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Uni Watch

Monday Morning Uni Watch

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Good morning! Very unusual move yesterday by the Saints, who wore their primary white jerseys in Jacksonville and paired them with a new, previously unseen set of white pants! The Saints sometimes go mono-white with their Color Rash uni, of course, but it’s much rarer to see them wearing mono-white with their primary white jersey. How rare? According to the Gridiron Uniform Database, the last time they went mono-white in a non-Rash context was 1975!

In case you’re wondering: Yes, there’s plenty of precedent for NFL teams coming up with new pants designs with little or no warning. When Washington brought back the yellow pants in 2010, that move came out of nowhere. Ditto for the Ravens’ infamous gold pants, which debuted late in the 2015 season.

In other news from around the league yesterday:

• Brutal-looking game in Arizona, as the Cardinals wore their black alternates against the Falcons, creating a matchup of two of the league’s most clownish looks. The Cards didn’t help matters by adding a garishly large, bow tie-shaped memorial patch for owner Bill Bidwill (they had worn a memorial decal):

The new patch looked particularly ridiculous on Cards wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, who now looks like a European hockey player or something like that:

• The Jets wore mono-white at home (with plain white socks to boot) against the Cowboys — the first time the Jets have worn that combo with their new uni set:

• In that same game, one of the officials was missing a stripe on his black cap:

• The Broncos wore their navy alternates:

• You’re not going to believe this, but here goes: Everyone knows I hate purple and also hate the Bengals’ uniforms, but I think the matchup those two teams put on the field yesterday looked pretty good! I don’t love either of these uni combos on their own, but I like the way they collide when facing each other:

• With the Panthers and Bucs playing in London, Carolina decided to award a captaincy patch to defensive lineman Efe Obada, who grew up in the UK and played for the London Warriors in 2014:

• Speaking of the Panthers, the London game took place in soccer team Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium, so Carolina quarterback Kyle Allen wore a Spurs cap during pregame activities (sorry about the quality of this photo but it’s the best I could find):

• Seahawks defensive lineman Jadeveon Clowney had part of his nose bumper panel fall off and get lodged against his visor:

• Three teams wore white at home: the aforementioned Jets, along with the Rams and Dolphins. (That Dolphins game was a missed opportunity to re-create the look of Super Bowl VII, as Miami could have worn their throwbacks and Washington could have gone with the yellow pants.)

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Best-looking game of the week? Steelers/Chargers (well, except when Steelers linebacker Vince Williams and his pink socks were on the field). Worst-looking: Definitely that Cards/Falcons debacle.

(My thanks to our own Jamie Rathjen for the Kyle Allen item.)

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Press pin update: Remember the limited-edition Uni Watch Press Pin that I announced and launched last Friday? As of this morning, there are only seven of the pins remaining. So if you want one, move fast. Update: The press pin is now SOLD OUT.

If I had realized that this item would be so popular, I would have made more than 200 of them. I can’t really go back and make more now, because each of the existing pins are numbered “1/200,” “2/200,” and so on, so it wouldn’t make sense — and wouldn’t be fair to the people who’ve purchased the pin — to make another batch of them.

However! The success of this product and of our basic logo pin (which is still very much available — plenty of inventory on that one!) has convinced me that pins are a good new frontier of Uni Watch creative projects. As one reader told me, “They’re fun to collect — and they don’t take up space!”

I’ll have more to say about a new pin project soon. Stay tuned.

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rafflet ticket by ben thoma.jpg

ITEM! New cap raffle: We recent mentioned in the Ticker that there’s a new line of NHL Carhartt caps. And now Carhartt and ’47 are giving away free caps to three lucky Uni Watch readers.

This is a two-day raffle. To enter, send an email with you shipping address and your choice of any hat from this page (be sure to keep scrolling down to see all of the options — the page will keep filling as you keep scrolling) to the raffle address by 8pm Eastern tomorrow, Oct. 15. I’ll announce the winner on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the winner of Friday’s one-day Naming Wrongs T-shirt raffle is Dan Whaland. Congrats to him, and my repeated thanks to the anonymous benefactor who sponsored that raffle.

