Looking Like A Fool, With Yo' Pants On The Ground

Yesterday here at the Gridiron Uniform Database, Bill's article on the monochrome-white look stirred up some debate here at the website.  For the most part people apparently can tolerate monochrome uniforms (whether white or color) as long as they are not matching the pants of the opponents.  For example, mono-white can look good, as in the examples Bill used yesterday, as long as the other team is wearing colored pants.

Bears at Cowboys, 2004 - a rare color-on-color matchup
in the modern-day NFL

What if they were to simply apply the same logic to pants as they do now to the tops?  If a home team is wearing a white pant, the visitors shouldn't wear white pants also, just like now if a team wants to wear white (the jersey top, that is) at home, the other team must wear a color.  (With the exception of the occasional color-on-color matchup, like the Bears vs. Cowboys in 2004, although even then the throwback Cowboys had white shoulders.  Color-on-color matchups, of course, were the norm before the days of television.)

Why not apply the same logic to pants as well?  Teams like the Colts that now only have white pants should be required to have a second color of pant, and while the Colts could certainly intend to wear white pants as much as possible, as that is their classic look, in a case where they are on the road against, say the Bears, who choose to wear navy tops and white pants, then the Colts would have to go with white tops and blue pants.  Worse case scenario, for the Colts, then, would be to be playing on the road against a team that chooses to wear mono-white at home, and then they would have to wear mono-blue, I'm not sure that would be a good look -- of course, instead of blue they could have gray pants, like they wore from 1982 through '86.  Interestingly enough, when the Colts did wear those gray pants, they only wore them with the blue tops, and not the white. 

That would be the drawback to this system, basically if teams were required to have two colors of pants, to contrast when an opponent wears white at home, does a team choose to have as their "second pant," pants of the same color as their colored jersey (in the Colts' case, blue) or do they have a neutral pant, like a gray.  If they have a gray, they then could pair the colored jersey with the gray, but the whole point was to pair the colored pant with the white jersey.  But if the only non-white pant that they have is the color, then they take the risk of being forced into wearing mono-color, if the opponent chooses to wear mono-white at home.  Of course, there would be nothing to stop a team like the Colts from having white, blue and gray pants.

Syracuse in mono-orange.  Some colors just
don't look good in monochrome.

Maybe we need to look at the short three game trial the 1995 Colts gave to their blue pants, and see why they "didn't work."  Did they wear them against other colored pants?  Did they wear them against white pants?  I think it was just a case of that's what they've known for so long, and it looked different.  Perhaps a trial of any sort should be a whole season before it is summarily dismissed.

Take for instance the old Bucs' creamsicles uniforms.  Up through 1991, the Bucs only had white pants.  In 1992, they debuted orange pants, and they were mostly liked (when paired with the white top, of course).  If you went with our proposed system, a road game against a team wearing mono-whites, the Bucs would have been required to wear mono-orange -- a look that the team never tried.  (Although Sam Wyche reportedly did propose it for his final game in 1995, he was overruled by Hardy Nickerson.)  Would these 1992-96 Bucs, under our system, have had a third pant, in order not have to wear mono-orange to avoid clashing with white-on-white road opponents?  Perhaps they would have added a black pant?  Or what if they had simply added pewter-pants to their existing ensemble, as in this example to the right?  Perhaps the 1997 redesign wouldn't have even been necessary, had they slightly modified their existing uniforms in this way.

The Bucs, however, with the 1997 redesign, now offer the ultimate in uniform versatility.  They have a white top and a color top (red) paired with white pants and a color pant that is a different color than the top (pewter).  They can therefore go mono-white, or white-with-color-pant or color-with-white-pant, or color-with-different-color-pant without going mono-color.  And in the fourteen seasons with this uniform set, they have and do wear all four combinations.  Under our system they at least have the opportunity to avoid wearing clashing pants at all times.  Why then, therefore, would they choose to wear the white pants against the white-panted Falcons as in Bill's example yesterday?  Under our rules, they would then have worn the pewter pants, which would have looked better, in our humble opinion.

Wouldn't this look better with the Jets in green pants?

The Jets are another team that gets the thumbs-up -- and while using only one color besides white.  They can go mono-color, mono-white, color-white or white-color, and they do wear all four combos.  That hasn't prevented them, however, from wearing mono-white against a team wearing white pants.

Many teams already have two colored tops and two color pants, and some don't even have white pants at all.  The Saints, for example, have only gold and black pants.  They can go mono-black if and when they want, and they do.  (Just don't do it against a team wearing black pants, as Bill showed us yesterday.)

Teams like the Raiders and Lions, for example, both have only silver pants.  Look at this picture to the right.  These pants do clash, but it somehow looks all right.  Or does it?  Would it look even better if the Lions were wearing blue pants?  Or how about if the Raiders paired white pants with the black home jersey.  (But that's their iconic silver-and-black look!  No, we can't mess with that, I can hear you scream.  Relax -- they are the home team.  So the Lions, here, would have had to adopt either a blue or a white pant.  Hmmm.  Mono-white wouldn't look so bad here, I would think.  But I did like the blue pants that the Lions had in 1998.

