Good morning! Interesting move yesterday by Browns wideout Odell Beckham Jr., who wore purple and yellow visor tabs, presumably as a shout-out to his alma mater, LSU, which is one of the four schools that advanced to this season’s College Football Playoff.
OBJ wasn’t the only NFLer from a CFP-bound program wearing a show of support for his old school yesterday. Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas was wearing an Ohio State base layer:
@UniWatch not sure if anyone picked this up.
Michael Thomas is wearing his old @OhioStateFB performance gear.#Saints #NOvsTEN #NFL100 pic.twitter.com/V44wDIAkTt
— Moe Khan (@MoeKhan19) December 22, 2019
Anyone know if any alums of this season’s other two CFP schools, Clemson and Oklahoma, did anything similar?
In a related item, Bears wideout Cordarrelle Patterson wore orange socks, instead of Chicago’s usual dark navy, at the beginning of the Sunday-night game. Orange is a Bears color, of course, but the shade of orange Patterson was wearing seems closer to that of his alma mater, Tennessee (which is not a CFP school):
@UniWatch pic.twitter.com/LbmdKkgPXI
— (@NFL_Journal) December 23, 2019
Patterson was apparently told that the orange hose had to go, because he changed to proper socks during the first quarter.
In other news from around the league yesterday (for all photos, you can click to enlarge):
• The Jaguars wore white over turquoise. According to the Gridiron Uniform Database, this is only the third time in team history that they’ve worn turquoise pants (the other two times were both last year):
• The Titans and Saints went navy pajamas vs. white pajamas:
• The Browns once again went mono-turd. Make it stop!
• In that same game, the Ravens continued to lead the league in sewn-in jersey pockets. I spotted 23 players wearing them — the highest total so far! Here they are in uni-numerical order:
• The Jets went mono-green (and may have set a single-game record for the most untucked undershirts):
• The Broncos wore their mono-orange alternates:
• For the second straight week, no home team wore white.
(My thanks to @R_LMN for the the OBJ visor tab item.)
Culinary Corner: The Tugboat Captain and I are not Italian but we love seafood, so we’ve long been intrigued by the Italian-American Christmas Eve tradition known as the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
This year we thought about making it ourselves. But it’s a huge undertaking, so we immediately began thinking about how to cut corners. Does it have to be seven different fish courses, or can we combine multiple fishes into one dish, like a seafood salad? If we put out a bowl of Goldfish crackers, does that count as a fish? What if we give the cat a can of 9 Lives Seafood Platter?
The bit about the Goldfish crackers got us thinking: What if we did the feast in snack form? That seemed like a really fun idea, for we abandoned the plan to do a “real” feast and instead decided to the Snacks of the Seven Fishes for a holiday party we were invited to this past Saturday. Here’s a numbered photo of what we brought, followed by a list of the seven fishes (for all photos, you can click to enlarge):
1. Goldfish crackers.
2. Fish-shaped cookies. These are the holiday cookies my mom made every year when I was growing up, but we customized them with fish-shaped cookie cutters and served them on fish-shaped plates that we got at the 99¢ store around the corner from our house. The Captain really aced it with the icing:
3. Gummy seafood salad. A mix of Swedish fish, gummy sharks, gummy lobsters, and gummy frogs, all of which we purchased at the always-awesome Economy Candy.
4. Chocolate-covered oyster crackers. There’s an old-school confectionary shop in NJ that specializes in these, but the Captain wanted to make them herself, and they came out great!
5. Shrimp chips.
6. Crab chips.
7. Beer with whale shark–shaped opener. Our plan was for the seventh fish to be oyster stout — a good way to wash down the other fishes — but we looked far and wide and couldn’t find anyone selling oyster stout this season. So instead we brought Negro Modelo and the awesome fish-shaped bottle opener that my upstairs neighbors brought back for me after a trip to Japan 10 years ago. That served as the seventh fish.
A really fun project!
The Ticker
By Jamie Rathjen
Football News: Retiring Richmond Times-Dispatch Washington NFL beat writer Paul Woody got a No. 40 jersey from the team, representing his length of service at the paper (from James Gilbert). … The school of the day from Blaise D’Sylva’s helmet collections yesterday was Louisiana-Monroe. … ESPN’s series on the 150th anniversary of college football had an episode on the 1971 Nebraska/Oklahoma “game of the century” and some Nebraska players were missing their shoulder stripes. We’ve Ticked that before, but I don’t think anyone here has ever explained it (from reader bcsr3).
