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Be True to Your School: Giants, Cowboys Wear College Logos

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For all photos in this section, click to enlarge

I came home last night from the movies (more on that in a bit) to learn that a surprise development was unfolding on Monday Night Football, as players on the Giants and Cowboys were celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first college football game (the actual anniversary date is tomorrow) by wearing helmet decals featuring the logos of their alma maters.

Whatever you like this or dislike it (I’m agnostic), it’s odd that the NFL did it for only one game instead of all weekend long. That might be because it wasn’t even the NFL’s idea: According to this article that came out a few hours before the game, “ESPN is dedicating this Monday Night Football matchup between the Cowboys and Giants to honor the collegiate game and its history. Every player on the field will be wearing a decal on their helmet to represent their college or university.” So apparently it was ESPN’s idea (although the league no doubt gave their blessing).

Here are some of the college logos that were on display:

Interestingly, Giants defensive lineman Leonard Williams, who attended USC, wore the CFB150 logo. I’m pretty sure nobody else had it:

Williams was traded to the Giants from the Jets only a week ago, so maybe all the individual school logos had already been ordered by then.

Now, a lot of media outlets will probably be mentioning something about these helmet decals, but I bet none of them will mention what I’m about to tell you: This promotion reminded me of another Cowboys/Giants Monday Night Football game from 13 years ago — Oct. 23, 2006, to be exact — when Dallas wide receiver Terry Glenn, who played college ball at Ohio State, wore a buckeye merit decal on his Cowboys helmet:

Another example of NFL players honoring their alma mater came in the 49ers’ glory days, when running backs and Nebraska alums Roger Craig and Tom Rathman wore “Huskers” on their nose bumpers:

Does anyone have any other examples of NFLers saluting their colleges on their helmets?

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ITEM! New design contest: Everyone knows the Bucs are a mess, so let’s do something about it. The latest Uni Watch design contest is to Redesign the Buccaneers!

Here are the guidelines:

• Your entry must include a primary logo, full home and road uniforms (helmet, jersey, pants, socks), and up to two alternate, Color Rush, or throwback uniforms. If you like, you can also include secondary logos and a field design, but those aren’t required.

• You can maintain some of the team’s current elements (the helmet design, say, or the color scheme), draw upon the team’s visual history, or start from scratch and change everything. Up to you.

• Your designs can be created in any digital or analog medium (Illustrator, Photoshop, crayon, whatever) and can be submitted in any standard digital format (JPG, PDF, TIFF, etc.). You can also create a video presentation, upload it to YouTube, and submit the YouTube link as your entry.

• The files you submit should be named after yourself (JohnDoe.jpg, for example). If you’re submitting multiple files, please either number them (JohnDoe1.jpg, JohnDoe2.jpg, etc.) or use some other designation (JohnDoe-HomeUni.jpg, JohnDoe-logo.jpg, etc.). Files that don’t follow this format will not be considered.

• In keeping with longstanding Uni Watch chromatic policy, entries with even a hint of purple will not be considered.

• Email your entry to Uni Watch HQ. If you have more than one concept, feel free to enter as many times as you like.

• Deadline: Submit all entries by Friday, Nov. 15. The best entries will be showcased in my next piece for InsideHook (the same venue that published my 2019 NBA Season Preview). Good luck!

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Click to enlarge

Collector’s Corner
By Brinke Guthrie

Starting off this week with these Packers paper drink coasters. They include the name “Sneezer’s” — that’s a place where Vince Lombardi hung out. More on Sneezer’s here. [As an aside, the low-angled single-bar facemasks shown on the coasters remind me of Super Bowl I here Max McGee. — PL]

Now for the rest of this week’s picks:

• Here’s an item I’ve never seen before: an NFL/AFL logo seat cushion. The seller says it might be from one of the first Supes, and comes with a white poncho. (Here’s a similar version for the Boston Patriots. )

• From reader Will Scheibler, a 1963 CFL Eskimos/Roughriders game program with great-looking team bobbleheads on the cover. Note: if interested, it’s up today in the early afternoon.

