Paul here, giving Phil a well-earned weekend break. Yesterday I said the site would be closed for the weekend, but then an interesting story began circulating late in the day yesterday, and I’ve decided to address it here today.
So: While the rest of the world was needlessly obsessing about whether Colin Kaepernick would remove the American flag decal from his helmet, a more legitimate decal-removal story was unfolding right under our noses. To wit: Did Tom Brady remove the NFL logo decal from his helmet, perhaps as a way of protesting his upcoming suspension?
That question was raised on Twitter yesterday by a fan named Eric Penza, who noticed that the logo was missing from Brady’s helmet during the Patriots’ game against the Giants on Thursday night. I didn’t see that tweet, but Michael Hurley, who writes for CBS Boston Sports, did. He wrote a pretty good piece about it (several other media outlets have now followed up by writing about it as well), pointing out that Brady’s NFL logo decal had also been AWOL a week earlier, when the Pats played the Panthers:
But why stop there? Looking back a bit further, it turns out that the decal was also missing on Aug. 3, as seen in this shot of Jacoby Brissett carrying Brady’s gear:
And it also appears to have been missing in this July 28 shot, although the view isn’t ideal:
It was also missing during minicamp, as seen here on June 9:
So it’s pretty clear that Brady hasn’t been wearing the NFL logo on his helmet for at least three months now, whether in games, practices, OTAs, or anything else. (He appears to have worn the decal throughout last season.)
But was Brady doing this as an intentional snub to Roger Goodell? I’m not so convinced. Brady’s legal appeals were still unresolved on June 9, when that last photo was taken. Why would he risk a fine and a potential controversy back then, when he still had a chance of winning? I’m more inclined to think it’s just an oversight. We’ll likely never know for sure, because I can’t imagine Brady admitting that he removed the decal intentionally, even if he actually did.
Anyway, it’s a fun storyline to think about. Discuss.
That’s it for this weekend’s new uni content — there will be no post tomorrow. Some promo messages follow, and the comments will be open all weekend, so feel free to talk amongst yourselves. We’ll have light content on Monday, and things should get back to normal on Tuesday, okay? Okay!
Panel discussion: Next Thursday afternoon, Sept. 8, I’m going to participating in a panel discussion at Baruch College in Manhattan regarding the use of Native American imagery in sports.
The event will run from 12:45-2:15pm (yes, I realize that’s an awkward time frame for anyone with a regular job) and is open to the public, although attendees are supposed to register/RSVP in advance. You can do that, and see additional information about the event, here.
Speakers for sale: I have a pair of used AudioEngine A2 desktop speakers available for sale. They’re ideal for pairing with a desktop computer. I purchased them in 2011, although they haven’t gotten much use in the past two years. They look and sound like new.
The speakers are small (6″ high, 4″ wide, 5.25″ deep) but pack a surprisingly powerful sound. Technical specs and so on are available here. Reviews are available here, here, and here.
The speakers retail for $249. I could list them on eBay, where used sets appear to sell in the $110-$130 range, but I’d rather see them end up with a Uni Watch reader, so I’m willing to sell them for $100 plus shipping (which should be between $11 and $18, depending on where you live, although NYC-area people can avoid the shipping costs by swinging by Uni Watch HQ to pick up the speakers in person).
I still have all the original cords and the instruction booklet (click to enlarge):
Interested? If so, give me a shout. Thanks.
T-Shirt Club reminder: In case you missed it earlier this week, we’ve launched our latest Uni Watch T-Shirt Club design.
My creative partner on the T-Shirt Club project, Bryan Molloy, no longer works at Teespring, so we’re doing this shirt with his new employer, Represent, which operates almost exactly like Teespring does. From your standpoint, the customer experience should be virtually identical.
Now then: Our latest shirt is devoted to soccer. Here’s the design (for all of these images, you can click to enlarge):
We’re offering this design in four different shirt colors — maroon, black, dark green, and heather grey:
The shirt is available here. It’s available for a slightly longer period than most of our previous shirts, in part because I want to build in some extra time because of the Labor Day weekend, and also because traffic here on the site is a bit lower during my August break. Basically, I just want to make sure everyone has a chance to see and order the shirt.
One more time, the soccer shirt is available here. My thanks, as always, for your consideration.
Pulling the NFL shield decal off his helmet? I guess ol Tom showed them!
But Brady still has the logo on his jersey so……now what?
Maybe he’s just clearing the space for the business partner whose logo will appear in that spot.
Didn’t expect anything here today (as announced), and delighted to see a small story about Brady. Interesting about the NFL decal. I imagine we will see it just fine when he is back from suspension. Also, why no ticker? I know Phil is off and Paul only came due to a developing story story, but isn’t there a different person who handles the ticker on the weekend? Oh well, I know everyone needs a break. Keep up the good work Paul and associates.
When I DO the weekends, I handle the ticker both days. When anyone else (except Paul in rare circumstances) does the weekend (subbing for me), there is no ticker. If you knew what it takes to compile that thing, you’d understand why it’s not there today.
