NFL Uniforms

when the NFL began it had two things mud and they were working on a second one no one-handed catches no coordinated End Zone celebrations just a bunch of guys bumbling around wearing leather helmets and pants from Elder Scrolls as appealing as that sounds it wasn't and football's forefathers had to make a choice they could either stop playing their game forever or they could find a way to look a lot cooler doing it now fans were reluctant to pervert their beautiful game with colors they booed and hissed at them like cave trolls but as their eyes adjusted and the sport expanded teams were forced to come up with fresh visuals to stay relevant being both recognizable and not ugly was priceless and it still is today just take a look at some of these early logos and boom Dallas Cowboys they are the Dallas Cowboys America's team the Cowboys haven't won anything since the first Toy Story movie came out and now they're making a fifth one and doing NFL games but Dallas Remains by far the most popular team in football because success doesn't matter what matters is that star just like logos tradition is always the way to go for uniforms if your team can get it right early and you've got your Packers Bears Raiders Colts Chiefs they wouldn't look right in any other threads decades down the road if you're real clever you can connect your colors directly to the city black and gold in Pittsburgh match the city flag or teal and orange in Miami representing those tropical beaches so we need sharp contrasting colors and uniform designs that can show them off but why is this a good uniform while this is a bad one well for starters this one doesn't have a number on the front there's just a giant B by my count the uniform fossil record is divided into six distinct eras of aesthetic Evolution and today I'd like to travel through see if we can learn anything the wet sweater era saw grd iron football break away from rugby to form a new mud game that looked exactly like it with cotton or wool sweaters and a leather cap that essentially made players a human football teams did this I think to three stouge their enemies because deception and thievery were virtues in the early NFL the Chicago stales straight up stole the NFL title in 1921 by saying hey First Place Buffalo who we already lost to let's have a rematch for fun the day after your final game and then after they won they said it actually counted and had the NFL make a rule that if two teams play twice the second one counts more that's how you become Champions and it's a thirst for blood that today's Bears teams will never comprehend in recent years plenty of teams have worn Throwbacks that feature those infant designs from the 20s and 30s but when you add in modern pads and nylon jerseys they end up looking so bad everyone wants to throw up Steelers Bumblebee costumes get a pass cuz those ones are funny but slapstick gags can't work forever So eventually the league entered its baby draft stage where we see teams getting closer to the looks we recognize but they're still wobbling and falling over too much to pretend they've got it figured out Staples that we now take for granted still had to be dredged out you had the lions in red the 49ers without even a hint of gold gold or my favorite Ronald McDonald Rams when the Rams added horns it first opened the door to put in graphics onto helmets and they continued to evolve from leather to plastic and even added a face bar did some players start yanking face bars into the dirt every play yeah but that's how progress works so the NFL was feeling its way through the dark but in 1960 the AFL stepped up to send a lightning bolt through pro football fireworks in the passing game names on the back of jerseys Broadway Joe Medicare extraordinaire call the number on your screen now it's free no brand new league is perfect the Raiders didn't realize it was a moral wrong to wear black and gold and the Denver Broncos started their professional franchise in these but the afl's formation during the rise of color TV injected some needed intensity into the uniform landscape we got baby blue bright red and green orange when the Broncos finally got their together by the time the two leagues merged into the Titan we recognize today football fashion was officially in its golden age featuring the most instantly recognizable looks in NFL history this was the longest uniform era to date and for good reason spanning nearly four decades into the 1990s that's not to say that every team remained stagnant though the Bengals figured out that instead of just saying that they weren't the Browns they could show you the Jets found their best look in the 1980s and fumbled it the Saints uh hydrated better more than anything this era was defined by vibrancy as shown with the League's 2 expansion team in 1976 he had Tampa Bay with their cream sickles and losing streaks and Seattle sporting the definitive astr Turf era look I mean we talk about how awful Turf is now they were playing on concrete but like all of culture design is cyclical uniforms music movies no matter what your trend is if it continues long enough the pendulum is going to swing the other way so in the '90s we see a shift in uniform mood three brand new looks in your Jaguars Panthers and freshly moved Ravens all opting for a scheme that heavily featured black over bright colors the 70s and 80s were over pro football was edgy now 96 saw the death of the Kelly Green Eagles in favor of a shade dubbed midnight and the next year the Buccaneers put their logo from 76 back in the closet which I don't think was cool but for my money the final Horsemen to truly plunge the NFL into an age of dark was Nike's 1997 redesign of the Denver Broncos as the Broncos began the 97 season there was an obvious difference this big of a 180 from color to logo to layout was a loud statement that Nike wanted to change the uniform game and it was the first time that a brand took the Reign on a redesign rather than just acting as its manufacturer some claimed that Nike snuck in a subliminal swoosh to some more Sneakers but that batwing design forever altered the way jerseys were sewn and shifted their material from baggy tear away fabric towards the formfitting nylon you see today and while it did didn't necessarily Inspire direct descendants what other teams did take away from watching Nike's first Rebrand immediately win back-to-back Super Bowls was that darker colors equals more successful team by the mid 2000s the NFL saturation levels were in freef fall and what's worse is that it was working the uniforms worn by the most successful Dynasty in the sports history crawled right out of the age of dark into historic success even though they were boring and kind of bad apart from that boom of Gloom the most notable trend from the age of dark was swinging that design pendulum from Simplicity to treating every empty space like it was a stall in a bar bathro Titans Falcons Cardinals all committed uniform heresy and each of them were punished with three of the most heartbreaking Super Bowl losses of all time standing alone as the most disgusting offense would be the bills and yeah punishment fits the crime this whole time Nike was out in the cold watching Reebok handle the exclusive uniform license for a decade to kill time they put together 3.6 billion uniform combinations for the Oregon Ducks and when they finally swiped that exclusive license away in 2012 they had fully secured a reputation as the cool futuristic