• I have no clue as to how a 1970s Toronto Maple Leafs Pow-R-Puck works. It says it shows you “how hard you shoot.” Oh, and…Kids! Win A Family Trip To Meet The Leafs!

• Check out this vintage NFL hand warmer! The seller says 1972 but has to be late 1960s due to the Washington helmet shown on the box.

• See the helmets on this 1971 IHOP NFL helmets placemat? Loved that look — the same ones that graced the set for the old weekly Brookshier/Summerall NFL highlights show. 

• Another IHOP item, this time for the Milwaukee Brewers: a milk glass with the ball/glove logo.

• And another Brewers item! This is a seat cushion for those hard County Stadium bleachers, sponsored by Koss headphones. The seat cushion says simply, “Major League Baseball in Wisconsin.” 

• This set of 1960s football publications includes A Family Guide to Football and the very helpful How to Watch Pro Football on TV.

• This is an 8″ x 10″ reprint of some of the old AFL team logos. Well, except for the Jets, who are represented only by a green football.

• A favorite look of mine — the classic varsity jacket. This San Francisco 49ers model is made by Chalk Line. Unknown whether those sleeves are real or fake leather.

• Look at these cool-looking Chicago Cubs Reebok sneakers!

NOTE: New process here: Got an item to include on Collector’s Corner? DM your submissions on the Uni Watch Facebook page.

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rafflet ticket by ben thoma.jpg

Raffle reminder: In case you missed it on Monday, the folks at our longtime advertiser Vintage Brand are generously running another raffle. The lucky winner will get to choose any product from the VB website (like the 1950 Minnesota season ticket canvas shown above).

To enter this raffle, send an email to the raffle address by 7pm Eastern tomorrow, Nov. 6. One entry per person. I’ll announce the winner on Thursday.

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Membership update: Sometimes, out of the blue, we’ll get a bunch of new membership orders for the same design motif, with no apparent reason for it. That’s currently the situation for the Mariners’ original TATC design, which three people have recently ordered — including Tim Storck, whose card is shown at right. The other two are coming soon!

Tim’s card is one of eight new designs that have been added to the membership gallery. I hope to have the printed/laminated versions of these cards ready to ship out within about a week. (As I recently mentioned, our longtime print shop has shut down, but I’m currently in the process of choosing a new one and expect to have the choice finalized within a few days. Then we’ll be ready to roll again.)

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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My latest experience in how our health care system is broken: I’ve been a freelancer for most of the the past 23 years, so during that time I’ve always purchased my own health insurance. While circumstances have sometimes forced me to change plans from year to year (which is a whole separate problem for another day), I have always maintained the same plan within a given calendar year.

That changed in August of this year, when Sports Illustrated hired me. The gig came with full benefits, including health insurance. Hooray! So for the first time in over two decades, I changed insurance plans within the year — I dropped the plan I’d been paying for myself and went on the SI-provided plan.

And that’s how I learned about what I’ve begun referring to as “insurance deductible double jeopardy.” I had already met the $600 calendar-year deductible on the first plan, but the new plan came with a new $1,000 deductible, and I started back at $0 for that one (just in time for my September bike crash, how wonderful!). What a crock of bullshit.

I gather people who change jobs at any point other than New Year’s Day go through this all the time, but it was a new experience for me — and something I’d admittedly never thought about before — because I’d always been self-employed. It’s yet another example of what so many of us have been saying for ages: It is completely absurd for health insurance to be tied to employment.

As it turned out, SI laid me off after only seven weeks. By law, I was eligible to keep the SI plan and pay for it myself via COBRA. Or I could have gone to the New York State marketplace and shopped for a cheaper plan — but then I’d have yet another new 2019 deductible. Triple jeopardy!

