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Uni Watch

Monday Morning Uni Watch (and College Hoops Preview!)

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Big day today, as we have a major season preview column for your enjoyment. But before we get to that, protocol dictates that we deal with yesterday’s NFL action.

So! Interesting move yesterday by Washington, which wore retro uniforms (I don’t think we can properly call these true throwbacks). They went with blank helmets — no logo, no numbers, no nothin’ — and also removed the Indian head sleeve logos that have previously been part of this jersey design. Here’s a comparison:

Also: In that “New” photo, see the little grey plastic panel on quarterback Alex Smith’s helmet? Those plastic pieces are standard on one helmet model — I think it’s the ridiculously named Schutt Vengeance. Most teams have them match the shell color, but Washington usually has them in yellow, to match their facemask color. Since yesterday’s retro uni included grey masks, they also used grey for those little plastic panels:

You can see more photos from this game here and here.

In other news from around the league yesterday:

• The Eagles wore their green pants for the first time this season, which helped create a very good-looking game in Cleveland:

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• In that same game Browns wide receiver Jarvis Landry saluted his Philly opponents by wearing cleats featuring former 76ers star Allen Iverson:

• The Ravens wore their black alternates:

• The Panthers went mono-black:

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• In that same game, Panthers linebacker Jermaine Carter made a cross-sport move by wearing Charlotte Hornets-themed cleats (not sure if he wore them in the game or only for pregame activities):

• Sort of a yin/yang game in Houston as the Texans wore navy over white against the Pats, who wore white over navy:

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• The Vikings broke out the purple Rash:

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• On the last substantive play of that Vikings/Cowboys game (there were two subsequent kneel-downs), one of Vikes wideout Adam Thielen’s yellow shoes inadvertently came off, causing many fans and broadcasters to mistakenly think a penalty flag had been thrown:

• Something about the Steelers/Jaguars game was really visually discordant. The two teams’ color schemes just didn’t mesh well at all. If felt like the Steelers were playing in bright sunshine while the Jags had some sort of dark filter:

• That Pittsburgh/Jacksonville game had something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, as Steelers wideout JuJu Smith-Schuster injured his ankle by stepping on a just-tossed penalty flag (additional info here):

• We’ve seen lots of players in recent years wearing Tredcals, which are those thigh pads with the player’s uni number or team logo in raised relief. But Colts defensive lineman Grover Stewart is the first player I’ve seen who’s wearing one with the Black Power fist:

Some quick photo research reveals that he also wore it last week and the week before that, but I hadn’t been aware of it until now.

After a few of us discussed this on Twitter, I learned that Steelers defensive back Terrell Edmunds also wore the raised fist yesterday — as well as “BLM” on his other thigh pad:

Edmunds has been wearing these pads at least since Oct. 11. Again, I hadn’t realized that until now.

• Chargers kicker Mike Badgley arrived for yesterday’s game against the Jets wearing a L.A. Kings jersey:

• Not a single home team wore white.

(My thanks to all contributors, including Mike Chamernik, Jakob Fox, Pro Football Journal, @bparras, and @GoinRounds.)

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College Hoops Season Preview: Don’t look now, but the college basketball season tips off this Wednesday. That means it’s time for the annual Uni Watch College Hoops Season Preview, with all the news on this year’s new uniforms, logos, court designs, and related issues (including Arizona State’s new black alternates, Duke’s new “Equality” slogan underneath the back numbers, and UNC’s new navy alternates, all shown above).

There are over 350 Division I schools, so this is always my biggest column of the year. My InsideHook editor and I were updating it past midnight last night, so it should be very up-to-date! You can check it out here.

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ITEM! Save some money while giving me money: I’m assuming that the holiday shopping season, like just about everything else, is going to be a bit different this year (at the very least, we presumably won’t have people trampling over each other at the Walmart entrance on Black Friday). But one thing you can usually depend upon around this time of year is a series of sales, price breaks, and so on. So in the spirit of the shopping season, I’m happy to announce the following:

• The Uni Watch Classic Cap, which normally costs $39.99, is now only $35.99 — a 10% break. All fitted sizes are currently in stock, along with the adjustable strapbacks.

• As I announced last week, I’ve also reduced the price of Uni Watch trading cards. Full details here.

• And as I mentioned at the end of last week, Teespring is currently offering free shipping on all orders of $50 or more. You can combine items Uni Watch, Uni Rock, and Naming Wrongs shops (or any other Teespring items) to hit that $50 threshold. Use the checkout code FREEOVER50 to get in on the deal, which is good from now through Wednesday.

My thanks, as always, for your consideration.

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ITEM! Trading card raffle: Longtime reader Gordon Blau has generously purchased five Uni Watch trading cards for me to raffle off, so that’s what we’re going to do today.

This will be a one-day raffle. No entry restrictions. To enter, send an email with your mailing address to the raffle in-box by 8pm Eastern tonight. One entry per person. I’ll announce the five winners tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the winner of the Austin FC shirt raffle is Audra Krake. Big congrats to her!