With the Bucs going with mono-white for this
2009 game, the Cowboys wearing blue-over-silver
gets the "thumbs-up" from us here at The
Gridiron Uniform Database.  Had the Bucs gone
with white-over-pewter, under our rules
the Cowboys would have had to pair the
blue jersey with...uh...wait a minute, both of the
Cowboys' pants are two different shades of silver,
both of which could theoretically be deemed
to clash with pewter.
Under our system would the Cowboys need
to add a blue or a white pant?  Hmmm.

So bottom line, our proposal would be that all teams should have two sets of pants, just like they all have at least two jersey tops now.  When there is a conflict, the road team should have to wear a contrasting pant from the home team.

With the Women's World Cup being in the news right now, one can look at the traditional system that soccer has used.  Both teams have a "normal kit" and a "change kit".  A team will generally always wear the normal kit, but if there is a conflict with the opposing team, they will wear the change kit.  In practice, this winds up being pretty much what the Cowboys do.  Preferring to wear their white uniform, in a league where teams mostly wear colors at home, has the net result of them almost always wearing the white uniform.  They last wore their regular blue "road" uniform in 2009, as last season they we able to get by wearing either their whites or their throwbacks entirely.

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So what do you all think?  Should all teams be required to have two pairs of pants?  Should NFL games feature exclusively non-clashing pants, like they do with jerseys now?

Coming up this weekend our head researcher Tim Brulia will be bringing us some interesting uniform research he recently conducted at the Library of Congress in Washington, and also don't forget to vote this week in the latest round of uniform matchups in the Best NFL Uniform Of All Time Tournament. 

Monochrome Whites, Part 2

Today at The Gridiron Uniform Database, our "graphical engineer" Bill Schaefer breaks down the use of monochrome white uniforms in the NFL, a topic we first broached here in the blog on June 26.

 ~ ~ ~

When constructing the graphics for thousands of uniform combos going back to the 1930’s, you discover some things about yourself as far as ‘what you like’ and ‘what you don’t like.’  The first thing I discovered was how much I detest mono-white uniforms.  I freely admit to being in the camp that likes the mono-colored uniforms, even when my Bears wear (and always lose in) the mono-navy, I like the look.  My favorite look, however, is a 2-color combo with jersey and pants being two completely different colors.  This does not include white.  White should not be considered a color.

The Redskins wearing burgundy over yellow. The Lions wearing blue over silver.  The Raiders. The Steelers. The Packers.  The Rams. The Bucs.  These, in my opinion, are good looks.  Why?  The colors pop!  Without color, what do you have? White.  My artistically-inclined students would remind me that white light is actually made up of all of the colors of the rainbow.  Remember playing with a prism in middle school science and making rainbows?  Well, no one wears a rainbow on their football uniform.  The University of Hawaii did away with them quite a while ago.

I’ve found that there are exceptions and those revolve around a simple principle – you can’t screw up a uniform comprised of two colors when one of the two is white.  (I know. I just called white a color but bear with me.)  The Colts and the Jets.  For whatever reason, I don’t have a problem with their mono-whites (except when the Jets wear the white socks with the horizontal stripes instead of the plain green ones, which they haven’t done since ‘07).  I know for the Colts it probably has something to do with the fact that they actually tried blue pants (3 games in 1995) and it just didn’t work out.  The late-1960’s Rams went mono-white with their blue and it worked. The Eagles of the 1950’s and 1960’s went mono-white in combination with green and it worked.

My question is, if you’re going to bother incorporating multiple colors into your uniform, why do you need so much white?  I’m surprised no one has trotted out in this combo to the left yet.  Oh, wait. Someone did and they lost to Burt Reynolds! 

Here’s the funny thing I’ve noticed.  I can just about tolerate any mono-white uniform…as long as their opponent isn’t wearing white pants.

Why should that make a difference?  What do I mean, you say?  I’ve taken the Tampa Bay mono-white and placed it against both the Falcons throwbacks and the bi-colored Saints because of their similarities of utilizing black. 

Looking at just the jerseys and pants in the pair-up versus Atlanta, notice that the lack of color in three of the four aspects (jerseys and pants only) just makes everything look so…blah.  But when the same mono-white is paired against the Saints combo, well…the entire result is not so bad.

Fans pitched fits back in 2007 when we had the ‘privilege’ of watching this game (Jaguars vs Saints - right) – the opposite of the ‘polar bear in a snowstorm.’ Why is nothing ever said when the overabundance is plain, boring white?  I’ve seen it said that mono-white uniforms are ‘clean and crisp.’  When should football ever be ‘clean and crisp’?

The most egregious offender of the ‘mono-whitism’ was easily the 1988 and 1989 Patriots.   Seriously, Pat Patriot had more going on than this uniform.  Placed side by side with the totally mono-white and I think you’ll see my point.

