For all photos, click to enlarge
Good morning! Gorgeous game yesterday in Green Bay, as two of the NFL’s great legacy uniforms — the Packers and the Raiders — faced off at Lambeau (basically an inverted version of Super Bowl II). Sheer gridiron magnificence. Hundreds of additional photos — yes, hundreds! — here.
In other news from around the league yesterday:
• Washington wore their throwbacks:
• In an utterly disastrous move, the Bills wore their mono-red alternates. Now that the Thursday-night marketing stunt has been abandoned, they should really retire this look:
• The Titans wore sky blue over navy. According to the Gridiron Uniform Database, this is the first time they’ve worn that combo since adopting their current uni set:
• For the second consecutive week, the Saints went mono-white with their new white pants:
• Want to see something weird? Check out this video of a Packers equipment staffer preparing linebacker Za’Darius Smith’s jersey for yesterday’s game. It appears that there’s a second jersey — or at least a second jersey collar — underneath the first one:
Prepping 5️⃣5️⃣ for #OAKvsGB @TheRealZSmith | #GoPackGo pic.twitter.com/uJfhk6y2se
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) October 20, 2019
The same thing can be seen in the setup for linebacker Blake Martinez:
Never seen that before. Anyone know more?
• Only one team wore white at home: the Cowboys.
(My thanks to @RealStuff14 for the Packers double-jersey items.)
ITEM! Time for the NBA Season Preview: The annual Uni Watch NBA Season Preview, with all of the new uniforms, logos, and court designs for the upcoming season, is now available on InsideHook (my first piece for them, but hopefully not the last). Enjoy.
See you in San Diego: In case you missed it, back on Friday I conducted a little experiment by asking the Uni Watch comm-uni-ty if they’d be willing to cover my travel expenses, in small donations, for a trip to cover the Padres’ upcoming uniform unveiling in San Diego on Nov. 9. I had no idea how people would respond to this, but the experiment turned out to be very successful: We hit my funding goal in only two hours — amazing!
The whole thing happened so quickly that most Uni Watch readers on the west coast (including, ironically, those in San Diego) were still asleep when the campaign ended. To all of you west coasters who said you wished you’d had a chance to contribute, don’t worry — I’m sure there will be other opportunities down the road!
And to all of you who did contribute: THANK YOU. I’m humbled by your generosity and will do my best to live up to the faith you’ve shown in me.
I’ve gone ahead and booked my flights and hotel. In the meantime, we have a few orders of business to attend to:
1. My plus-one: I get to bring a guest to the event, and I’ve decided to give back to the comm-uni-ty by raffling off that spot. The winner will be responsible for getting to the event on their own. I can’t enforce a “Padres fans only” rule, but I’m hoping a Padres fan ends up as the winner because it seems like that’s who should get to attend. I will conduct this raffle later this week.
2. We need a party venue: I’d like to convene a Uni Watch party in San Diego on Sunday, Nov. 10, probably around 5pm. Would anyone like to suggest a venue? I would prefer that it not be a sports bar, if possible. Ideally, I’m looking for an old-school (or at least old-school-ish) place that serves food as well as drink and can handle 20 or 30 people showing up. Since it might be warm enough to hang out outside, it might be nice if the place had some exterior space. If you know of a place that would fit the bill, please let me know (by email, please, not in the comments). Thanks.
3. Help us choose a T-shirt: Scott M.X. Turner and I have been working on a new brown T-shirt for this occasion. The design is basically done, but I’m agonizing over one detail. Check out these three versions (in each case, click to enlarge):
Which version of the winged stirrup should we use? I like all three of them, but I’m conflicted about which one is best. So I’m going to let you folks choose. I’ll go with whichever version wins this poll:
[totalpoll id=”117386″]
No matter which version wins the poll, the back of the shirt will look like this:
There will also be a deluxe sublimated version of the shirt, featuring a few extra design details. Once you folks vote on the final winged stirrup design, I should have both shirts — regular and deluxe — available for tomorrow’s blog entry.
