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Uni Watch

10 Uni-Related Notes From the NFL Schedule Release

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Good morning, and happy Friday the 13th! The full 2022 NFL schedule was released yesterday, and there were some interesting uni- and logo-related tidbits for us to consider. One at a time:

1. Like many teams, the Falcons created a video to promote their 2022 sked. At very end of it, there’s a glimpse of a throwback helmet lurking behind a sign:

The Falcons figured to be one of the teams going with throwbacks now that the one-shell rule has been lifted, but several other teams have pushed back their throwback plans to 2023 due to supply-chain issues. Good to see that this hasn’t affected the Falcons.

It’s not yet clear which game(s) on Atlanta’s schedule will get the retro treatment — something to keep an eye on.

2. CBS Sports took a look at the Saints’ schedule and came up with this truly excellent graphic:

Love that! But it leads to a good trivia question: In addition to those five teams, there is a sixth NFL team with a bird on its jersey. What is it?

3. The NFL inexplicably promoted the Week One game between the Broncos and Seahawks with a graphic showing Broncos QB Russell Wilson in a uni combo that the team has never worn:

At that angle, it doesn’t look bad. But from the side, you’d have the jersey’s blue side panels colliding with the pants’ orange panels — a mess.

4. It’s hard to be 100% sure, but it looks like the 49ers Photoshopped the new chest mark onto their sked-release player photo but didn’t bother to add the new third stripe on the sleeve:

5. The Texans’ sked-release video featured players attempting to draw the opponents’ logos:

6. The Bears also had players draw their opponents’ logos, but on footballs (click on the tweets to see the entire thread):

7. The Chargers came up with a really funny anime-style video for their sked release (and also posted a thread in which they listed their opponents as various flavors of Pop-Tarts):

8. Lots of fun bits in the Bengals’ sked-release video, including a Jets jet, a Dolphins race car, and a school bus driving through Pittsburgh (it’s yellow and black, get it?):

9. The Dolphins unveiled a 50th-anniversary logo for the 1972 “perfect season” team, which went 17-0:

They’re planning to honor the ’72 team as part of their Oct. 23 game against the Steelers, so it seems like a safe bet that they’ll wear throwbacks for that game, perhaps with the anniversary logo as a jersey patch and/or rear-helmet decal.

10. The last graf of this article indicates that the Steelers will probably wear their throwbacks on Nov. 20 against the Bengals.

Honorable Mention. While not uni-related, the Seahawks pranked their players by showing them a fake schedule, which prompted some very amusing reactions (if you don’t see the video embedded below, look here):

There were probably other uni- and logo-related bits that I missed. Feel free to list them in today’s comments.

(My thanks to Samuel Lam, Preston Feiler, @kcequipmentfar1, plus our own Lloyd Alaban, Brinke Guthrie, and Jerry Wolper, for their contributions to this section.)

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Christie/Seaver saga, continued: Yesterday I invited readers to submit T-shirt designs inspired by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie saying, “Get a life!” in response to my article about the inaccurate “4” on the Tom Seaver statue.

I received a bunch of submissions yesterday (thank you!). All were fun and interesting, but one design concept — submitted by Erik Hoover — easily stood out as the best. It’s so good that I’ve already put it into production (click on each image to go to its ordering page):

So simple, so good! As I promised yesterday, all profits will be donated — the blue and BFBS proceeds will go to the >American Society of Civil Engineers (for bridge and infrastructure maintenance), and the grey proceeds will go to Clean Ocean Action (for NYC/NJ ocean and beach cleanliness).

I’m still very open to other design ideas that relate to the Seaver/Christie storyline. If you have one, feel free to send it here. My continued thanks to Ted Bloss for suggesting that we use the Christie quip as the inspiration for a shirt!

Meanwhile: As you may know (it was definitely mentioned on Uni Watch at the time), Christie participated in a charity softball game to support families of slain police officers back in 2015. What you might not know — and what I didn’t know myself until our own Brinke Guthrie pointed it out to me yesterday — is the uniform number he wore in that game:

That’s just too perfect. What a week this has been!

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Uni Watch News Ticker
By Anthony Emerson

Baseball and Softball News: Nationals Park has switched the traditional helmet sundae to a cap sundae, complete with faux stitching (from Lowell Frank). … This clip of a Lou Whittaker homer in the 1986 All-Star Game features a cool Easter egg at the end — Roger Clemens wearing Jim Rice’s batting helmet! As an AL pitcher a decade before the introduction of interleague play, there’s no way he had his own helmet to bring to Houston (great spot by Cliff Corcoran). … New unis for the American Association’s Winnipeg Goldeyes (from multiple readers). … Staying in the American Association, the Cleburne Railroaders have introduced a new alternate jersey (from multiple readers). … The Traverse City Pit Spitters of the Northwoods League will become the Up North Cork Dorks for a game in August. The name is a nod to the Traverse Wine Coast (from multiple readers). … Here’s a sensationally written and researched piece about the history of player autographs on baseball gloves. It’s long but very entertaining and definitely worth checking out (from Trevor Williams). … Michigan’s softball team has some excellent stirrups (from @TDawg1551). … The Rangers’ red alternate jersey, one of many MLB alternates whose production was delayed by this year’s shortened spring training, will make its season debut tonight. … The Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Negro Leagues Museum have teamed up to release a series of Satchel Paige talking bobbleheads.