The worst situation of all occurs when the mono-white team wears a white helmet and plays another team wearing white helmets and white pants.  Try Miami versus the Jets, for instance. What are you saying when the only team colors being displayed are on 1 team jersey and everyone’s socks? 

This being said, the first uni-tweak that I will be presenting here at The Gridiron Uniform Database blog next week involves these very same Dolphins.   Stay tuned.
 

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Thank you, Bill, for that look at monochromatic white unis.  I for one, as a Buccaneer fan, am fairly ambivalent about the Bucs' mono-white look.  With the white jersey I'd prefer the pewter pants over the white, although I can absolutely say I hate the red-over-pewter look, preferring instead the Bucs' red-over-white look the best.  To me the pewter pants just show sweat too much, and the red-pewter is just too dark a combo.  I'd be just happy if they went with only the white-pewter and red-white as their only unis combos.

 

We'll look for your follow-up and the first-ever Gridiron Uniform Database tweak next week.

In the meantime, voting continues in the Best NFL Uniform Of All Time Tournament right here.

Best NFL Uniform Tournament, Week 3

It's time once again to introduce a new batch of entries in our Best NFL Uniform Of All-Time Tournament.  First let's announce the winners from last week:  The 1981 Falcons defeated the 1934 Portsmouth Spartans 135 to 24 (85%); The 1979 Buccaneers defeated the 1997 49ers 126 to 35 (78%); The 1983 Los Angeles Raiders defeated the 1975 St. Louis Cardinals 100 to 55 (65%) and in what may have been a mild upset, the 1969 Houston Oilers defeated the 2002 Pittsburgh Steelers 103 to 86 (54%).

Week 2 Winners

A couple changes -- initially we were just going to have 128 randomly selected entries which represented a fair amount of different uniforms from each franchise, but since then we have decided to expand the tournament to include pretty much every basic different uniform look that each team has had.  While this may lead to more entries from franchises that have both played longer as well as those that have changed uniform styles more frequently, in the long run, the uniforms that are voted the best will still rise to the top.  That being said, we are going to double up the amount of entries per week, so here are eight matchups to vote on.  Beginning this week, we will be launching a new batch of matchups every Wednesday.

So here are the third group of entries to vote on:

Matchup #9: 1967 Green Bay Packers (green/yellow) vs 1992 Buffalo Bills (blue/white).  This entry pits a classic look from a franchise that has won 4 Super Bowls against the only team to lose four Super Bowls in a row.  The green-over-yellow home uniforms of the Packers have gone virtually unchanged for over fifty years, this uniform set represents the years 1959 to the present for the Green Bay squad.  From the Vince Lombardi years of Paul Hornung and Bart Starr to the Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers era this uniform has had it's share of success.  The Buffalo Bills uniform of the Jim Kelly era, this team made it to the big game only to come up short four years in a row in the early nineties.  This uniform represents the 1984 through 2001 Buffalo seasons.

Matchup #10: 1987 Denver Broncos (white) vs 1998 Baltimore Ravens (purple/white).  This entry for the Broncos road uniforms from 1972 to 1996, a team that, like the 1990s Bills, never quite made it over the hump.  This team won four AFC Championships, three of them with John Elway at quarterback.  The white road uniform was worn in two of those Elway Super Bowl losses, plus a memorable AFC Championship win at Cleveland capped off by "The Drive".  The Ravens wore this uniform combo only two years, 1997 and 1998.  In 1996 the expansion Ravens wore only black pants, and by 1999 they had changed their helmet design due to a copyright infringement claim.

Matchup #11:  1991 Kansas City Chiefs (red/white) vs 1955 Los Angeles Rams (yellow).  The Chiefs' classic home look has remained pretty much unchanged for it's whole existence, even after the early 60s move from Dallas, all they did was change the logo and a slight adjustment to the shade of red.  For the most part the Chiefs uniform worn by Len Dawson in the 60s is the same as the uniform worn by Dwayne Bowe today.  The Rams of Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch of the 1950s wore this combo almost exclusively from 1950 through 1957, the white outline of the navy number a staple of the uniform seen mostly in black-and-white photos today.

Matchup #12: 1995 New York Jets (green/white) vs 1975 New Orleans Saints (all white).  The Jets wore this combo through the Ken O'Brien years, the all-green helmet, the increased use of black trims in the 1990s, all-in-all this uniform set represents the 1978 through 1997 N.Y. Jets seasons, in 1998 they switched back to a white helmet more similar to their original look.  The Saints, meanwhile only wore this all-white uniform set for the one season, they had gold pants in 1974 and switched to black pants in 1976.  The all-white monochrome look, with Archie Manning at quarterback suffered through a 2-12 season, with both wins coming in home games wearing this uniform.

Matchup #13:  1981 San Diego Chargers (navy/yellow) vs 2002 Carolina Panthers (alt Panther Blue).  The Chargers of the Dan Fouts era made it two two consecutive AFC Championship games, and wore this uniform set for a decade from 1974 through 1984.  The Panthers have worn this third jersey occasionally during their relatively short existence.