Hockey News: We neglected to mention that the Flames wore their 1989 throwbacks at home on Thursday, with brown pads for goalie David Rittich (from Brad Pramberg). … The Devils wore the white version of their red/green throwbacks at home as well on Friday. … Rangers C Greg McKegg was wearing teammate Filip Chytil’s gloves yesterday (from Cameron Greene). … The SB Nation NHL team blogs are all picking the worst jersey for their teams, so for the Penguins it’s the 1992-2002 “robo-penguin” (from Noah Kastroll). … The AHL’s Charlotte Checkers are apparently revealing some kind of alternate soon (from @OlegKvasha). … Jay Weinberg, the drummer for heavy metal band Slipknot, plays hockey and got his own band-themed mask (from Wade Heidt). … More from Wade in Junior A hockey: The Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Calgary Canucks wore Christmas sweater-themed jerseys with TNOB, while the British Columbia Hockey League’s Surrey Eagles wore teddy bear toss jerseys.
Basketball News: Wichita State C Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler only wears “Poor Bear” as his NOB (from Jesse Nienke). … Indiana and UCLA’s women’s teams played a red-vs.-blue matchup. Indiana wore red at home for ALS awareness (from @selectospeed).
Soccer News: In France, Olympique Marseille winger Dimitri Payet received a No. 200 shirt for reaching 200 appearances for the club, and was also pictured wearing a Santa hat while in full kit. … Italian team Atalanta wore green Christmas-themed shirts. … We mentioned yesterday that Liverpool received the gold Club World Cup champions’ patch; however, while they can wear it in the Champions League for the next year, they can’t wear it in the Premier League or the FA Cup — it appears to me because England’s kit regulations forbid either midseason changes or patches for non-English competitions, or both. … Both Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur wore black armbands for England’s 1966 World Cup-winning midfielder Martin Peters, who passed away this weekend. … Scottish team St. Johnstone recently modified their crest to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their stadium, McDiarmid Park, though the modification doesn’t appear on their shirts. … In the Supercoppa Italiana, which was played in Riyadh, Juventus wore Arabic-script NOBs, as we’ve mentioned, and Lazio wore an ad for tourism to the Lazio region, when they usually don’t wear an ad (from Jason Kerepesi and Josh Hinton).
Grab Bag: The NLL’s Calgary Roughnecks raised their championship banner and received championship rings (from Wade Heidt). … A match in Canberra in Australia’s Twenty20 cricket league, the Big Bash League, was abandoned because smoke from local bushfires enveloped the ground.
Happy Hanukkah to all who are observing. — Paul
no shoulder stripes on Nebraska jersey- that’s when tearaways were legal, basically a t-shirt
Yep, exactly right. I have three Nebraska tearaways in my collection and they are my pride and joy. My Uni-Watch membership card is also based on the tearaway.
Anyone else notice Dewayne Haskins special number 7 thigh pad? I saw a tweet about it and now I can’t find it.
Lots of players have been wearing these over the past few years. This is the company that makes them: link
Do you mind passing over that seafood salad recipe? lol
I loved the creativity for all of the dishes. That seemed like a lot of fun.
If you cook the actual fish it all does not have to be served separately. Also take about 2 days to prepare & cook. Interesting idea with the snacks.
A missed opportunity on Friday night when the New Jersey Devils wore their white throwbacks. The visitors were the Washington Capitals. Capitals brought their regular red uniforms. Would have been really sweet if they brought their throwback thirds.
I get that the “mono-turd” is not the best look in the league…but considering the Browns current set (due to expire next week! yes!) the color rush unis they’ve worn at home this year are MILLIONS times better.
That’s like saying gonorrhea is a million times better than syphilis because gonorrhea is treatable. I guess it’s all relative.
“mono-turd” looked a lot better than the Titans’ “navy pajamas”
that’s a low bar but that is the current state of things.
Does it count as mono-turd when they link?
Yeah, I know. There’s something wrong with me but I actually kinda dig that look (The orange/brown/brown/brown is indeed an atrocity.
The Jets’ mono green was rendered somewhat less terrible by the untucked undershirts breaking it up at the waist, and by the white socks. I thought it was the first time they wore white socks with the green trou but they did that in Week 7 against New England, the other time they went mono-green.
Hopefully next year we’ll see the white socks with the green trou and white jerseys, the green socks with the BFBS trou, and maybe even the white pants with the BFBS jerseys.
Hopefully in 2024 we’ll see the old template brought back with the current shade of green and the new primary logo. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…. ;)
Why is Jacksonville’s teal being called turquoise all of a sudden?
Actually, it’s *not* all of a sudden — I’ve often called it that. I think it’s more accurate. Google “turquoise” and see for yourself.