So I’m keeping the SI/COBRA plan through the end of this year. It costs the same as the plan I had started the year with — about $700 a month — although that price will go up in 2020. They’re supposed to tell us the new price in a few weeks. Depending on the numbers, I’ll either keep the SI/COBRA plan for 2020 or choose a different plan on the NYS marketplace. If I keep the SI/COBRA plan for next year, I could also opt to keep it for the first four months of 2021 (COBRA benefits, by law, last 18 months) — but then I’d definitely have to switch to a new plan for the rest of 2021 and be back in the double jeopardy situation with a new deductible for the rest of that year, which I certainly don’t want. So even if I keep the SI/COBRA plan, I won’t be able to keep it for the full extent provided for by law.

It is infuriating to be stuck in such an obviously dysfunctional system, and embarrassing that the rest of the developed world has figured this out while our nation continues to lag behind. Health insurance is a basic necessity, not an employment perk. SINGLE PAYER NOW.

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The Ticker
By Alex Hider

Baseball News: The Mets introduced new manager Carlos Beltrán in a Majestic jersey but without the MLB 150 patch (from Joe and Drew Goldfarb). … The buses in the Nationals’ championship parade were rented from a company in Philadelphia, and they were wrapped in Nats banners before traveling to the parade site. Gotta rub salt in Philly’s wounds while you have the chance, I guess (from Mike Rosenberg). … This piece recounts the challenges of the A’s and Raiders sharing the Oakland Coliseum, most notably how stadium personnel were able to remove the pitching mound when converting the field from baseball to football (from Patrick O’Neill). … A jersey worn by Babe Ruth during his only year as the Dodgers’ first base coach is up for auction (from Jonas Feit). … The street markers at Colonial Williamsburg mark North, South, East, and West, and the West symbol looks an awful lot like a certain World Champ’s logo (from Max Weintraub). … The Rookie Ball Missoula Osprey have rebranded and are now the Missoula PaddleHeads (thanks to all who shared).

NFL News: Reader Josephy Bailey notes that the Broncos use era-appropriate helmets next to the names on their Ring of Fame. … The Panthers have worn six uniform combinations in their first eight games (from Panthers Uniform Tracker). … Two separate cards from the same Topps 2015 set have Cowboys OL Zack Martin’s first name spelled differently and listed at different positions (from Justin Wages). … Two separate Ohio high school volleyball teams are poaching the Eagles’ logo (from Mike Miller). … Cross-listed from the baseball section: This piece recounts the challenges of the A’s and Raiders both playing at the Oakland Coliseum, most notably how stadium personnel were able to remove the pitching mound when converting the field from baseball to football (from Patrick O’Neill). … Cowboys TE Jason Witten’s Walter Payton Man of the Year patch appeared to be coming loose last night (from Mike Lindquist).

College Football News: Georgia Tech’s Living History Program shared some great 100-year-old video of the first time the Jackets ever played Pitt (from Michael Rich). … Harvard included a 100th-anniversary patch commemorating its Rose Bowl win on its end zone pylons this weekend (from Cassian Wykes). … ESPN commissioned Marvel-themed programs for some of college football’s greatest games of all time (from Ignacio Salazar).

Other Football News: What if candy brands had football teams? It might look like this (from Dan Kennedy). … The CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats will wear mono-black and are encouraging fans to wear black when they host CFL Eastern Final on Nov. 17 (from Wade Heidt).

Hockey News: The San Antonio Rampage will wear a different jersey in each period — including two throwbacks — to celebrate 25 years of hockey in the city (thanks to all who shared). … The Calgary Hitmen wore uniforms for Bret “The Hitman” Hart night on Sunday, and the on-ice version held a nice surprise: socks with flames (from Wade Heidt). … It appears a manufacturer switchover has changed the shade of the Toledo Walleye’s light blue jerseys (from Mark Kunz). … The Ontario Reign, a Kings’ AHL affiliate, will wear jerseys inspired by ’90s Kings throwbacks on Nov. 15 (from Jakob Fox). … The name of the new Seattle NHL team will be announced prior to the All-Star Game (from Mike Chamernik).