(California-sized thanks to everyone who contributed to the San Diego Travel Fund, including Kyle Barry, Diego Bauza, Jordan Berman-Cutler, Jeremy Brahm, Anthony Cangelosi, John Carlson, Zachary Carlstrom, Travis Cuomo, Ben DeRosa, Mike Engle, Guy Gallagher, Joe Giordano, Mark Graban, Benjamin Gray, Chris Hickey, Zack Honeycutt, Paul Hovey, Ian Isanberg, Eric Jeanebien, Adam Kane, Tyler Kulasza, Will Keyer, Garrett Kramer, BJ Lanier, Alexander Lash, Rand Martin, Gary Mattox, Leo Mikula, Austin Miller, Salvador Miret, Charles Neiswender, Paul Nitti, Jay Palmer, Derek Pitman, David Ragin, Denis Repp, Sam Rosenbaum, Chris Schoenthal, Nic Schultz, Jeff Simon, John Sklaroff, Jason Smith, David Sonny, Jeffrey Stumm, Zach Tanner, Peter Taylor, Michael Vanne, Arthur Vint, Adam Vitcavage, Matt Weidner, Aaron Wigg, Josh Wilson, and Youveak Yeng. If I missed anyone, please let me know. Thanks also to Richard and Robin Paloma for their hotel-related assistance.)
Click to enlarge
Hmmm, what have we here? What you see above are prototypes of Uni Watch basketball jerseys, produced in conjunction with Adelph Wear — that’s Uni Watch reader Nathan Hass’s company, which also makes our cycling jersey.
The basketball jerseys are based on the uniforms from a pair of T-shirts we originally did in 2016 (look here and here). Not bad, right?
The prototypes aren’t perfect — Nathan and I may make a few tweaks — but they’re pretty close to what I want them to be. They should be available soon. Stay tuned.
Click to enlarge
Press pin update: In a probable first (but I hope not last), photographer Mark Doescher wore his Uni Watch Press Pin on his press pass for Saturday’s Oklahoma/WVU game. Very cool!
Also: In case you missed it last week, I’ve created a spreadsheet registry for the press pins, so people can trade for specific pin numbers (or just see who got which number). If you have a pin, please feel free to enter it on the registry. Thanks.
Click to enlarge
Sartorial and Senatorial: I was at an art gallery reception the other night (a friend of mine had a painting in a group show) and spotted this gent wearing a sweater that, particularly from the back, reminded me of the retro uniforms worn earlier this decade by the Ottawa Senators:
That retro design, of course, was based on the uniform worn in 1930 by the original Senators. That uni looked even more like the guy’s sweater:
I asked the guy if he was a hockey fan. Nope. And where did he get the sweater? Florida. Go figure.
Click to enlarge
ITEM! Art of Words raffle: Remember artist Dan Duffy, who I interviewed about a year ago? He specializes is super-detailed illustrations that consist entirely of letting, which he sells on his website, Art of Words. It’s pretty amazing stuff, and you have the chance to win one of his artworks in our latest raffle. The winner will get to choose any print from the Art of Words site.
To enter, send an email to the raffle address by 8pm Eastern this Wednesday, Oct. 23. One entry per person. I’ll announce the winner on Thursday (and we’ll have another raffle that day). Big thanks to Art of Words for doing this!
The Ticker
By Jamie Rathjen
Baseball News: Also posted in football: Houston Texans players have been wearing Astros jerseys lately, to support the ’Stros postseason run (from Jakob Fox).
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Football News: Also posted in Grab Bag: Chiefs FB Anthony Sherman appeared at yesterday’s NASCAR Cup race at Kansas Speedway wearing a Chiefs-branded sleeveless firesuit (from @indywestie). … Texans players have been wearing Houston Astros jerseys lately (from Jakob Fox). … You can see Canadian college uni tracking from Wade Heidt in yesterday’s comments. … The school of the day from Blaise D’Sylva’s helmet collections was North Texas. … Greg Mays sent us a 1977 picture of Belleville (Ks.) HS with literal Xs and Os for accents. … Rockcastle County (Ky.) HS added a memorial decal for a former student/football player who passed away recently (from Chad Hensley). … The 49ers’ new Twitter page banner indicates that they’ll be wearing their white throwbacks on Sunday against the Panthers (from our own Brinke Guthrie).