Matchup #14:  2000 New York Giants (white/red numbers/gray) vs 1987 Seattle Seahawks (blue/gray).  The Giants went back to a more classic look after the 1999 season, switching back to the "NY" helmet logo and red numerals on their road jersey, and they promptly went and won the NFC in 2000 and were also wearing this uniform set in 2007 when they upset the 18-0 New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.  The Seahawks wore this blue/gray combo for every home game from their expansion birth in 1976 through the 2001 season, they are the only NFL team to never wear white at home.

Matchup #15:  2009 Cincinnati Bengals (multiple variations of orange, black and white) vs 1971 Washington Redskins.  This uniform set encompasses all variations of the Bengals' mix-and-match variations they have worn since the beginning of the 2004 season, and the epitome (along with the Buffalo Bills) of what some people would say is what is wrong with the modern football uniform.  The Redskins under George Allen wore this yellow helmet with the "R" logo for only two seasons, ditching it in favor of the new helmet that they still wear to this day that they adopted in 1972 just in time to win the NFC and make it to Super Bowl VII.

Matchup #16:  1992 Dallas Cowboys (white/various shades of blue-gray) vs 2005 Houston Texans.  The classic home and also a-lot-of-the-time on the road as well uniform of the Dallas Cowboys.  The Cowboys' white uniform has become an iconic look from the era of the 1966 Ice Bowl with players like Don Meredith and Lance Rentzel, through the many hall of fame careers like Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett through the more recent dynasty of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smiff and Michael Irvin.  The Cowboys like this uniform so much, and since most teams wear their colors at home, they get to wear it almost all of the time.  In January 1981, the Eagles chose to white at home in the NFC Championship Game, forcing the Cowboys to wear their blue uniforms, and the Eagles won and advanced to Super Bowl XV.  The Cowboys have played in seven super bowls, and in six of them, including all five wins, they have worn white.  The Houston Texans expansion team in just getting ready to play it's tenth season, this is their home uniform, they wore it in their first game ever in 2002, defeating the Dallas Cowboys who were wearing this very uniform they are up against in this matchup on ESPN Sunday Night Football.

Matchup #9 1967 Packers 1992 Bills	Matchup #10 1987 Broncos 1998 Ravens	Matchup #11 1991 Chiefs 1955 Rams	Matchup #12 1995 Jets 1975 Saints
Matchup #13 1981 Chargers 2002 Panthers	Matchup #14 2000 Giants 1987 Seahawks	Matchup #15 2009 Bengals 1971 Redskins	Matchup #16 1992 Cowboys 2005 Texans

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There you have the new entries for this week's tournament, be sure to vote.   One other thing we wanted to mention today, it was posted in the comments of yesterday's Uni Watch that the Cleveland Browns will apparently be wearing white at home this season.  Thanks to Joseph Gerard for passing along that information.

Coming up tomorrow, Bill Schaefer will bring us his thoughts on the monochromatic white look that I opined about a couple weeks ago.

One Month Anniversary

As many of you know, on June 12 we launched this website of ours -- a website devoted to the study of the uniforms worn by professional football teams, centered around our database of images of all of the uniforms worn in the NFL since 1933.  The images created by our Bill Schaefer, which were based on research by Tim Brulia, have been displayed on this website, maintained by Rob Holecko, for a full month as of today.  We launched with an article on Uni Watch (right) and we were off and running.

We have experienced some technical issues in the past week, and also with other time commitments, we have decided to make a few changes to insure the long term viability of this site.  Last month when we launched, we felt it would be feasible to have a daily blog, in the style of the Uni Watch website.  For the most part we have held to this, however with much of our audience being the Uni Watch community, we have consciously made a decision to not try to "be another Uni Watch."  The nature of the main purpose of the blog, which was to be a vehicle to announce changes to the database, has become, over the first month, redundant and superfluous.  The database changes themselves have generally already been discussed in the forum, and to continue to try to keep coming up with different ways of saying, "we have changed this to this" was becoming ponderous, even only in the first month of existence.

So tomorrow we will be launching a minor redesign and a re-focusing of our efforts.  Instead of trying to continually announce database changes, the blog will now focus on bringing you articles that tell the stories behind the database changes and about professional football uniforms in general.  Articles like the ones that we have brought you in our first month such as Tim's piece of the 1941 Philadelphia Eagles or Bill's piece on another theory of the 1962 Denver Broncos helmet, plus features such as the Best NFL Uniform of All Time Tournament Contest (which will be returning tomorrow) will now be the focus of this blog, while the database changes themselves, which will continue to be debated and discussed in our forum, will be simply updated in the database as they are made.  A list will be maintained somewhere on the site, and updated as changes are made.

Therefore join us tomorrow as we begin our second month on the internet, hopefully the second of many months to come.