NBA News: The Wizards will unveil their “City” alternates on Nov. 20 (from @cesarcu52). … We have more looks of the Hawks’ new “Peachtree” uniforms and court. … New Magic SG B.J. Johnson will wear No. 13 (from Etienne Catalan). … So much for color: Last night’s Pelicans/Nets game was white vs. grey on a grey court (from Andrew Cosentino). … A Warriors fan called his local TV news show’s “On Your Side” hotline when he sent a giant Steph Curry banner to Fanatics to get it autographed by Curry and then never heard back from Fanatics. Our own Brinke Guthrie, who works at that TV station, handled the fan’s complaint and helped to resolve the situation. … Speaking of the Warriors, they wore their San Francisco throwbacks last night (from Mike Sgroi).

College Hoops News: New uniforms for Florida Atlantic, including beneath-the-numbers NOBs (from Jake Elman). … Here’s a time-lapse video of Utah Valley University preparing its arena for basketball season (from Ben Schroeder). … Arkansas has added a state outline logo to its shorts waistbands (from Bryson Butler). … Ole Miss is returning to a script wordmark on their home whites this season. In recent years, they’ve worn a block “Rebels” wordmark on their home whites (from Matt Barnthouse). … Syracuse has added a “Cuse” mark to its practice jerseys.

Soccer News: Like the rest of English football, Stoke City wore Remembrance Day poppies this week. But Stoke wore their poppies above the team crest, instead of in the center of the jersey. “Stoke are the only team so far this year that has done that,” says our own Jamie Rathjen. In addition, Stoke’s Irish winger James McClean chose not to wear a poppy. … Speaking of the poppy, here’s one of many opinion pieces about poppies in English soccer (from Mark Coale). … Fans have joked that the Canadian Premier League championship trophy looks like a microwave tray (from Wade Heidt). … In Belarus, Dynamo Brest wore a throwback uniform against Shakhter Soligorsk — but because Dynamo don’t wear Adidas, the shirts and shorts had four stripes (from Ed Żelaski). … For more soccer news, check out Josh Hinton‘s Kit Watch Twitter feed.

Grab Bag: I — and many of my fellow Cincinnatians — still call it Riverfront Coliseum (from Bill Fenbers). … Long Beach State has dropped 49ers as a team name and will instead be “the Beach” for all sports except baseball (from Griffin T. Smith). … Check out this jacket worn by Ohio State President Michael Drake — a plaid pattern inspired by the football helmet/jersey stripe (from Jason Hillyer). … Ever wonder what zoologists wear to work every day? Wonder no more (also from Jason Hillyer). … Contestants in this year’s Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions are wearing purple ribbons for pancreatic cancer awareness. Of course, host Alex Trebek is currently battling pancreatic cancer (from our own Jamie Rathjen). … PBS has a new logo (from Jerry Nitzh). … New logo for Facebook, too.

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What Paul did last night: The Tugboat Captain has grad school on Monday nights, and I didn’t feel like watching the Giants lose again, so I biked over to a nearby-ish theater and watched The Lighthouse, the new American Gothic movie featuring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe slowly losing their minds as they tend to an isolated lighthouse in the 1890s. I fucking loved it.

The trailer, shown above, doesn’t do justice to how gorgeous (and spooky) the movie is. Shot in black-and-white, it feels old and creaky, and you can almost taste the salty air. Great performances by both leads, spectacular lighting, dramatic music that actually works — first-rate! Highly recommended.

Then I biked home and learned that the Giants and Cowboys were wearing all those college decals, so I had to scrap the lede I had planned for today and spend the next few hours working on the lede that ended up running. In case you didn’t realize: Uni Watch is hard work!

 
  
 
Comments (91)

    The shoes Trae Young is wearing in that Peachtree photo may be the ugliest I’ve ever seen.

    oh it gets worse – adidas calls them the “N3XT L3V3L”, because apparently Marc Dolce’s design team in Greenpoint really really hates their copy writers.