Hockey News: The Lightning’s black alternates have silver numbers that fade to black, which apparently has caused many viewers to complain they’re illegible, but not the team’s announcers (from Mike McLaughlin). … Rangers winger Brandon Lemieux uses a primarily white stick, which is relatively unusual for non-goalies, but you can see other examples in the replies (from Matthew Schmidt). … Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist has a hat with a No. 30 patch on the side (from Alan Kreit). … In this thread, several readers attempt to figure out if there’s any pattern to how long the NHL Face-Off season-opening logo stays on various teams’ ices. … The real Oktoberfest ended three weeks ago, but that didn’t stop the WHL’s Prince George Cougars from wearing lederhosen alternates (from Wade Heidt). … Also from Wade: the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs wore pink accents, and their pink-accented jerseys had their 15th-anniversary logo as the main crest.
Basketball News: The Knicks revealed a new alternate blue uniform yesterday. … New uniforms for Missouri State’s men (from @Briligerent).
Soccer News: Update on the saga of Australian team Perth Glory’s missing kit, which we mentioned yesterday: The airline that supposedly was responsible, Qantas, said that nothing was reported missing (from Evan Feick). … Dynamo Moscow emerged for yesterday’s game wearing tribute shirts for what would have been the 90th birthday on Oct. 22 of former Dynamo and Soviet goalie Lev Yashin. They can be seen together with goalie Anton Shunin wearing Yashin’s traditional black collared shirt and flat cap. Shunin wore his normal kit during the match, however. … Inter Milan striker Lautaro Martínez scored a goal and revealed a handwritten message to his mom on his undershirt (from Josh Hinton). … You can see more items in Josh’s Twitter feed. … Some women’s teams in Scotland wore the annual Show Racism the Red Card decal, after men’s teams did in the previous two weeks, while men’s teams in Wales wore corresponding black warm-up shirts. The teams that took part were unfortunately relatively low-profile and were overshadowed by a series of unpleasant incidents this weekend. … Arkansas’s women’s team wore pink accents.
Grab Bag: Women’s college teams outside of soccer that wore pink included Baylor volleyball and Georgetown and Louisville field hockey. … At the Rugby World Cup, some South Africa players were wearing the non-RWC version of their first shirt, which has a springbok in place of the RWC logo patch (from Josh Gardner). … Cross-listed from the football section: Kansas City Chiefs FB Anthony Sherman appeared at yesterday’s NASCAR Cup race at Kansas Speedway wearing a team-branded sleeveless firesuit (from @indywestie). … TUI Arena in Hannover, Germany, doesn’t regularly host any sports teams, but did host the season-opening German volleyball Supercup this weekend and had an LED-lit floor. According to this article, the floor showed animations and stats during breaks in play (from Jeremy Brahm). … London’s Design Museum shared patches from various space missions yesterday (from @ohhhsourry). … The uniforms for the 2020 Tokyo Olympicw torch relay will be made from recycled plastic bottles (from Jeremy Brahm). … Here’s an obituary for a high school trainer who was known for her use of athletic tape (from Tris Wykes).
Click to enlarge
What Paul did last night over the weekend: Went to an Oktoberfest fundraiser thingie at a nearby American Legion hall on Saturday and was surprised to see the guy at the grill toasting hot dog buns with the dog in the bun. Never seen that before! But when you think about it, why not?
That was fun, and then last night we went to this weird movie screening event that was mind-blowingly great. The movies, the venue, the people, the scene — all top-notch. Sometimes I still really fucking love New York.
inline photos and “click to embiggen” aren’t working except for the packer with two jerseys, the basketball jersey ad, and the guy desesicating out his hotdog bun
Weird. Everything looks good on my end. Will investigate!
Paul, Looks like all the images from ‘offload.uni-watch.com’ are getting held up by an SSL error. They can still be clicked through but browsers may fuss about it. The SSL cert might have expired or not have the ‘offload’ subdomain in it. (Ask your site hosting provider.)
Yes, I know. The certificate didn’t auto-renew like it was supposed to. Reissuing it now. Thanks for your patience.
Same Problem here
Same here! Tried in both Firefox and Chrome
Same problem
I’ve toasted buns on the dog before, but not like that. I let my buns saddle the dog.
Is anyo lse havin ouble pos ing commen tod ?
Regarding the ticker item about the number 30 patch on Lundqvist’s hat, this is done by the equipment staff for all of the Rangers. The past few years they used a stamp with the player’s number on the bill. This year they decided to go with patches.
Tech issues now fixed!
Crazy about the two jersey thing. Guess Nike has engineered the material too light, and now players needing to double up? :)
Funny comment, since the Packers are the last team *not* using the Nike fabrication. They still use the old Reebok tailoring/fabric.