Football News: In what may just be a social media marketing move, the Panthers swapped out their Twitter avatar and background image for their original logo and wordmark on Twitter (from Craig Lucas). … Washington, DC’s Archbishop Carroll High School loves the NFC North so much, they poached both the Bears’ and Lions’ logos (from Matt Ipri). … Former Texans RB Arian Foster has quite the impressive jersey collection from his NFL days (from multiple readers). … Here’s a look at the evolution of LSU’s helmets (thanks, Phil). … The Marlboro County (S.C.) School District is paying $90,000 to replace football uniforms and equipment that were damaged by mold and mildew.

Hockey News: The Quebec-based Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey, an independent league, has announced a new expansion team, Bâtisseurs de Montcalm (from Wade Heidt).
 

NBA News: The NBA has tweaked the Larry O’Brien trophy and introduced new Conference Finals MVP trophies, named after Larry Bird for the East and Magic Johnson for the West (from multiple readers). … The FanNation Hawks blog has a great interview with Tom O’Grady, the NBA’s first creative director (thanks, Phil).

Soccer News: Mexican side Club León have unveiled a newspaper-inspired away kit, of all things (from Mauricio Gómez Montoya). … Newcastle United’s new away kit has leaked, and the green-and-white design — a first for the club — is drawing negative comparisons to the Saudi flag. A consortium backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund controversially purchased the club last year (from Mark Coale).

Grab Bag: Here are the liveries for this weekend’s IndyCar race in Indianapolis (from Tim Dunn).

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And that’s a wrap for this week. Stay well, enjoy Phil’s weekend content, and I’ll see you back here on Monday — Purp Walk Eve. Peace. — Paul

 
  
 
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Comments (38)

    You are correct with the Panthers throwing back to the original logo and wordmark. Their schedule release video was 90s themed

    Really liked the jersey hanging on the guy’s wall in his bedroom. Couldn’t tell if it was a “throwback” (original logo) or the a modern jersey. But name and number were correct. Nice.

    Speaking of the Rangers’ red jersey debut tonight, has anyone else noticed the sleeve striping on the blue alts has changed? Used to be powder, white and red, but this season is just white and red. The striping is now in line with the rest of their jerseys (more or less). I guess the powder stripe was to tie in with the powder set but it seemed so random on that particular jersey. Sorry if this has been mentioned before.

    I wonder how many people will know why the Bengals media team used a race car for the Dolphins.

    Makes sense the Falcons would be able to roll out the alternate helmet this year, it matches with their existing throwback jersey, so no need to worry about supply chain issues to get retail merchandise to the market.

    As for Marlboro County, South Carolina, and the mold situation, that’s surprising. They take their football pretty seriously in Bennettsville. One would have thought that a situation like that would not have evolved, but that’s why it’s news … for all the wrong reasons. Fortunately, as a one public high school county, they’ll more likely to come up with money for new unis and equipment pretty quickly. Good luck to the Bulldogs.

    The coach at Marlboro County knew he wasn’t coming back and left everything laying in the floor, unwashed and not disinfected, at the end of the season. Getting the $$$ will be no problem for MCSD, but getting the necessary equipment and uniforms by the end of July will be close to impossible.

    Having watched the Falcons video on YouTube, the video actually STARTS with the throwback helmet in it, so it can be played on a loop

    The Newcastle United kit doesn’t look like the Saudi flag, the criticism is the fact that the kit looks very much like the kit the Saudi national team wears.

    That’s not Roger Clemens wearing Jim Rice’s batting helmet, that’s Rich Gedman wearing his own catcher’s helmet.

    Has there ever been a series as confusing to watch as the current Tampa Bay vs. Toronto hockey playoffs? I only watch the 5-minute recaps and at a glance I don’t know which team is the Maple Leafs and which is the Lightning. Only three NHL teams have only two official colors and these two teams are both blue and white. I’m never a fan of BFBS but this is one time I’d want the Lightning to at least throw back to their earlier designs in which black was one of their official colors to at least distinguish themselves from the Leafs…

    -Jet

    When lightning strikes the color of it looks like the color of titanium-silverfish. It would be great if the Tampa Bay Lightning added this tone to their lightning strike with the blue and white to their uniforms.

    I had the same problem when I turned one of the games earlier this week. The Lightning going so simple with their uniforms, given the pre existence of the Leafs makes them appear to be a rip off. No reason why the Lightning can’t be blue and black. In fact black with royal blue as a trim color would be a unique and recognizable look for them.

    Except
    1) 2 Cups makes it hard to change;
    2) their rise to prominence is in this set;
    3) it’s a great looking uniform.

    Good t-shirt design. I think the “4” should be the “F” in “LIFE” and the “A” should be a traffic cone.

    Yes, in fact the current design strikes me as easy to misinterpret as being about a very prominent issue in the news right now, for those not following this site.

    Paul, can you recall another NFL season with so few uni developments?

    In watching the Arian Foster jersey video, did anyone else besides me notice the red cross above the nameplate on the Troy Polamalu jersey? (If this is a more-widely-known type of thing, no ‘green dot’ jokes, please) ;-)

    Polamalu had that added to his jerseys for years. It was rarely visible because it was obscured by his hair. I honestly don’t remember if it had to do with his Samoan heritage or his Orthodox faith, but it’s one of those.

    Regarding that clip of Lou Whitaker at the All-Star Game mentioned in the Ticker……….that’s not Roger Clemens. It’s Rich Gedman, a catcher, so it makes sense he would have had his own helmet.

    At 39 seconds, Clemens (21) is wearing Rice’s helmet (14). I think that’s Gedman at 52 seconds.

    Hit ‘post’ too early.

    Clemens batted after Whitaker homered in the top of the second.

    link

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