Agreed. If you look up the official color Pantone/HEX/RGB it is undeniably teal.
I’m calling it teal. Don’t the Jaguars?
i could see some naming wrongs t-shirts….
“im still calling it teal” _OR_ “i say it’s turquoise”
;)
Speaking of chocolate covered crackers, I saw these in the store just yesterday. Never seen them before. Could be new??
link
They’ve done Cadbury chocolate with Ritz crackers for some time now although I haven’t seen them for a while.(But I’ve moved house and so my chocolate spot has changed)
They’re ok.
I bet OTC’s would be good dipped in chocolate since they don’t taste the same as they used to.
Is it me or do the esthetics of NFL teams seems to get progressively worse as the season progresses. More and more teams wearing monochrome. The one exception this week, that’s not a bad look for the Jags.
At least the Niners don’t have all red or (shudder) all gold. The white 1994 set is fine, but a red jersey would be nice, too.
Oh and Santa, while we’re at it, three sleeve stripes please. Like Joe Cool wore.
The SB Nation articles on the worst jersey for each team are actually pretty good. They’re collecting them here.
link
I don’t agree with all of their results but their analysis is really good.
My gripe, of course, is that they’re limiting the analysis to jerseys, instead of uniforms, which means they’re part of the problem, not part of the solution. Sigh.
Their analysis of the Rangers’ worst uniform (mid 70s) included an entire thing on why going with blue pants instead of their iconic red ones was a mistake. A rare review of hockey pants!
Ah, that’s good to know. But the name of the series still has “Jerseys,” not “Uniforms”!!
I like that uniform. That would be my choice for a third uniform for the Rangers if I had my way. Still blue, but throwback and different enough from the primary look that it is a suitable third.
I must have terrible taste in hockey sweaters then because I think the robo-penguin was way better than the too-cartoony skating penguin. Of course, if Pittsburgh had robo first, then their fans opinions would be reversed. Regardless, I’m going to read that article now.
My mother and grandmother would do the feast every Christmas Eve. It was a large production with multiple skillets, lots of oil, a ton of batter and the one fish I never liked, smelts. In our tradition, however we didn’t have seven fishes, more like 2 or 3, with a number of fried vegetables (cauliflower, zucchini, onions, etc.) and fruit (fried apples).
I’ve tried it a couple times myself, but it is a large undertaking.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah.
Ha! We are totally stealing this idea and bringing the stuff to my brother’s house.
My wife and I wanted to do a Feast of the 7 Fishes-themed cooking class yesterday but it didn’t work out for us.
I’ll probably pick up a 6 pack of something like Dogfish Head IPA, Ballast Point Sculpin, etc. if I can’t find oyster stout.
Happy Festivus to all!
Tear away jerseys.
My wife’s family is Italian, so I have partaken in the 7 fishes several times, though her family has modded it to 7 seafood dishes in more recent times (it seems this is pretty common after a quick google search). So, we had shrimp cocktail, pasta with clam sauce, lobster tail, fried shrimp, crab cakes, baked flounder, and the one nod to the original feast – baccalà over salad. The last one provided the smell for the whole day, haha.
We are Italian, our Christmas Eve menu: starts with pasta penne with rose sauce or seafood medley pasta, your choice.
Then baccala, simmered all day with chunky potatoes, olives in homemade tomato sauce. Muscles would be served as well as shrimp and a beer battered haddock. Then of course all of your side dishes. Every dish on the table counts as one, even roasted chestnuts which we do as well.
RE: Calgary 1989 Throwbacks
Mike Vernon wore White Pads in the cup finals.
link
It does look like he may have worn a brown glove from time to time that year
link
You totally missed your chance to serve baby shark. Just so we can be done with it once and for all.
This is mostly a copy&paste from yesterday, but THANK YOU, Jimmer for the generosity in yesterday’s post. And a Happy & Healthy Season’s Greetings to everyone in the Uni-verse!
Sorry I don’t comment much; work has kept me too busy for anyone’s pleasure. I don’t even know what year it is.
You’re getting it wrong with the Mono-Turd moniker. The Browns should be dressed as they are and celebrated accordingly. This is their best uni-set and the only one in the NFL that can own the uni-tard look.
Easy to explain the Nebraska lack of stripes. I played college football in that era and can see that Johnny Rodgers was wearing a tear away jersey. Those jerseys, worn by certain backs and receivers, typically lacked adornment.
That game also featured some older NU helmets instead of just N. They were in the process of switching in 1971.
Why don’t the Saints where their A-tier gold pants? black no stripe is bad enough, but the white no stripe don’t even look like pajamas, looks like white long underwear.