While we cannot promise to have new content every single day, we will strive to continue to bring fresh new football uniform content on a regular basis.  For daily content about athletic aesthetics of all sorts, we urge you to do what we do, and continue to read Uni Watch every morning.

Speaking of Uni Watch, we'd be remiss if we here at The Gridiron Uniform Database did not pass along our condolences as well, to Phil Hecken and the entire Uni Watch family on the passing of Phil's father.

Old Wives' Tales and Urban Legends (Part I)

Today, our historian Tim Brulia weighs in on the recent debate we've been having regarding the Philadelphia Eagles' early 70s white helmet with the green wings and whether or not it ever had a black outline, either the whole 1969-73 era, or just all or part of the 1973 season:

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In the early days of my rather intensive research of pro football uniforms, I have come across a few claims of certain helmet logos, TV numeral placements, oddball color schemes, and the like. Claims that were found on websites like the "Helmet Project" and "Mike Stanhope's Helmet History Page" among others.

One of the earliest such claims I have come across was that the Philadelphia Eagles wore a helmet that consisted of green wings with a black outline on a white shell. This much is true: In 1969, the Eagles made the first change to their helmet since 1954, when they first added a pair of silver wings to their green helmet, becoming only the second NFL team to sport a logo on their helmet. The Eagles actually wore two helmet designs in 1969, the NFL's 50th season of play. They kept the green helmet, but changed the wing colors from silver to white. They wore the green lid for away games only. They also broke out a white helmet with green wings for their home games at Franklin Field. In 1970, the Birds dumped the green helmet entirely, and would wear the white helmet exclusively through the 1973 season.

This picture may appear to indicate that the
green eagle wing on the helmet has a black outline
Trust us, it doesn't

Where this claim of black outlines around the green wings gathered steam is somewhat unclear to me. In fact, some of the claimaints used various photos as proof positive that the wings were indeed outlined in black. Perhaps the most notorious claim of the black outline was a super-zoomed in shot of quarterback Norm Snead. Having been a geek about football uniforms even back in 1973, and having seen a number of Eagles games on TV, I know I would have been able to spot a black outline on the wings. After all, starting in 1970, the Eagles started to wear jerseys that were very plain in design, no sleeve stripes and numbers that had black outline on the numbers on both the white and green jerseys. In 1971, black stripes were added to the pants, flanking the middle green stripe. I guess folks thought that well, with black on the jerseys and pants, black has to be on the helmet, too?

My theory on why people think that they saw black on the wings when they really never ever had them? It may be as far-fetched as the black outline claims, but a decal's edge may appear to have a darker edge around them as opposed to their "natural" color. I'm not sure what affect lighting may have on the decal edge, but I'm thinking that games that were played in sunlight would seem to create the dark edge effect moreso than a game played in less than ideal light. In fact, take a good hard look at a photo of a very close shot of the helmet logo, any helmet logo. You MAY be able to see a millimeter thin blackish outline just offset surrounding the logo. 

Our graphic artist Bill Schaefer came across an NFL Films clip of Philly's 1973 game at Washington, which I believe, is the last game that the Eagles wore the white helmet. Bill came across some nice screenshots from this game, played under snowy conditions, which clearly show there was NO black outline on the green wings. No tricks with sunlight or floodlights.  The picture at right of Roman Gabriel under center is from that game.

At any rate, the Snead picture we mentioned earlier was from the 1970 season, while the Chris Creamer's sportslogos.net site that spurred us revisiting this topic this week, shows no outline for 1969 through 1972 and the black outline for the 1973 season.  Other fourms have been discussing this matter for at least six years, and no conclusive proof of the existence of a black-outlined green-wing white-helmet has ever surfaced.

The bottom line: based on the evidence we have seen, we have come to the conclusion that at no point during the white-helmet era of the Eagles, did the green wings have a black outline.

Oh, I'm sure that some will still try to sway us with proof positive that the Eagles wings did have the black outline in this era. But as far as the Gridiron Uniform Database is concerned, dude, it didn't happen. 

~ ~ ~

Well, there you have it.  Like Tim says, as far as we at the Gridiron Uniform Database are concerned, the issue is closed, the Eagles' white helmet that they wore from 1969 through 1973 never had a black outline around the green eagle wing.  Now if you do still believe otherwise, then I encourage you to look for incontrovertible photographic proof.  Is it technically possible that they did introduce a black-outlined wing on the helmet for a game or two during the 1973 season?  Absolutely.  Perhaps they used it at the beginning of the season, and scrapped it shortly thereafter.  But for the time being, as Tim pointed out, we have found no evidence that they ever did have such a helmet, and also believe for a fact that the helmet that they were using at the end of the 1973 season absolutely did not have a black outline on the wing.

If you are still certain that such a helmet did exist, then I encourage you to continue looking for evidence of it's existence (beyond the photographs we have already discussed) and we will consider re-visiting the matter, but in the mean time, the case is closed.