But don’t worry — I’m back on the weekends full time starting next weekend (with a YUGE Saturday & Sunday Morning Uni Watch smorgasboard), so we’ll have weekend tickers for at least the rest of the year.
Incredibly enough, the Ticker doesn’t compile itself. I’m in charge of this weekend’s content, and I didn’t compile items for the Ticker yesterday because my plan was for us to be closed today. Then I decided to do the Brady item — but that doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t compiling a Ticker, so there’s no Ticker today.
There also won’t be a Ticker (or anything else) tomorrow, and there likely won’t be a Ticker on Monday either (although there will probably be a short lede). Tuesday we’ll get back to normal.
Here’s something that has been happening for the past few months: whenever I click on “Continue reading” and also when I first click on any highlighted link, I get pop-up ads that quickly appear, then go behind my uni-watch page (I then have to pull down the uni-page and then click on the red button to delete the ads).
Is anyone else having the same thing occur on their computers? Does anyone have any advice on how to remedy this or is it just something I’ll have to get accustomed to? Could I have picked up a virus? As far as I know, nothing has changed with my computer in the last few months. Any info or advice is appreciated.
On desktop, using chrome, all the time. On phone or Kindle, no.
Yup, using the damn Chrome here, as well.
I use the desktop version of Chrome &, while I wasn’t having problems with this site’s links, I was with woot.com in particular. I ran CCleaner & Malwarebytes & both turned up no issues. I traced it back to the Drumpfinator extension I’d installed back in March–at some point maybe in May sometime, someone must have added a little step that caused certain links to redirect to those “link-bucks” type schemes then back to the homepage of the original site. Point is, while it’s not the exact same as your problem, check for any extensions you may have installed recently. I uninstalled mine and haven’t had the problem since.
Drumpfinator!
Getting them on Chrome
Regardless of whether Brady has intentionally taken off the sticker or not, can we all just agree that the helmet looks better without it? There’s just so many completely unnecessary stickers on the helmets today. You don’t need the NFL shield. You don’t need the 9/11 flag. You don’t need the damn warning label. You don’t need a green dot because the helmet has a receiver in it. Hell, why don’t all of the helmets have those anyway? Once you’re at the point of letting the coach talk directly to the QB, you might as well just let all the other players hear it too. You don’t need cancer ribbons or armed forces logos. The only stickers that should be on a helmet are the helmet stripes, the team logos and maybe the player numbers. All that other shit? It needs to go away.
“You don’t need the 9/11 flag.”
~~~
Why do you hate America?
Reason number one: That question even being asked.
I could give a few more reasons, but we don’t really need 500 comments today.
Oh, THE. Your sarcasm detection meter must be broken today.
Have a good one.
Agreed. Too much clutter, too much to attempt to “honor”.
LSU at Lambeau should be interesting look. Will fit right in with gold pants and helmets, but that Viking purple mixed in…
Would have been better if Tom Brady ripped the Flying Elvis logos off his helmet and replaced them with Pat Patriot logos.
A combination of the 2 would been an interesting logo the Patriots could consider. They could have a buff looking Flying Elvis (same type of face) in the Pat Patriot stance.
Like in Baseball, where the starting pitcher picks the uniform, maybe the QB or a Captain should pick the socks, pants and helmet logo. NE can have Pat Patriot, Washington can go blank for the “leather” look, and the Bengals can go with words or stripes.
Did the rule change specify helmet shells, color, and/or decals?
We’d like to welcome everyone to the first edition of the “preseason bowl game”, presented by our highest-bidding sponsor!
Need a helmet sticker? No prob.
link
Man, can you imagine paying $3.99 for a 1″ NFL sticker?
This one is just as bad (from the same seller) . . .
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Ahhhh-Hahahahaaaaaaaaaaa !!!
On a uni issue from last night, MLB had Stand Up 2 Cancer logos on the uniforms. It looked bad (at least in the Mariners Angels game). They looked like cheap sticker appliques, some were up to 5 degrees off being straight vertical, Some on the left, some on the right.
As an Oregon grad of the interlocking UO era, with Donald and all, can we make a NOB rule (amongst other issues)? For crying out loud… why insist on black lettering on black and grey jerseys? Or green on green? Today, I could not read the TV numbers or NOB most of the game. At the beginning of the year it is harder too when old folks think #15 is Patrick Chung, Keenen Howry, or someone new (not Seisay). So, legibility or NNOB please… how can we effect that kind of NCAA change?
Yes. You aren’t the only one. Across sports too. OSU has these orange helmets with the old Cowboy logo, also in orange. Completely asinine. I also hate baseball jerseys that are colored with the same color number or logo. Like the Angels and Tampa do. Anyway….
From 11/15/15 game vs NYG:
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Perhaps they removed the shield last November for the other decals & just never thought to put it back on?
What about when art monk used to take off his nfl logo off his jersey ? No one made a big stink about that
White hats PV? What happened to the purple or black hats? At least Texas Southern got rid of that grey crap from the past 2 seasons.