    Would be great if the Giants would use their NY helmet with that jersey/pants set as their regular white/road set.

    Interesting that the neck guard/bumper on the Dallas helmets covers some of the Dymo name in many cases.

    I don’t follow the NFL anymore, but two things I just noticed thanks to this article, please tell me how old this news is:
    1) Ezekiel Elliott has a nickname on his Dymo tape. I thought it was last names only.
    2) The New York Football Giants switched their number decals on the helmets from a blocky athletic font to the original Montreal Expos fancy font. (But do they still have numbers on the front?)

    I looooove that Expos font. Does it have a name? It must. The Oakland A’s also wore it for a while and it looked really weird seeing it on their jerseys.

    For the Bucs redesign contest? Do we have to follow the current “one helmet shell” rule or can there be different shell colors?

    Re. the purple ribbons on Jeopardy – the winner of the 2018 Teachers Tournament was also diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He passed away in January otherwise he would be competing in the Tournament of Champions. That info came from this preview – link

    Question on The Lighthouse to anyone who has seen it, if I can adequately explain my question. Is it a really slow developing plot, a slow-burn is my assumption? My wife hates slow moving plots and checks out, so I need to know if I should go alone to see it. Unfortunately I hate reading real reviews now, because even when they say spoiler-free, I always feel robbed of something aspect of the movie I would have rather been surprised by.

    It’s definitely a slow burn. Paul’s use of creaky is also spot on. But the acting is very, very good.

    Yes – a slow burn. I didn’t dig the movie. I really, really loved the director’s first film – The Witch.

    I went because I loved The Witch so much and because I’ve found that I like many of the films from the A24 company (Midsommar, Amy, How to talk to girls at parties, etc.). I’ve been on a little project of watching all of the A24 movies. Fun.

    Interesting! I rarely associate movies with specific studios (except Pixar, I guess) — just not something I’ve ever homed in on. Maybe I should start.

    I loved The Witch, but I loved this one even more.

    A24, in particular, has been the best studio out there the last couple years. It’s released Midsommar, mid-90s, Lady Bird, The Disaster Artist, Ex Machina, just to name a few.

    A lighthouse in the darkness of the Marvelification of movies, if you will. Relatedly, that Scorsese op-ed in the Times was great.

    I passed on The Lighthouse because I didn’t like The Witch so I went to see Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite instead and it was excellent. Based on the above reviews, I will give The Lighthouse a shot.

    While there may not be any MLB and NFL teams that share a stadium anymore, there are still many of the same issues. Yankee Stadium has to do frequent conversions from baseball to soccer, with the same mound issue, and they also host at least one college football game a year. They must have some machine to move the mound as well. I realize it is not the same as the two biggest sports having games on back to back days, but the overall issue still exists.

    I don’t understand this Long Beach State news. I think it’s safe to say the tweet doesn’t mean they are going to be called the “Long Beach State Beach.” It sounds like what they want is for people to simply refer to the teams as “The Beach” in all contexts but that sort of buries the lead imo in implying that they aren’t going to have a nickname/mascot at all? Has any other college team or really any other non-soccer American sports team ever done this?

    Paul, hate to hear about you getting hosed on health insurance costs. Couldn’t agree more. I have health insurance thru my employer and while my wages have remained flat, my health care costs keep rising. I’ll avoid politics but just add I think all reasonable people on either side of the political spectrum agree with you that our current system is broken and in need of an overhaul. Hopefully you land a sweet gig with full benefits soon.

    Agreed that we definitely need an overhaul of the system, but handing over the responsibility of providing health care to the government seems like…a horrible idea.

    Well, if you get that it’s about health insurance, not health care, maybe try saying that instead of saying something that mischaracterizes the situation. Easier to have a good-faith dialogue that way.

