore brown at home only in the preseason, while only wearing white the rest of the year.  So my guess is in the preseason may be the only time we see the Browns in brown.

We told you recently of the Myra Kraft patch the Patriots are wearing.  Here now, courtesy of a tweet from Sportscenter, is a preliminary look at some other patches and decals we'll get to see in the 2011 season:

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Another discovery was made over the weekend, and that was a change to the Jaguars pants' stripe.  When they introduced the new re-design in 2009, they had a curved pants stripe, and we just noticed while watching part of the Jaguars-Patriots game the other night, that the line was straight and went all the way to the waist.  It turns out they have had the straight line since the beginning of last season.  You can follow along with all sorts of discoveries like that in our forum, as well as help our Bill Schaefer, who is currently tackling some 1950s NFL uniform mysteries.

Stay turned to the Gridiron Uniform Database Blog, where in the near future we will be recounting another batch of updates based on our historian Tim Brulia's recent Library of Congress research trip, as well as other updates as we get ready for the 2011 season.

Bill Tweaks The Jaguars

Today at the Gridiron Uniform Database, our Bill Schaefer once again turns a team's uniform designs on its' collective head with a complete overhaul.  This time, it's the Jacksonville Jaguars.

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Like last week with the Dolphins, I know that any time I set out to make one of these uniform tweaks I know that I am probably going to rankle some of that team’s faithful.  I know that but again, please bear with me.

In 1995, teal was the trendy color.  San Jose Sharks.  Florida Marlins. Charlotte Hornets.  All of them incorporated teal.  Even the Jags’ expansion partner, Carolina Panthers, used a light Carolina blue that is chromatically very close to teal.  My opinion is that teal makes a very good secondary color, just not a good primary one.  My first job was demoting the importance of teal.  I still retained it as a secondary color.

What to use for a primary color?  Similar to choosing a dolphin grey, I chose the Jaguars’ own shade of gold.  Keeping the same helmet logo, I placed it on a gold helmet with a simple black central stripe and kept the black facemask.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the change Cincinnati made away from their Cleveland-clone uniforms to the revolutionary ones with the tiger stripes.  I decided to use that Bengals concept but in a much more toned down version.  I first thought of adding jaguar spots on the shoulders or the entire jersey. Sanity took hold as my design began to resemble this item to the right.

I settled on the collar and cuffs.  The rest of the jersey was made gold in the style of the Saints’ “one and done” 2002 alternate (left), but I stayed away from the black pants/black socks ‘leotard’ look.  I added four sets of thin shoulder/sleeve stripes utilizing the teal.  Why four?  To my recollection I’ve not seen a jersey with 4 stripes. Two, three, or five?  Yes.  Four?  No.  I also added something new to the numbers – stripes INSIDE the numbers.

Again, similar to Cincinnati and New Orleans (1999), I used basic black pants with a gold stripe panel of jaguar spots.  I didn’t want to use black socks as this would make the uniform look too much like New Orleans so I went with plain gold socks.  I also added a jaguar-spotted belt for good measure.

Would something like this design ever get used?  I doubt it.  It’s just the artistic version of someone who’s assembled thousands of uniform combinations and would like to fix what’s broke.

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Thanks Bill for this new concept -- it's not any worse than what they're wearing now, and I kinda like the leopard print side pant panels.  Maybe for a third alternate I'd add a black jersey with gold pants -- these two jerseys look kinda light.  Of course knowing the Jags, then they'd probably also wear mono-black and mono-gold.  I hope you get a better response to this one than last week.  

There will be no blog update Friday, but hopefully we'll be back Saturday with Tim Brulia's weekly column -- no idea what Tim will be opining about this week, but I'm sure, like all of his columns, it will be good.

In the mean time, voting continues on the fourth group of uniforms in our Best NFL Uniform of All Time contest, plus be sure to join in all the uniform debate fun in our forum.