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To those of you who haven't voted in this week's matchups in the Best NFL Helmet of All-Time, hurry up and get your votes in, another round of matchups will be unveiled on Monday and also we have a whole bunch of database updates to hopefully reveal tomorrow.

Only One Thing Is Constant - Change

     I am having problems with Blogger's new dashboard interface.  I am unable to post other than simple text like this.  My blog posts here at The Gridiron Uniform Database tend to get a little complicated when we do database changes, and I need to be able to format images and customize things the way I see fit, for example "1999 Eagles New" and "1999 Eagles Old" images in the previous post, the YouTube embeds, etc.  It isn't possible to do it the way I used to with the new interface, at least not to my liking.  Every time I try to customize HTML the way I want, when I go into "compose" from "Edit HTML" it strips out any changes I make.  What's up with that?!  I hate change -- it seems like there always has to be someone who comes along and has nothing better to do than to mess up a good thing.  It's why I quit using Facebook, and why I quit a job once.

     So, for the time being, the blog is somewhat on hold until I can figure out a workable solution.  Hopefully there is a way to get the old dashboard interface back, and I just haven't found it yet.

     Blogger is apparently much more concerned with making their interface usable by traditional bloggers who write about their cats or how they make pretzels than for a website like ours that uses a blog as a "front-end" for a useful website, i.e. formatted the way we want, with the links set up the way we want with the years on the left and teams on the right.  Bottom line is they want to control how people do stuff.  They want people to be able to "browse a blog like a flipboard" -- something that is totally useless for a site like ours.  They like to do things like re-format my HTML when I'm not looking.  Don't mess with my HTML code!  Maybe housewives with blogs about fondue recipes like you to manipulate the design of their blogs, but some of us who know what we're doing don't.

     In the meantime I am going to try to tackle all the database updates that still need to be put in.  On a related note, Bill Schaefer was having a discussion in the forum about changes and the weekly images.  I have pretty much put on hold updating the weeklies.  I am hoping in the near future we will reach a "critical mass" of corrections all put in where we are pretty much happy with all the yearly images, and then we will re-visit putting in the weekly images.  It just doesn't make sense to keep putting them in, and then having to keep changing them, I know it's a lot of work for Bill to re-do all those changes.

     Oh, and yes I did mess up the other day -- The Steelers did, of course, wear their white uniforms in Super Bowl XLV.  I (along with about a billion other people) watched that game, and for some reason I was thinking they wore their black uniforms.  At any rate, I was wrong.   But go ahead and vote on this week's matchups in the Best NFL Uniform Of All Time here anyway.

     One way or another, we'll be back tomorrow, or sometime soon at least.  Tim Brulia is scheduled to have his weekly column and we'll get to the bottom of this whole "no black outline on the Eagles' 1973 helmet" for once and for all.

Philadelphia Freedom

We've been (well, me at least) a little lazy here at the Gridiron Uniform Database blog, and we've got many updates that have been piling up on us, so we'll jump right in and start with one we started discussing last week. ~ ~ ~

1999 Eagles new

      Last week we told you about a change in the Philadelphia Eagles' wordmark for the 1996 through 2002 seasons.  When they first changed their uniforms, they had a slanted "Eagles" wordmark on the front of their jerseys.  We were using the current one, the "crowned" one for the entire 1996 to present period.  Now we have added the slanted one to the database.  It is hard to discern, naturally, in the thumbnails to the left, however when you really blow it up (right) you can tell a slight difference.  

1999 Eagles Old

     The Eagles ' introduced the new "crowned" wordmark on their uniforms when they opened the new stadium, Lincoln Financial Field in 2003.  Chris Creamer's sportslogos.net site has the crowned logo as the Eagles only logo since 1996, however.

Jan. 19, 2003 - NFC Championship

     It was my theory that they developed the new logo for the opening of the new stadium, as the old slanted logo wouldn't not have looked good in the end zone.  I seemed to remember the Vet rarely had anything painted in the end zones, but when they were planning the new stadium, perhaps they did some mock-ups with the wordmark in the endzone and realized it didn't look good with the slanted "Eagles" in the symmetrical environment of the endzone.   However, after looking at the 2002 NFC Championship game - Tampa Bay at Philadelphia, the last game at the Vet, I see they did have the new logo in the end zone there.

As late as November 2000, the Eagles were exclusively using
the 'slanted' wordmark on clothing and jerseys, but as early
as Sept. '99, they were using the "crowned" wordmark logo
in the end zone at Veterans Stadium

     Looking back during the 2000 season, you can see they used the old logo on clothing on the sidelines.  But as early as the September 19, 1999 Bucs at Eagles game, the Eagles had the "crowned" wordmark in the end zone.  So was the new logo the only official logo all along, and the wordmark a secondary logo that they only used on clothing from 1996 through 2002, and then they consolidated and only used the "crowned" logo from 2003 on?  Or did they just gradually start using the "crowned" logo sometime between 2000 and 2002, and finally retired the "slanted" logo for good in 2003?