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Membership update: If you want to see something really great, click on the image of Scott Tannen’s new membership card so you can really appreciate all the fine details. The contrast-colored stitching, the little anchor pattern — our card designer, Scott M.X. Turner, did a really tremendous job with this one. (The design, of course, is based on Vanderbilt’s football jersey.)

Scott’s card is one of several that have been added to the membership card gallery. We’ve had a big spike in orders since the latest unpleasantness (thank you!), so don’t worry if you don’t see your card in the gallery yet — we now have a bit of a backlog, but I think we’ll be caught up by the end of this week.

Ordering a membership card is a good way to support Uni Watch (which, frankly, could use your support these days). And remember, a Uni Watch membership card entitles you to a 15% discount on any of the merchandise in our Teespring shop and our Naming Wrongs shop. (If you’re an existing member and would like to have the discount code, email me and I’ll hook you up.) As always, you can sign up for your own custom-designed card here, you can see all the cards we’ve designed so far here (more than 2,300 of them!), and you can see how we produce the cards here.

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Click to enlarge — it’s worth a closer look

What, no Psoriasis Trail?: The Tugboat Captain and I spent the weekend on a much-needed weekend road trip through New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. There were lots of good stops along the way, but the most enjoyable one, on several levels, was a hike we took through a forested area in Pennsylvania. The plot of land is stewarded by a nearby hospital, so they’ve named all of the trails after medical terms.

As you can see above, this makes for what I’m pretty sure are history’s best trail markers ever. In addition to the ones shown on those signs, there were also the Punctured Lung Trail, the Coronary Trail, the Stress Test Trail, and the Mood Disorder Trail, along several others (you can see the full assortment here).

As far as we could tell, the trail names didn’t bear any relation to the trails themselves (i.e., you’d be no more likely to suffer a broken clavicle on the Broken Clavicle Trail than on the Concussion Trail). It all felt random and hilarious, like an absurdist theme park from The Simpsons or something.

During the drive home, we tried to think up other good trail names they could use if they expanded their territory (or that we could use ourselves if we ever get to run things there). Among our favorites:

• The Bunion Trail
• The Hysterectomy Trail
• The Low T Trail
• The Whooping Cough Trail
• The Hypochondria Trail (sort of meta)
• The Gout Trail
• The Ruptured Spleen Trail
• The Yeast Infection Trail
• The Shingles Trail

Plus there were probably several more good ones (and quite a few bad ones) that I’m forgetting. We also thought it would be good to have a few shorter/easier trails for kids — the Sniffles Trail, the Skinned Knee Trail, and so on.

I hope to have more to say about the rest of the trip later this week.

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The Ticker
By Jamie Rathjen

Football News: Left over from Saturday: Boise State wore script “Broncos” helmets for what David Augusto says is the first time since 2001. … Injured Kentucky quarterback Terry Wilson wore a No. 22 jersey on the sidelines in memory of one of his predecessors in the position, Jared Lorenzen (from Josh Hinton). … You can see some Canadian college uni tracking from Wade Heidt in yesterday’s comments. … Blaise D’Sylva‘s school of the day for yesterday from his helmet collections was UAB. … Clint Richardson‘s former high school, Hazel Green (Ala.), wore pink jerseys.

Hockey News: Junior hockey teams that wore pink accents this weekend included the OHL’s Flint Firebirds and the WHL’s Everett Silvertips (from Wade Heidt). … Wade also tells us that the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s La Ronge Ice Wolves, whose colors are teal, black, and white, have teal pants. That’s something that the Sharks, who have only ever worn black pants, haven’t done. … New alternates for Northern Michigan (from Jerry Nitzh). … Since 2015, the Staples Center has had a “most sold out performances” banner for musician Taylor Swift. Kings fans apparently think it put a curse on their team, so it’s being covered up for their games. … Former soccer keeper Petr Čech, who recently made his debut as a pro hockey player for the Guildford Phoenix of the NIHL, is wearing a mask that pays tribute to his former soccer teams, Chelsea and Arsenal.

Basketball News: The Celtics’ Turkish center, Enes Kanter, who is publicly critical of his home country’s president and cannot travel outside of the U.S. safely as a result, wrote “freedom” on his sneakers yesterday (from James Gilbert). … Reader Robert Anderson noticed what he calls faint “red stitching” on the blue portion of the Wizards’ red jerseys — not the armhole piping, but it looks like it’s underneath the blue.