    Paul as someone who lives under a single payer system (the VA) trust me it is not what you want. I find myself using my trucker benefits more (which is a healthcare plan run by Humana though at a markedly lower rate than what most pay). As an example a otherwise healthy 38 year old was told by a VA doctor to “not use” his dominant arm for a year after reporting symptoms of a biceps tendon tear. No imaging no physical therapy no surgical intervention discussed. The last thing you want is a government involved in your healthcare deciding what they will or won’t pay for. Have you thought that maybe the problem is that hospitals have overhead to deal with and that overhead is being overwhelmed by individuals whom cannot be billed. Just as you want to be paid for your work so do doctors nurses and staff. As someone who has attended nursing school I can at least say nurses deserve a salary commensurate with the effort they put in they don’t get paid enough as a matter of fact. How can a hospital pay a nurse when joe shmuckatele goes into the Er with the sniffles and racks up a bill that he will not pay? Single payer seems nice but if you think you pay to much in taxes now just wait til you have to pay into that pool.

    It’s wild, because Obamacare was supposed to fix everything and now it’s even more broken than before. It’s almost like the federal government isn’t supposed to be this involved in people’s everyday lives.

    Actually, the ACA was not “supposed to fix everything.” Many people opposed it because it didn’t go nearly far enough — no public option, no medicare for all. It’s almost like if you’re going to do something, you need to do it fully instead of half-assedly.

    Sorry, wrong. Disclaimer, I’ve been involved in the field for 15 years, my whole adult life. and I can tell you that what people think is “government” is mostly private sector. Medicare? Most of the administrative stuff is done by private health plans under contract with the federal government. The ACA? It’s more of a benefit for the private sector. I don’t know why people think it’s “government,” it’s government facilitating the purchase of individual coverage, which was even more of a mess prior to it and full of options that barely qualified as health insurance. People see the private sector as being so streamlined and innovative, but they suffer from inefficiencies just like the public sector does. The fact is health financing is a hodgepodge and it costs more for everyone because risk is so spread out.

    Garbage
    The ACA created several Essential Health Benefits (EHBs). For instance, one EHB is rehabilitative care. That means if your wife has a stroke and cannot feed herself then your policy certainly must include occupational therapy where she might learn to hold a spoon.
    So of it doesn’t have that, is it even health insurance? So the ACA is great. Now, when you wiki the Mental Health Parity Act you can learn that actually there are good examples of Gov’t intervention in health care

    A lovely thread here, I’d love to continue it but instead I will convey my own little insurance story which is similar to Paul’s.

    Paul, not only are folks like you subjected to mid-year insurance company changes, employed folks are too. I’m employed in a mid size company around 100 employees, and our administrators shop yearly for best prices and sometimes (in some cases on a yearly basis) we switch insurance companies. 3 years ago a new insurance company made a deal with us to sign us up in October and not wait til January. Our company took the deal.

    My only problem was my wife was pregnant and we maxed out our deductible ($6k) by October, and my son was born a week into October, which meant a whole new deductible and mess I had to deal with insurance-wise. In the end I think I ended up paying somewhere around $4k extra out-of-pocket that year because of the insurance company switch.

    Paul, not only are folks like you subjected to mid-year insurance company changes, employed folks are too.

    Yes — I specifically said that in the text. Sorry you got caught in the double jeopardy trap.

    Always loved the regional outline of states in that Chiefs logo. Presenting your Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma/Iowa/Missouri/Arkansas Chiefs!!! I guess they were trying to proactively trying to claim them as their territory. The Plains States Chiefs anyone???? Do the plains touch Arkansas at all? Or maybe the Heartland Chiefs? Or just call them Six State.

    Let me preface this by saying I am not trying to create a political frenzied argument, but rather I am just curious as to the opinions of those with different views on this topic.

    If we go the single payer route, would it create the argument for other things we view as necessities, such as food, housing, or transportation being provided as well?

    And at the point of being contrarian to Paul’s opinion, I don’t think the “rest of the world has this figured out”. Want to wait six months for a simple procedure? Go to Canada. Go to England.

