Monday, September 13, 2010

Monday Morning Uni Watch

There was a lot of uni-notable football action this past weekend, but they saved the best for last: the Redskins’ long-rumored gold pants, which made their debut in last night’s game against Dallas. Even better, the pants were paired with magnificent striped socks. Add it up and all of a sudden the ’Skins have one of the best home looks in the league.

Incidentally, if those pants and socks look familiar, that’s because they’re exactly the same knickers and hose that were worn as part of Washington’s 70th-anniversary throwbacks in 2002. (Well, almost the same — the throwback pants had a little anniversary logo on the hip.) Interesting to see that they simply reprised

• I loved the Eagles’ throwbacks. But as several readers pointed out, the TV numbers weren’t the same font as the front and back numbers (it was most apparent with the numerals 2 and 7). Interestingly, they’re showing it that way for the jerseys being sold at retail too. I haven’t had time to check, but maybe this dates back to the original 1960 uniforms that these throwback were patterned after..? Meanwhile, I loved the cheerleaders’ outfits.

• Speaking of TV numbers, my favorite observation of the day was submitted by Adam Pavlovich, who noticed that Brandon Jackson’s TV numbers were applied as patches. Never seen that before! If you look at his left shoulder (right side of the photo), it kinda looks like there’s another number under the patch, so this was probably a way of covering up a faulty set of numbers. Great, great catch by Adam.

• The Giants’ stadium-opening patch was, uh, subtle. Thankfully, it was just a one-game thing, so we won’t have to see it again.

• Something else I hope we never have to see again: a chain gang member with deficient pant-cuffing skills. (Thanks to David Pealing for the screen shot.)

• The Bears “honored” the Blackhawks by giving Brian Campbell a jersey with a misspelled NOB.

• Remember how the Vikings’ horn decals couldn’t cross the Rubicon of the vents on the Revo Speed helmet? Anthony Zogas says, “Instead of cutting the logo, Lions players wearing the Revo Speed actually had the tail of the lion decal ‘bridge the vent.’” I haven’t yet found a good photo of this, though.

• Timmy Brulia’s gonna be busy updating our “White at Home in the NFL” page, because there were a lot of ivory-clad home teams yesterday, including the Pats, Titans, Bears, Texans, and Bucs. All of those teams won, incidentally (as did the Saints, who wore white at home back on Thursday night).

Finally, it’s worth noting that several people e-mailed me to say that the Colts and Packers had some players “wearing weird jerseys.” I thought by now everyone knew about this, but apparently some people didn’t get the memo. If you’re one of them, you can re-read the memo here.

Meanwhile, there was plenty of uni-notable action in the collge ranks on Saturday:

• Louisville wore one seriously tacky helmet design.

• Air Force wore stars/stripes lightning bolts. And get this: They actually managed to include 13 stripes and 50 stars! And what are all those icons on the back of the helmet? Here’s a description: “The back of the helmet included four stickers. The first is a 9-11-01 sticker with the 11 being replicas of the World Trade Center twin towers and the word ‘Remember’ with a United States flag. There is a black outline around it in the shape of the Pentagon building. Underneath, going left to right, are the official logos of the New York City Police Department, the New York City Fire Department, and the Port Authority Police of New York–New Jersey.”

• Baylor wore camo-trimmed helmets, although it was hard to discern from a distance. (And here’s something you won’t often see: green-spatted cleats.)

• Virginia Tech wore solid white — helmet included — at home.

• Texas Tech’s athletic dept. had assured me that the team wouldn’t be wearing those white helmets this season. Guess someone was pulling my leg. This is the exact same helmet that was showing up in photos months ago and was later described as a rejected prototype. So much for that story.

• Terrelle Pryor wore white shoes and socks while his teammates wore black.

• Remember Dayne Crist’s seriously short sleeves from last week? Turns he isn’t the only Notre Dame QB to go that route.

• Speaking of Notre Dame, several readers noted that their front uni numbers appear to be bigger than their rear uni numbers. Odd.

• Surprising sight in Utah, where the Utes went red over white, instead of their usual solid red. Kinda heartening to see a team opting for the traditional look, no?

• An additional FBS change we all missed until now: Tennessee has changed its nose bumpers from “Vols” to the team’s main helmet logo. (Thanks to Jon Caraccilo for pointing that one out.)

Not a bad start to the season. But if every football weekend is this uni-active, they’re gonna have to scrape me off the floor on Monday mornings.

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