Soccer News: Several European sports newspapers are reporting — which means you should take this with a grain of salt — that Cristiano Ronaldo’s first club, Sporting Clube de Portugal, are open to selling him their stadium’s naming rights. An enterprising person had already updated the Sporting CP Wikipedia page yesterday (from Kaden Jacobs). … West Ham United’s women’s team wore their pink shirts for the first time — with claret shorts and socks. … Florida’s women’s team wore mono-pink. … No picture, but Ed Żelaski tells us that an unidentified Kazakhstan player suffered a shirt tear in their European Championship qualifier against Belgium yesterday. … San Marino — an otherwise sky blue and white team — wore unexplained maroon clash shorts for yesterday’s Euro qualifier against Scotland. … The U.S. men’s national team played a CONCACAF Nations League game at D.C. United’s Audi Field on Friday, so of course some visible Adidas logos on pictures of DCU players were covered up (from Geoff Holm). … Cross-listed from the hockey section: Former Arsenal and Chelsea keeper Petr Čech, who recently made his debut as a pro hockey player for the Guildford Phoenix of the NIHL, is wearing a mask that pays tribute to his former soccer teams.

Grab Bag: Women’s college teams outside of soccer that wore pink this weekend included Colorado State volleyball and American, James Madison, Maryland, Penn State, and UConn (goalies as well) field hockey. The Big Ten Network TV graphics also played along with Penn State. … Reader Eric Bangeman‘s son’s rugby union club wore Pinktober socks. … New kits to go with a new crest, which we had yesterday, for Australian Football League team Port Adelaide. … A United Airlines plane has a throwback livery that was originally for the airline’s 85th anniversary in 2011. You can see more pictures here (from Joshua Tretakoff).

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It’s that time of the year again: I’m attending the first day of the Puppy Bowl taping today, and then I have a meeting after that, so I won’t be checking the site very much. Please play nice while I’m away. Thanks. — Paul

 
  
 
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Comments (39)

    I’m surprised there wasn’t anything about how four teams (the Saints, Jaguars, Jets and Eagles) paired white pants with white socks.

    I am all for the NFL allowing the full white socks now, but this is not the way I wanted to see them used. Their ideal use is to be worn with coloured pants and put a stop to the leotard effect. The teams (and so many of them it appears) are doing the opposite and we are getting white leotard effect.

    Further to this, the Saints need to help us enjoy our Sundays by just wearing what they should wear. Which is gold pants all the time.

    Petr Čech’s helmet also pays tribute to the greatest Czech goalie ever, Dominik Hašek (over the chin).

    Further to the SJHL’s La Ronge Ice Wolves and their teal pants. They played this weekend against the Estevan Bruins, who were wearing their all-banana yellow uniforms that we have seen on the Ticker before.

    link

    A rare teal pants vs. yellow pants game. I would bet the last time there was a teal pants vs. yellow pants hockey game would have been the California Golden Seals and the Los Angeles Kings in the 1975-76 NHL season.

    “…the London game took place in soccer team Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium, …”

    It was noted during the game that is is the first stadium built outside the US especially to host American football. I did not know that.

    More here:
    link

    I just wish the ’47 Brand fit my head. I have to wear a 4xl and you can’t order those online.

    Something about one of the ads on today’s entry is causing the browsers on both my personal and work computers to freeze on a page of what looks like TV static. Anyone else having this issue? The mobile version works fine.

    No mention of the soccer stripes on the Charger’s field last night? When’s the last time an NFL field had another sports lines showing other than baseball dirt?

    Excited to see my new card design in the gallery. As if on cue, the Notre Dame hockey team wore the jersey (a special 50th anniversary design that was introduced last season) on which the card is based for Sunday’s game vs. Air Force: link

    Good day, eh! Greetings from the Great White North.

    Not pleased with the situation of no CFL game on Thanksgiving Monday for the first time that anyone can remember.

    link

    I hope this greasy action doesn’t become the way of the road, like they would say in Sunnyvale Trailer Park.

    I think all teams should be required to wear a patch identifying their owner so you can remember who the team actually belongs to.