     This isn't the only discrepancy that this research has come across -- a while back someone in the forum asked about the Eagles 1969-73 white helmet and whether or not it had a black outline around the green eagle wing.  After much discussion, our Tim Brulia stated that:

 "I've been hearing about this one for years. I can say with 100% certainty that there was NO black outline on the wings."

      But while looking around the Creamer site, I saw the following:












     Could it be possible that Tim's statement about there absolutely being no black outline is accurate with regards to the 1969-72 helmet, yet the 1973 helmet did, in fact, have the black outline?  What say you all?  Is the Creamer site right and the 1973 helmet different, or do we stand by Tim's statement that there was never any black outline at all?

~ ~ ~

     Well there you have it, more database updates tomorrow...as the debate rages on!

Best NFL Uniform Tournament, Week 2

     Today we are opening up the second group of first round matchups in the Best NFL Uniform Of All Time tournament contest.

     First, here are the results from last week:  The 1998 Vikings defeated the 1995 Colts 113 to 82 (58%); The 1983 Browns narrowly defeated the 1972 Dolphins, by one vote, 91 to 90 (50.3%); The 1971 Eagles defeated the 2003 Jaguars, 138 to 31 (82%); The 1938 Bears defeated the 2001 Patriots, 107 to 70 (60%).

     So those four teams will go into the second round and await 60 more teams that will join them in the coming weeks.

Week One Winners

     Now here are the match-ups to vote on in Week 2:

     Matchup #5: 2002 Pittsburgh Steelers home (black/gold yellow) vs 1969 Houston Oilers (white/silver). This Steelers have worn this style predominately at home since their 1997 re-design, however they are 0-1 in the Super Bowl wearing this after losing this year to the Packers.  Their two championships (XL and XLIII) during this period have come in their away whites, even in 2005 as the home team they chose to wear white after going 3-0 in the playoffs on the road.  This Oilers uniform was worn from 1966 through 1971, the silver helmet years, and was worn by the likes of George Blanda, Roy Gerela, Elvin Bethea and a young Charlie Joiner under head coach Wally Lemm, in their first years in the Astrodome.

Matchup #5
	2002 Steelers
	1969 Oilers

     Matchup #6: 1981 Atlanta Falcons (red) vs 1933 Portsmouth Spartans.  After wearing a black home uniform their first few years, this was the color uniform the Falcons wore from 1971 through 1989.  The famed Gritz' Blitz defense of 1978, the 12-4 1981 season with Steve Bartkowski and Leeman Bennett -- and also a lot of losing seasons during this time.  After 1989, the Falcons changed back to black in the Jerry Glanville era.  The Portsmouth Spartans were founded in 1929 and played a handful of years before being moved to Detroit in 1934 where they became the Lions.

Matchup #6
	1981 Falcons
	1933 Spartans

     Matchup #7: 1979 Tampa Bay Buccaneers (creamsicle orange) vs 1997 San Francisco 49ers (all white)   The expansion Buccaneers wore this orange uniform to two NFC Central titles and a Wild Card playoff appearance in four years from 1979-82, but this both loved and hated uniform is mostly remember for fourteen straight losing season from 1983 through 1996.  They ditched the orange and went 10-6 in 1997.  The 49ers adopted this throwback inspired uniform set for 1996 through 1998 seasons after riding it all the way to the Super Bowl in 1994.

Matchup #7
	1979 Buccaneers
	1997 49ers

     Matchup #8: 1975 St. Louis Cardinals (all white) vs 1983 Los Angeles Raiders (black/silver).  This Cardinals set was worn for three decades from the team's move from Chicago to St. Louis in 1960 until they adopted red pants in Phoenix in 1990.  This uniform makes one think of the great 70's teams of Conrad Dobler and Dan Dierdorf that won back-to-back NFC East titles but could never get over the hump and win a championship.  A team that did get over the hump was the Oakland-L.A. Raiders.  This classic black home uniform of the Raiders, which has remained pretty much unchanged since 1963, won an AFL Championship in 1967 and Super Bowl XVIII in 1983, while the franchise also won two other Super Bowls in the road whites.

Matchup #8
	1975 Cardinals
	1983 Raiders

     Well, there you have it...  Voting will be open on these match-ups all week long and next week we'll have four more match-ups to vote on.

Happy Independence Day

Today as we all enjoy the fourth of July festivities, we at The Gridiron Uniform Database want to wish you a happy and joyful holiday, and we'll now bring you a short, patriotic themed database update. ~ ~ ~

     Brought to our attention by frequent contributor Mako Mameli, the New England Patriots, during the years 1984 to 1987 and 1990 through 1992, they had a blue middle vertical pant stripe that was much wider than what we had in the database.  So we will be widening it accordingly.  During the 1988 and 1989 seasons the Patriots only wore white pants.

     Other than that, we are on vacation for the rest of the day, and we will be back tomorrow with hopefully a bunch of database updates, including a wrap-up of that discussion of the Eagles' wordmark from last week.