    Let me start by saying that I am a doctor in the US and I frequently see patients pass on needed care because they can’t afford it. This “wait six months” crap is part of the general disinformation campaign propagated by those who want to protect their interests in the current system. Yes, for some non-acute procedures such as a knee replacement you might have to wait. If you are having a heart attack or a stroke, or have a broken leg they treat you right away. For those things that you have to wait for, the trade off is that at least you have coverage. For those that do not want to wait, they can purchase supplemental private insurance. The key is that everyone has access to care and no one goes bankrupt due to a health issue.

    I’m a Canuck and this is 100% correct. Emergencies are treated immediately but we do have to wait varying amounts of time for elective procedures.

    Yes, but only for certain income levels on housing, and rural areas do not have public transportation. From my understanding the single payer health care system would not be based on income, because that is what medicaid is now.

    I work in healthcare financing for the state of Texas (a very red state, mind you), and after many years of having unique insight into how hospitals are reimbursed, what they charge, etc., it’s obvious to me that we need single payer because a free market system simply won’t work for healthcare. You don’t have shopping consumers with businesses competing over them when someone has a wreck or gets cancer and is bound to whatever the nearest hospital in their immediate vicinity charges. The GOP solution of letting private insurance companies compete does no good when those insurance companies have to reimburse hospitals based on what hospitals must charge to stay afloat based on having to treat everyone. In many ways we are already in a very inefficient single payer system. If all of the dollars we currently spend on healthcare (private, government, etc) were re-purposed into a single payer model we would see a drastic improvement in terms of healthcare outcomes and coverage. Also, the current for-profit model incentivizes most providers to keep people ill, because it’s more profitable to keep them coming back (like any market-based system). The countries with single payer all have far better outcomes because single payer incentivizes curing people and preventing illness to contain cost because it’s working with a fixed pot of money. Single payer and the ACA are nothing alike. Frankly, the ACA just forced people to buy into the current broken system as a band-aid to get the uninsured SOME level of coverage. Single payer eliminates and replaces the broken system. Unfortunately I think the ignorant just use the ACA as an example to justify their blanket stance of “nothing government run works” when it’s incredibly more nuanced than that.

    Hope things work out for you Paul, and you are more right than you know. Also, the Cowboys navy jersey is gorgeous and that uni match-up last night was damn near perfection.

    Has the 150 year anniversary of college “football” been covered on here? It may have, but it could have been a day I missed reading.

    I’m not quite sure it’s actually “football” that should be celebrating 150 years?

    link

    As a Canadian, I am repeatedly amazed that anyone could advocate with a straight face for anything other than a single-payer health care model. Equally amazing is that people accept, “But taxes will go up,” as an excuse for not having it.

    Yes, taxes might increase slightly (although not necessarily…you could just choose to spend less elsewhere), although an economy of scale without massive profits for the private insurance companies will result in considerable savings to the government and tax payers.

    Either way, it is a small price to pay for two assurances:

    1) Your family will have access to basic and necessary medical care no matter where you work, whether you are unfortunate enough to lose your job, etc.

    2) Everyone else in the country will also have the same level of care, no matter where they work, whether they are unfortunate enough to lose their job, etc.

    People criticize government-run health-care systems for inefficiencies, and they do exist, but at least in Canada, the vast majority of people get good quality health care in a timely fashion without spending an extra dime out-of-pocket. This is borne out by the fact that our life expectancy is more than four years longer than Americans’.

    Yes, taxes might increase slightly (although not necessarily…you could just choose to spend less elsewhere)

    and when exactly has the government ever spent less?

    If taxes went up slightly, wouldn’t that be offset to a large extent by reducing all of the costs that are no longer paid by employers and/or people?

    (also a Canadian – maybe my taxes are higher but I don’t pay and my employer doesn’t pay health insurance premiums. I think I come out ahead)

    $3-5 trillion dollars each year (according to campaign plans) could not be covered by just cutting back spending.