    Falcons, whose colors are red and black, were wearing white. Cardinals, whose colors are red and white, were wearing black.
    Nothing confusing there at all!

    I personally thought it was the best-looking game. The Cardinals black alternates pair up well with most of the league’s road unis in my opinion.

    * So the Jets do have white socks. Hopefully they’ll try wearing them with the green pants. I’m expecting green-over-green for next Monday night at home against New England, so we’ll see.

    * This breaking-out-new-pants-without-warning thing makes me wonder why the Browns haven’t done that, viz., broken out pants without the wordmarks on the side. There doesn’t seem to be any reason why they can’t do that.

    * I think that Washington’s gold pants were part of link throwback from 2007 and the team just kept them. It’s disappointing that they seem to have been phased out again.

    While it was interesting to see the La Ronge Ice Wolves teal pants (fairly dark teal) the Red Wings variation in the background was what really caught my attention.

    I am nearly certain Boise has worn helmets with script “Broncos” within the last few seasons. (I think 2017)

    That is a good look for NOLA, but those color rush/throwback whites with the gold numbers is really outstanding. And, yeah we really needed “New York” on the front of their uni.

    I always thought that the NFL color combinations were meant to be so iconic that words on front weren’t needed.

    I see a black jersey with yellow stripes on the sleeves — that’s the Steelers. Green with yellow…Packers, etc., etc.

    I miss being able to glance at my TV and know instantly who’s playing by the uniforms, especially in college football.

    I always thought that the NFL color combinations were meant to be so iconic that words on front weren’t needed.

    That was before they started selling jerseys and started learning that people are more likely to purchase a jersey if it has the team’s name on it.

    Just another reason uni retailing sucks.

    Paul, we’ve probably discussed this before, but do you think the trend of putting logos and wordmarks on jerseys since the mid-’80s (the USFL did that a lot, more than the NFL at that time) also has something to do with making NFL jerseys harder to DIY?

    I remember when I was a teenager there were these Champion factory outlets that sold blank, generic jerseys and had a heat-press machine to put numbers and names on them right there in the store. If you could match the colors and approximate the sleeve stripes you could make your own NFL jersey relatively cheaply and easily (some teams more so than others; I once had a Raiders jersey made, with just a plain black jersey and grey numerals). I’ve always thought that the logos, and later the custom numeral fonts, were at least partly directed at making that (and more nefarious counterfeiting) harder.

    You forgot to mention the 49ers made a surprise switch to metallic gold pants for the 1998 season opener (the famous game against the Jets where Garrison Hearst won it with a walk-off…er run-off, 96-yd TD rush in overtime). Previously, they had worn white pants for the entirety of the 1996 and ‘97 seasons and the ‘98 preseason, so it was a surprise move.

    Me neither… ;)

    I just recently watched the Jets’ 1998 yearbook video; that was the year they brought back the retro design, and there are some great sound bites from Steve Mariucci watching the Jets take the field before that game. “Look at those unis! … I’m waitin’ for Joe Namath to come out of the locker room. … George Sauer! Don Maynard! Bill Rademacher!”

    I hope they bring those back in 2024. The new ones just aren’t working.

    It’s a troll move for United Airlines to paint a throwback plane that doesn’t include the United tulip logo (link).

    Packers wearing all-white unis tonight. Colour Rush? I believe only the second time they’ve gone full stormtrooper at home.

    I was surprised to see the Carhartt/NHL Hat raffle being promoted after you decried the associated fetishization of blue collar work ethic. Seems a bit disingenuous.

    I didn’t “decry” it so much as note it. They offered to send me some free hats; I said, “No thanks, but would you like to give some to my readers?” Hence the raffle.

    I wouldn’t wear one of these caps; hell, as I’ve spelled out countless times, I wouldn’t wear practically *any* team merch, but I do these types of raffles anyway as a perk for the readership.

    If you feel the same way I do about this stuff, don’t enter the raffle. Simple! Either way, I’m not getting anything out of it (no freebies, no payment, no nothin’). Just a nice thing for the readership. Or at least that was the idea.

    I think the more interesting thing is that they offered to do this even though I, in your words, “decried” their product.

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