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The Ticker
By Jamie Rathjen

Baseball News: The Japanese Central League’s Chunichi Dragons revealed an 85th-anniversary logo (from Jeremy Brahm).
 
 

Football News: Pitt added a patch of the athletics program’s “United as One” logo, which was released about a month ago (from @MrBudziszewski). … The CFL’s Edmonton Football Team wants fans to send in suggestions for a new name (from Wade Heidt). … There may not be in-person NFL jersey swaps this season, but Buccaneers QB Tom Brady still got one in the mail from Cardinals WR Deandre Hopkins for winning a tongue-in-cheek meme contest (from Kary Klismet). … Also from Kary: A California high school is building a new stadium. … The music industry is cracking down on NFL teams for using copyrighted music without permission in highlight and locker room footage.

Hockey News: The K-Pop group NCT has a new hockey-themed music video that shows the band members in custom team uniforms, plus there are retired-number banners and a locker room shot (from Mike Chamernik). … The junior United States Hockey League’s Des Moines Buccaneers are building a new arena (from Kary Klismet).

Basketball News: NBA numerologist Etienne Catalan has some more new and changed player numbers. … A high school in Indiana added the initials of its state all-stars to its boys’ team’s jerseys (from Tim Mangas).

Soccer News: Further memorials for former England goalie Ray Clemence from his clubs, Liverpool, Scunthorpe United, and Tottenham Hotspur, included Spurs’ warm-up shirts and black armbands for those three clubs as well as some others. … Liverpool’s ad was also replaced with the advertiser’s charity, which Premier League teams can do once per season (from Moe Khan). … New shirts for Japan’s J2 League’s Ventforet Kofu (from Jeremy Brahm). … A new Chicago team in the National Independent Soccer Association is holding a name-the-team tournament — one of the top choices, Chicago Sting, is a reference to the NASL team (from Chuck Nolan Jr.).

Grab Bag: In Australian Twenty20 cricket’s Women’s Big Bash League, the Sydney Sixers added motivational messages to their shirts in support of young cancer patients. With that, the WBBL has provided us Ticker items for every week of its regular season. … In Ireland, the 100th anniversary of Bloody Sunday was commemorated by the two county teams that played in the associated Gaelic football game, Dublin and Tipperary. Dublin wore sleeve patches on both sleeves and Tipperary wore throwbacks. The commemoration was made possible by the pandemic, because county teams usually play from January to September. … The U.S. Virgin Islands police have new uniforms (from Timmy Donahue). … Meanwhile, most of last week was Transgender Awareness Week, and the U.K.’s South Wales Police could wear associated patches (also from Timmy). … Here is a history of the Lego logo (from Kary Klismet).

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What Paul did last night two nights ago: Saturday’s installment of Pandemic Porch Cocktails™ was more festive (and, as you can see, more cluttered) than usual. That’s because it was the weekend before Thanksgiving. Ordinarily, that would mean we’d be joining up with our friend Carrie and going down to her dad’s place on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where we’d attend the annual Ducks Unlimited Eastern Shore Oyster Roast (I wrote about the 2017 edition of this great event here). Since this year’s oyster roast was cancelled due to the pandemic, we all decided to get together on Saturday and eat oysters over Zoom (you can just barely see our laptop in the PPC™ photo — the Tugboat Captain is looking down at it).

Carrie and her parents just slurped raw oysters, but we decided to simulate the oyster roast by grilling ours, so I set up our little kettle grill in front of the house and strapped on my holstered oyster-shucking knife:

We got a bunch of Malpeque oysters and shucked some of them while leaving the others unopened, plus we also got some littleneck clams:

When the fire was ready, we put the unopened oysters on the grill, added the lid with the vent left open, and cooked them for 10 minutes, by which time they had opened and were ready to eat:

Then we put the shucked oysters on the grill and spooned on a mixture of butter, garlic, paprika, and parsley, followed by a topping of breadcrumbs and grated parmesan cheese (this is more of a Gulf Coast thing, not a Virginia thing, but it’s mighty tasty). After another 10 minutes they were ready:

It wasn’t as good as a real Virginia oyster roast (and our oysters were farmed, not wild, so there were no pea crabs!), but it was a reasonable facsimile — enough to scratch the itch that my internal clock has developed every year around this time. Here’s hoping we can go back to Virginia for the real thing a year from now.

As always, you can see the full set of daily Pandemic Porch Cocktails™ photos — now more than 250 of them — here.

 
  
 
Categories
NFL
Comments (38)

    The best looking game of the week was last night between the Chiefs and Raiders. Packers-Colts was good too, except for the shiny fake turf in Indy’s indoor stadium.

    I’m with you. Cheifs-Raiders and Packers-Colts were visual treats yesterday. 4 teams that have thankfully stayed with their traditional classic uni’s. Some of those other games yesterday looked like Arena League and XFL match-ups.

