Monday Morning Uni Watch

I spent most of the weekend washing and installing storm windows at a friend’s old house in the Hudson Valley but managed to sneak a peek at some football action here and there. Among the highlights:

• Sweetest NFL look of the day: The Redskins in gold pants and white jerseys. First time this year they’ve worn that combo, but I hope it’s not the last. Lots of additional photos here.

• Not a good look for the Jets.

• Or the Rams.

• Or the Saints.

• Kevin Williams of the Vikings was victimized by a typo on his NOB.

• Remember how Kevin Mawae used to tape a Christian cross onto his facemask, until the NFL put the kibosh on that? Looks like Texans punter Matt Turk is doing the same thing, only he’s darkening the tape so it doesn’t show as clearly, presumably in an attempt to fly under the radar of the league’s uniform cops. You may fool them, Matt, but you can’t fool Uni Watch!

• Chad Bengal wore orange shoes. Dog bites man.

• As for Saturday’s NCAA action, Montana went BFBS.

• Maryland wore their solid-black Wounded Warrior uniforms.

• Iowa State wore gold jerseys.

• Oregon State wore orange.

• And Oklahoma State trotted out a set of black pants (which I believe are new) and black helmet decals (which I know are new). Oops, update: The black helmet decals aren’t so new after all.

(My thanks to all contributors, including Corey Ylinen, Chris Haar, Travis McGuire, Arin Mitchell, Bryan Starkey, and David Pealing.)

Gullible’s Travels: A few jillion people have sent e-mails asking why I haven’t had more to say about those Nike-fied NFL uni designs that have been making the rounds. Here’s why: They had nothing to do with the NFL or with Nike. They’re just someone’s Photoshop concepts, and I never run Photoshop concepts here on the site. They might have qualified for Phil’s weekend tweaks if they’d been submitted as such, but they weren’t submitted to us. So at the end of the day, these designs are no different than the many, many uni concepts that circulate on various message boards and discussion forums every day. We don’t normally talk about those, and I saw no reason to talk about these either. It was a non-story, and my policy regarding non-stories is simple: I don’t waste time with them.

I did have a very brief Ticker mention on Thursday, basically dismissing the whole thing. I figured that’s all I needed to say — a tangential “Oh look, this stupid thing is happening, whatevs” — because I thought the Uni Watch audience was sophisticated enough to see right through the whole thing from the start. The templates were obviously from Nike’s NCAA Pro Combat series (do you really think Nike would just recycle those images instead of coming up with new ones?), many of the players had exposed calves (not permissible in the NFL), and so on. And whatever you think of Nike, they turn out better work than this. Anyone with even a vaguely practiced eye shouldn’t have needed me to debunk this story for them.

Some of you are probably thinking, “But so many people have been buzzing about it!” Yeah, because so many people were super-gullible and willing to believe something simply because it appeared on the internet. That includes a bunch of supposedly professional media outlets who should have known better and who obviously didn’t bother to do even the most rudimentary fact-checking. A simple call to the NFL and/or to Nike — or to me, for that matter — would have revealed that the designs weren’t legit.

Anyway, just because everyone else is jumping into the Idiot Pool doesn’t mean I have to. On the contrary, when some uni-related urban myth goes viral, the last thing I want to do is further dignify it by discussing it. So I let the whole thing run its course, and now the NFL has actually issued a statement confirming what I (and I hope most of you) knew all along, the end.

So that’s that. Let’s forget it ever happened and move on, yes? Yes.

Uni Watch News Ticker: Those UAB road uniforms with the illegible uni numbers are being revised. ”¦ Remember the 1945 wire shot of Babe Ruth with the Esquire All-Americans? Here’s one of the original Esquire uniforms from that game. ”¦ Best sweater ad ever (thanks, Kirsten). ”¦ Looks like Nike isn’t the only company equating football with combat (with thanks to Daniel Knox). ”¦ More on Danny Jennings’s misspelled NOB toward the bottom of this page. The weird part is the last two grafs, in which the writer almost apologizes for writing about a uni typo. This trope is all too common among other sportswriters — they can’t quite accept that uni coverage is legitimate, so they feel the need to footnote any such coverage with a “Hey, I know it’s stupid to be writing about this, but here you go” proviso. Lame (with thanks to Louis Gaunch). ”¦ Coupla great auction finds by Mike Hersh: a Pennsylvania Railroad Operators baseball uni (click on the photo for a larger version and some sheet music for a song dedicated to Honus Wagner. ”¦ Speaking of auctions, Ken Juba spotted this Penguins prototype, along with some cool baseball-themed comic books. ”¦ Nice upgrade for Holy Cross hoops (with thanks to Patrick Hart). ”¦ Check out the awesome letterhead on this 1944 Packers contract (great contribution from Jay Rupert). ”¦ Loads of tasty wool cycling jerseys showcased on this page (with thanks to Sean Clancy). ”¦ New look for the Kinston Indians (with thanks to Brendan Dearie). ”¦ Not sure I’ve ever seen football players keeping warm with wool coats before. That’s a shot of the 1912 Nebraska Cornhusers, submitted by Larry Bodnovich. ”¦ “Nike originally said they created the N7 Line of shoes specifically to fit the feet of Native Americans,” says Chris Chaussee. “Now it seem like they’ve abandoned that idea for the sake of a color scheme.” ”¦ Not sure I’d been aware of Miami University’s “Love & Honor” nose bumper until Chris Cullum pointed it out to me. ”¦ Remember the inconsistent thickness of the red striping on the Kansas basketball uni? They now appear to have fixed that problem. Memo to Adidas: You’re welcome. ”¦ Chris Young says a Cleveland friend of his recently spotted this DIY jersey. ”¦ New road uni for UVA hoops, although their home uni appears to be unchanged from last season (with thanks to Kevin Zdancewic). ”¦ The image quality isn’t great, but it isn’t every day you get to see screen shots of a Bears/’Skins color-on-color game — with the Bears wearing orange! — in 1946 (great discovery by Mark Carroll). ”¦ The camouflage phenomenon has spread to college volleyball. That’s Truman State (with thanks to Kate Sutter). ”¦ If you scroll down in this thread, you’ll find a ton of really wonderful fan photos of Tiger Stadium (big thanks to Morris Levin). ”¦ What’s even better than a page of vintage clothing labels? How about a quilt made from vintage clothing labels (you rock, Robin Edgerton). ”¦ Several good finds from Mike Hersh, including Maurice Richard in an old-timer’s jersey, several NHLers in jockeys’ silks, and a CFL uni with oddly oriented TV numbers (which I believe we’ve seen before, but it’s still plenty interesting). ”¦ Lotsa good stuff from Bruce Menard, including a beautiful Ebbets Field usher’s cap, a potpourri of uniforms in a 7up ad, and the 1917 Yankees showing support for the Great War. ”¦ Rugby news from Eric Bangeman, who writes: “Samoa is sporting sharp-looking new uniforms this fall, using an asymmetrical look with Polynesian print on one of the sleeves, similar to Fiji’s sweet-looking kit. Wales wore their new blue for blue sake alternates against Fiji as well.” ”¦ Here’s how Oregon State’s turquoise basketball uniforms looked yesterday. ”¦ New hoops uniforms for Buffalo (with thanks to Spencer Seaner). ”¦ What’s going on here? No, he isn’t missing his uni number — it just isn’t quite visible in that shot, because it’s from the period when the Bulls’ numbers were positioned way off to one side (with thanks to Kevin Zdancewicz). … I’ll be on the road for most of today. Back home tonight. See you tomorrow.