sportsare designer remember these socks if you attended an American School in the 2010s you probably do what is up YouTube Nike Jordan Etc here Nike's first New Era redesign in 2012 was very much taking a Nike Elite sock and expanding it into an NFL uniform and I'm not saying that's really a bad thing reviews at the time were mixed but every uniform looks good if you win a Super Bowl in it and Nike's redesigns were spawning lombardis out of thin air this time they even beat their old uniforms while wearing the new ones so there's some real red meat for the conspiracists not only did Nike have the exclusive rights to redesign whoever they wanted they were King makers now so immediately they let that go to their head the helmet that's supposed to give the the appearance of speed and and the the Jaguar going fast the Buccaneers say the new look connects the past the present and boldly brings the team into the future when you look at the font it's very distinctive very angular this border around the numbers on the Jersey adds a completely new dimension and it makes it easier to read well for the Browns tonight much anticipated the reveal of the new look uniform no one else in the NFL has such a a loud word Mark that is you know such powerfully displayed across the front chest went across the chest and as I can tell I think it's Browns down the leg Browns down the leg yes very very cool if there's one obvious problem that held a lot of these back it was Nike's Perpetual desire to make every single element have some kind of Greater meaning behind it which is cool in concept but it builds the uniform out like it's going in a tech demo rather than on a football field this angle in the number is meant to be a tribute to the state of Tennessee this is a revolution and I I don't think that that's a word to be taken lightly not all of the early Nike reworks were disasters but uh yeah no more Super Bowl bumps and multiple were replaced the moment they were legally eligible to be under NFL rules anybody remember the color Rush era of Thursday night football color blind people do you really have to commend Nike because they've never been afraid to make a mistake that's how you get better and you can all you want about Icarus but you can't call the guy boring here in the 2020s we're seeing splintering paths for the future maybe that's due to teams putting more of a leash on their redesigns but I'd say that's where we cross into the present era the reason there's no stupid name for it yet is because there are three schools of thought all fighting to come out on top first let's look at more Nike an extension of the 2010's Nike era uh show a gradient number or Jersey to John Heisman and his brain will detonate but there's also no denying that these show up pretty well on TV Atlanta and La already have way better looks that they could use fulltime but you know new attitude buzzword the gradient pattern is a visual representation of rise up there's also the commander uniforms these are awful I don't even have anything written down they're so lazy The Bare Bones movement is growing in numbers with the Cardinals joining the Jags the Jags were 2018 but these fit really well both had insanely busy designs before and they responded by scraping off as much detail as physic possible they are much cleaner but they do kind of strike you as a little scared all I'm saying you know just make some slight tweaks shoulder logos taken from their past uniforms I didn't make these but maybe you can hire the people that did what's interesting is that philosophy of streamlining past designs is something that Nike has been doing essentially what's old is New Again the Bucks and Browns received significant positive feedback for essentially just hitting undo but the Bengals and Chargers completely stuck The Landing by just lasering in on what makes those teams unique I know I've been hard on Nike but that's because this is what they're capable of you've got Distinctive Designs on the shoulders and legs that are the team's identity and then beyond that they just let the color scheme talk and it works no need to make the word Mark billboard size to show strength no gradients no Godzilla sized helmet logos no gimmicky extra graphic as a nod to fireman or something threading the needle between too basic and too cute and that's why you get paid the big bucks leag wide proof of concept for this is the throwback Renaissance of 2023 kicked off when the NFL lifted its one shell rule some teams just added a black helmet and clocked out but nearly half the league has worn Throwbacks this year and they are all without exception beautiful Nostalgia is always going to be popular but I think the universal praise for these looks shows more than anything that fan bases are dying for some clean streamlined Concepts cycling through all of these have stripes and numbers that are distinct and colors that pop off the screen after after decades for some of these teams being fully consumed by over complication and darkness for some fans it's like seeing colors for the first time it's also clear at this point that block numerals are objectively the correct choice for a professional football team some of the unique fonts Nike rolls out with every redesign are cool but none of them are Timeless look all of uniform design is subjective that's why it's fun to make tier lists or get into arguments under YouTube videos about it I've already rambled long enough but if you're looking to get more in depth than I could ever hope to UNI watch and the GD iron uniform database are the best places to go to L an afternoon the beauty of NFL uniform history is it's already been around long enough that it's beginning to loop back around on itself and with multiple long overdue redesigns on the horizon the future is bright and look I own multiple of the alarm clock Bucks jerseys so if I can be optimistic I think anybody can before we go I want to take a quick second to thank game time for helping to make this video video happen trying to buy tickets to events has become an absolute clown parade in recent years with Bots markups bonus fees that aren't visible until right before you pay I personally even had an issue once where my tickets were sold to someone else after I bought them and I just got locked out of the venue so instead I recommend you go check out game time which is a ticket Marketplace that focuses on giving you the most transparent and best deals possible by focusing on the tickets that are available right up to the last minute these people are out here hustling and grinding so hard for those deals that they keep rolling them out even an hour after the event has already started and I also appreciate that they tell you the full price you'll be paying instead of just tacking on those extra fees at checkout plus they allow you to see what your view is going to be from your seat that way you don't just buy a ticket that's in front of a giant Pole or maybe that's what you want go crazy if you're interested in checking them out download the game time app create an account and use code set the edge to get $20 off your first purchase terms apply again that's code s th Edge to get $20 off on last minute tickets over at game time we're pretty bullish on the future

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 332,691

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Id: G_IBdumJ02c

Length: 14min 5sec (845 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 29 2023