Wonder why the Packers have been reluctant to change to the newer template? Sure was a shocker to see Carolina change this year. Was nice to see Nike be able to fix the shoulder stripes on most players jerseys.
Under football news, Belleville is in Kansas, not Nebraska. Both towns playing are near the border and the newspaper is near the border on the Nebraska side.
Thanks. Fixed.
The two jerseys for the Packers players seems to have Instagram stumped as well. I honestly can’t think of a reason to do that. I really hope someone can find an answer soon, little oddities like this tend to drive me insane when I can’t find an answer.
I’m thinking the torso that the Packer equipment staffer puts the jersey’s on has a jersey on it.
Looks like hes using a set of shoulder pads wrapped in a jersey to act as a torso.
Yep, that makes sense.
This is my guess. The torso jersey probably helps give the shoulder pads some structure and prevents the second jersey from getting snagged on anything as he’s getting it prepped.
No mention of the Ravens in purple pants? I’m not surprised but love these britches as their away uniform. The stripe on the side is so much better than the black leotards they usually wear.
Not the first time they’ve worn that uni combo this season, so it didn’t seem particularly noteworthy.
I know Paul hates purple, but I think the Ravens new black helmet, white jersey, purple pants and black socks are now the best road uniform in the NFL.
The Ravens should make the purple pants the official road uniform. It’s unique, it avoids the leotard look, the stripes are terrific, it balances with the home jersey, and it works with the team identity.
Mildly interesting article re: Astros/ Nats jerseys for WS. link
I actually don’t mind the red look for Buffalo, though I think it would look better if they paired the red jersey with white pants.
I don’t know why it is so hard for NFL teams to figure out, but the leotard look ruins so many uniform combos. The mono red looks about 100% better just by using blue or white socks.
Still awaiting the arrival of my pin from Teespring. “Your shipment has been delayed…” Maybe today.
That Gritty illo is enchanting.
Ok the merchandise looks good, but all you’re doing is ripping off designs – padres, hawks, astros tequila sunrise, etc. – and slapping your logo on them / changing the wordmark + NOB.
I know, I know…you’ll say “if you don’t like it, then don’t buy it – problem solved!” I’m just saying I’d much rather buy original designs, just my two cents.
No, I’ll say that these are meta designs — uni-related items that reference other uniforms. There’s a long history of this in all sorts of design categories — visual puns, essentially. Is it the same thing as creating a design from scratch? No. But it’s not “ripping off” either, since the stylistic debt is intentional and fully acknowledged. I realize some people may like this type of thing more than others, and that’s fine. Thanks for your feedback.
Man those Saints uniforms look horrible. White on white never looks as good as anything else. Anything.
Unfortunately, the Saints have played well, so now we’re going to be stuck with this awful look.
I wonder who is behind these all black, all white pants with no stripes? They look awful!
I think the Saints situation is the most frustrating to me because they actually have a really good uniform if they just wear it right.
It’s not like we are dealing with a Buccaneers or Browns uniform which is beyond hope. If the Saints would quit messing with and just wear the gold pants with black socks, we would not have to have these complaints about black leotard and white leotard.
Agreed. Their gold pants are best. Consult Super Bowl 44 for case in point–the only Saints championship. I could live with the black pants too if they wore gold or white socks.
Looks like hes using a set of shoulder pads wrapped in a jersey to act as a torso.
I voted for the brown and yellow wingtip stirrup because their new unis won’t have orange in them. They are just going brown and yellow. Check out one place for the party, Basic bar/pizza near the ball park. Also, I can’t wait to enter the raffle.
I liked option number 1, but I believe what’s going to happen is the two white winged designs (the white wing looks soooo much better IMHO) are splitting the vote and the yellow wing (which is the weakest of the 3 designs) is going to win.
Yet another reason to support ranked choice voting in all matters.
These Titan uniforms would look great with sky blue socks…navy/sky/navy/sky.