     Also Tuesday we will unveil the second group of first-round match-ups in our Best NFL Uniform Of All Time tournament contest.

1986 Patriots Old

1986 Patriots New

Preseason Is Just Around The Corner (Right?)

Today Tim Brulia, the resident historian here at The Gridiron Uniform Database, brings us his look at a phenomenon we've encountered more often than perhaps we expected to -- the "preseason only" uniform variation. ~ ~ ~

Preseason Uniform Variations
by Tim Brulia

     When I began my research on this project in 2003, I really didn't dig into preseason games. After all, since they didn't count in the standings, why bother? I knew there were some oddities, but I really didn't go there.

     When I connected with Bill in 2009, he thought it would be a good idea to include preseason unis in the compliation. I resisted at first, but I guess friendly persuation go the best of me. While we didn't actively research the preseason,we thought that if we would bump into an unusual combo, we would fish a little deeper and if it wasn't a regular season game, we would note it as "not worn in regular season."

     We ended up finding a number of preseason only sets along the way, such as the 1970 Chargers jersey with NO bolts, the orange numbers on the 1984 Browns brown jersey, the 1946 Bears orange jersey, the 1954 Browns orange jersey, and of course, one of the more well-known preseason only uniform, the black helmeted Saints of 1969, which we only recently discovered they wore with two different uniform combinations. Bill would note these with the more confident "worn only in preseason" tag above the specified set.  Sometimes teams will wear white pants only during the preseason, and other times teams have played an preseason game overseas and have worn a patch to commemorate that. 

Another preseason variation
you know about -  The
Steelers' helmets have no
numbers on them

     Since our launch on June 12th however, our faithful contributors have alerted us to a number of additional preseason only combos, including the green helmets on the 1978 Jets while still wearing the 1977 jerseys, the 1962 Bills wearing a blank white helmet with the red stripe with the 1961 white jersey/silver pants/white socks with blue stripes combo. And how about the 1968 Broncos wearing the new helmet with the orange D/white horse logo while attired in their 1966 orange jerseys!

     Notice a trend here? Yep, it seems like a number of teams that would break out a new look for the coming season would actually keep the "clothing" portion (jersey/pants/socks) under wraps for the regular season, while the new helmets would make a sneak peek for the preseason! Why? Well, my guess would be that a helmet needs a little more "breaking in" than the rest of the uniform. A player wants to keep his noggin as protected as possible and probably the helmet requires more adjusting and a better fit than his other gear. So once the regular season began, the helmet would already be "game ready", with the fit adjustments having been battle tested.

     So, we'd like to thank you for the preseason finds mentioned above as well as others not mentioned.  And if any of you should stumble across a uni combo - preseason or regular season - we encourage you to drop us a line, either by PM or on the forum. Your contributions help to make this the best site of its kind.

     Let's just hope we have a normal preseason soon!

~ ~ ~

     Thanks Tim for that look at the "preseason only" unis.  Yes, let's hope this lockout thing is wrapped up in the nearby future.  The Hall Of Fame Game is scheduled to be played only a little more than a month from now, so they better get it settled soon.  Why is it so hard to come to an agreement?  If this side wants "x" and this side wants "y", why can't they just agree to split the difference?  If games are cancelled, that helps no one.

     Like I'm sure many of you, I've been watching the CFL on NFL Network.  I think it's more exciting, the 3 downs, the bigger field, the point for a single... I'd just as soon watch CFL -- except for the fact that I'm not really emotionally invested in these teams.  As an American (sorry, a United States-ian) who really cares whether Saskatchewan or Calgary wins, eh?  Oh well.  (By the way, those guys are doing just fine with 2 preseason games and 18 regular season games.)  Also, to all of you whiners who thought the 7-9 Seahawks shouldn't have made the playoffs last year, Ottawa made the CFL playoffs in 1994 at 4-14.  I'm a Bucs fans -- the Bucs, who along with the Giants missed out on the NFC playoffs at 10-6, were three games better than Seattle -- and did I complain?  No.  It was their own fault, they should have beaten Detroit on December 19.  If they had, they would have made the playoffs at 11-5 instead of Green Bay, oh and we'd probably be celebrating a Steelers, Bears, Falcons or Eagles Super Bowl championship right now, and everybody would still be wondering if Aaron Rodgers is really ready to emerge from Brett Favre's shadow yet.

~ ~ ~

     Speaking of the NFL Network, I've decided to cancel the 'pick the top 10' contest due to lack of interest.  Only four people entered, and half of them were us.  (That's right only two of us entered, even all three of us didn't enter.)  Which is fine, this site should probably focus more on uniforms.  Like, for instance, the many uniform updates which we'll be bringing you Tuesday, as well as the second group of players to vote on in the Best NFL Uniform of All-Time tournament.  If you haven't done so, today is your last chance to vote for the first week's matchups.

     Happy Sunday, and happy Fourth of July tomorrow, we'll have an abbreviated holiday blog edition tomorrow, and then back to usual on Tuesday.