    There were so many bad looking NFL teams yesterday (insert head shaking emoji here). KC and LV, however, was a visual treat last night. It could have been the Mad Bomber and Lenny the Cool playing QB in those timeless unis.

    A couple of NFL team broke out combos I really like. Baltimore wore black over white. Jacksonville with the black over teal. Could it be possible that the Saints would break out the black over gold? Nope!

    Bengals wore a seldom-used combination of white-over-white with orange-top socks…not my favorite, but I liked it.

    I’m with Wade on the Ravens…that black over white combo is the best they’ve looked in, well, forever.

    And Paul, those oysters look wonderful.

    I’m with you on the Saints. They have such a great look with the black and gold (and the away white over gold, but I’ll let it slide when they wear the beautiful color rush sets). Whoever is in charge of the uniforms there is so sadly misguided.

    The external jaw stabilizers (they are there to make the internal earpads stay flush with the rest of the helmet/help with keeping that part of the helmet secure on the player’s jaw; whether or not it’s a gimmick or actually helpful is not for me to say) are standard on the Vengeance (the helmet Smith wears) as well as the Schutt Air XP Q10 and Air XP Q11.

    Example: Both Aaron Rodgers and Cam Newton wear the XP Q11, Newton keeps his stabilizers on while Rodgers has his removed

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    I think Washington is the only team in the NFL that matches the color of the jaw stabilizer (thank you, Bud!) to the color of the facemask instead of the color of the helmet.

    “Pitt added a patch of the athletics program’s “Unity as One” logo, ….

    It actually says “United as One”. still redundant however.

    Washington most certainly was wearing a correct throwback, per the GUD that is exactly what they wore in 1944 (only difference is updated helmet technology).
    Perhaps they were intending to throw back to their 1937 championship, as they have done in the past, but the one helmet rule prevents a gold helmet, and now they have also scrubbed the logo from the sleeves. So it could be that they are doing a constrained 1937 throwback which ends up being what they wore in 1944.

    Regardless, this weekend’s throwback should be the basis of Washington’s permanent uniforms when they choose a name. The rich colors and the balance between the burgundy and the gold are exactly perfect, and the not-quite-in-uniform pants are such a classic look. The only thing I’d change is a gold facemask (but a rich, dark gold like the jersey numbers) and something understated on the helmet. Simple logo on one side, numbers on the other maybe.

    I hope they stick with “Washington Football Team.” It’s so strange, it’s good. And it’s similar to the names of football teams around the rest of the world – the one’s playing what we call “soccer.”

    Love the college preview, as usual. For Marquette, they actually debuted their white, powder, and teal unis in their recent scrimmages. Check out their Twitter for pics, where for some reason they also wore mismatched shorts

    Washington has been failing at their throwback uniform by using current logos on the helmet and throwback logos on the sleeves. No logo at all corrected that.

    Anyone have any advice for viewing the website on an IPad? I have tried safari, Firefox, chrome, and edge. They all constantly crash and reload the site. Once the site stops crashing any link I click on and come back to the site it reloads and starts crashing again.

    No issues on my iPad using Firefox. As suggested restart it. I also close out everything open in the background even tho I’m told that doesn’t matter.

    Besides JuJu’s ankle injury, don’t forget when Orlando Brown took a penalty flag to the eye in 1999

    “A California high school is building a new stadium.”

    Wonder what they are planning to do with the existing track/football complex…seems to only lack stands and lighting(?).
    Strange that with all the newly-created open space the designers propose cramming 2 shot put circles into one space, making for over-lapping sectors.

    Or in 2012, when Kevin Ogletree slipped on a thrown ref’s hat (perhaps not coincidentally during the replacement ref debacle at the beginning of that season):

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    The college basketball preview states: “Under Armour is ending its deal with the university four years early.”
    This is inaccurate, though I don’t blame Uni-Watch. Unfortunately, the Baltimore Biz Journal reported half the story (the current agreement WAS bought out), without mentioning the other half of the story (a new agreement that runs from 2021-2024 was signed).

    While watching NFL Red Zone yesterday, Scott Hanson called the Vikings unis their Color Rush set, then later in the broadcast said someone had tweeted him to “correct” him, and that what they were wearing wasn’t their Color Rush set, but their “PrimeTime Purple” set.

    That’s just crazy talk right there.

    Not sure where the best place to ask this question is, but will there be any future color remix caps available? I feel like I missed an announcement, and now the website is down completely.

    RE: The College Hoops Season Preview

    You embedded a tweet that specifies that Elbee the new Long Beach shark mascot uses they/them pronouns, but you went ahead and used the pronoun “his” regardless.

    From the announcement website, which you linked:

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    “There is only one Elbee and does not have a spouse nor family members. Elbee transcends gender and uses the pronoun “they/them.” Elbee is nonverbal.”

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