Agreed. Again, why is it so hard to understand? No leotard look.
while watching yesterday I thought it would have been nice if the packers wore white yesterday to harken to SB II. That led me to think that there are/were quite a few matchups of past SB opponents this year and it would have been nice for at least some of them to have been throwbacks (or in cases like yesterday’s where the main uni changes have been the near-universal trends of annihilating sleeves, individualizing socks and complicating facemasks, at least matching up the colors):
Broncos face(d) 1/8 SB opponents this year
Raiders: 1/5
Chefs: 2/2
Chargers: 0/1
Colts: 1/4
Titans: 0/1
Steelers: 3/5
Bengals: 1/1
Ravens: 1/2
Jets: 0/1
Bills: 3/3
Dolphins: 2/4
boston: 2/8
Giants: 2/3
Redskins: 2/4
Eagles: 1/2
Cowboys: 2/5
Packers: 3/5
Vikings: 2/4
Bears: 0/2
Saints: 1/1
Falcons: 0/2
Bucs: 0/1
Panthers: 0/2
Seahawks: 1/3
Cards: 1/1
Niners: 2/5
Rams: 1/3
by my count that means 40% of SB matchups (some of which of course have occurred multiple times, like Cowboys/Steelers or Niners/Bengals) are on the schedule this year. could have been a nifty celebration of past successes for teams that are currenlty down at the heels.
I dunno if the “Chefs” reference was intentional or not, but I laughed.
Great googly moogly
link
Is any venue in San Diego more appropriate than Turf Supper Club?
1000% correct. 30 people might overwhelm it, though, and there is no patio. All that being said, first place that jumped into my mind.
Regarding the logos thing, I don’t know that there’s a set time for it to come up, but it’s typically a fairly easy thing to do. While the permanent logos and lines are painted on the floor itself, temporary logos are done differently. They’ll flood the rink and freeze a layer of ice, and then paint the temp logos on that. Once dry, they’ll flood again, and freeze a new layer on top of it. When it’s time to remove the logo, they cut down to the original layer with the Zamboni to pull that whole layer off, along with the paint. I remember this being done when Fox was televising games and teams had to put the Busch Gardens logo on their surface for one game. After the game was over, we’d see the Zamboni dumping a load of blue-tinted snow, and the logo was gone.
San Diego venue. My first thought was Rocky’s Crown Pub (Best Burgers in SD) but it’s a small old school bar and probably can’t handle a crowd of 20+. I just can’t remember because I haven’t been there in years.
Rocky’s definitely does not have the room for 20-30 people all at once. Great burgers though!!!
Anthony Sherman wore that same fire suit when he arrived for Chiefs training camp last summer.
I’m sort of surprised that NASCAR allowed him to remain sleeveless for the televised pace lap ride-along.
I’m willing to bet that the suit isn’t Nomex, but a cotton carting suit.
Best thing about the “Brown is Back” jersey is the number – 19. Sure, it’s 2019, but the ultimate Padre – Tony Gwynn – was number 19.
+1
The double meaning was intentional!
Started subscribing to Inside Hook just recently and have enjoyed their aggregated content. Uni-Watch feels like a good fit. Good luck – hope they treat you right!
the Padres winged stirrup, so hot right now. WOW.
Paul, I think the Lightning have quietly but significantly increased the thickness of the silver borders around their gradient #s on the back of the jersey…might be worth a sanity check.
The Knicks’ alternate looks like a direct ripoff of, well, a ripoff. A few years ago, a company named NYC212 came out with pretty much this exact same design, including the white numbers and letters.
Looks like the Jets are going green-over-green with white socks. Meh. I suppose it could be worse; green-over-green with green socks.
Have you heard anything about this link. I know the source isn’t the most reliable
I don’t concern myself with Reddit rumors, sorry. If there’s confirmation down the road, great. Until then, I have more important things to worry about.
As an “original” Padre fan, I’m ecstatic about the return to brown AND the UniWatch brown shirt! I favored the white wing without orange but looks like not going to make it.
I’m a little disappointed in the layout of the wordmark though, even though it’s true to the vertical arch of their 1980-1984 look, it doesn’t work as well as the word “padres” because some of the letters throw off the symmetry, as well as “uni watch” being as two words. The “i” throws off the flow with the point going up to the left. The “t” causes a sort of ski slope that leads your eye down and off the shirt. The letters in “padres” just fit more harmoniously with this font and vertical arching.
But I’ll still buy it, my first Uniwatch shirt purchase!
-Jet
Re party: Can we pick a Mexican place, for a real San Diego vibe? You could go with El Indio downtown, though the patio is across the street next to a gas station (but a true San Diego experience nonetheless). How about Alfonso’s in Solana Beach? Other suggestions?
I’m totally in for the brown shirt, and obviously for the raffle. This is going to be very cool.