    If we were to cut spending the most likely area would be the military. I’m not going to comment on the pro’s and con’s of that for the U.S., but I do think it would be interesting to see how that would play out for Canada and Europe. Since the end of WWII the U.S. has essentially acted as a shield for many western nations against possible aggression’s of countries like the Soviet Union, now Russia, China, and others. Those countries have not had to spend large sums of money on defense, because the U.S. has been doing it instead. If we choose to spend that money on healthcare, would it require the other western nations to increase their own military spending? If so, what would they need to do to cover that increased cost along with the public programs they are already offering?

    I also saw The Lighthouse this weekend. Really impressed with Robert Pattinson holding his own in a movie with Willem Defoe. The photography and sets were fantastic. Weird that it was projected in the old 4:3 (or maybe 11:8) format, though. Not used to seeing the wide black spaces around the picture anymore.

    They’re running out of real estate on the backs of those helmets.

    When exactly did the U.S. flag become a permanent fixture?

    The candy uniforms are cool. Most are way too abstract but that’s what concepts are supposed to do. What I found was some color combos that aren’t used in sports that may work pretty well. The Milky Way green and brown makes brown look good. And the Cookies and Cream with the cream and ice blue is pretty. (not sure what other color to call it) Fun idea!

    Yeah these were all pretty cool and interesting, for some reason I’m loving all the one with brown. They all work well combining brown with a brighter color, Milky Way is the best on in my opinion.

    I have always thought, even as a child looking at the Hersey bar wrapper, that the combination of brown/almost deep maroon-ish and silver was a great combination. The old Michigan Panthers of the USFL had a fairly similar combination (with a blue added) and it was terrific.

    “See the helmets on this 1971 IHOP NFL helmets placemat?”

    I see the rear-facing Dolphins logo, and the dolphin appears fully-centered too.

    FWIW, really disappointed about the Hamilton Tiger-Cats making the decision to go mono-black for the Eastern Final. The black pants have no stripes. It is leotard effect at its finest just like the Saints do.

    The black over yellow uniform that they have worn a lot this year is a much superior look compared to their mono-black.

    link

    Paul, 3 former Deadspin writers are on the new episode of the Hang Up And Listen podcast on Slate.

    link

    Good conversation about the current state of journalism.

    Minor error the ticker: “Georgia Tech’s Living History Program shared some great 100-year-old video of the first time the Jackets ever played Pitt”. This was the 2nd ever Pitt/GT game, not the first.

    The free market is the solution for healthcare (no, that isn’t what we have now), not government intervention.

    How would you see that done? Because I’m willing to bet I can poke holes in all your free market ideas, because healthcare cannot and does not operate as a free market (are people going to shop around for emergency procedures? Nope).

    I really hope those college logos were put on by equipment managers who didn’t know any better and not the players…it pains me to see Big Dex wearing The Paw facing 12 o’clock. Surely he would know better.

    Definitely by the equipment staff. If it had been left up to the players, they wouldn’t all have been in the same spot (left side for Dallas, right side for NYG).

    True…didn’t even pay attention to the placement I was so verklempt about that alignment. I’m that dude that fixes people’s car magnets when I see them turned the wrong way.

    Shouldn’t that Twix helmet have a right side and left side logo?

    Thanks for the recommendation of “The Lighthouse”. I think Willem Dafoe is a fantastic actor so it should be a treat to watch.

    About the Babe Ruth Brooklyn Dodgers uniform from when he was a coach: I’m sure people are going to be digging through the linked article looking to find out what number he wore during that season, so if anyone wants to save some clicks, it’s 35.

    (The article is worth reading, though.)

    “So much for color: Last night’s Pelicans/Nets game was white vs. grey on a grey court”

    Any visiting team in that situation will never not look like weird colourised black and white footage

    I loved The Lighthouse too, Paul. Saw it with a friend on Halloween night and thought it was very well done and well-acted. Defoe’s constant farting had me and my buddy in hysterics, no wonder Pattinson flipped his lid! I’d been looking forward to seeing the film from the time I saw the trailer and am glad it was worth it.

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