Uh, Oh: Fear the Swoosh?

We're starting to get the first reports that Nike's assumption of the NFL-wide uniform contract might impact our Packers' æsthetic.

Uni Watch ran this little item yesterday:

Disturbing note from Jordan Pope, who writes: "I work for a Nike team dealer in Washington and we received our sideline exclusives for Fall 2012 with what appears to be a notable change to the Green Bay Packers pants for next year. The green-white-green striping down the pant leg does not start at the top of the pant but rather farther down, at roughly the same spot as the scarlet stripe in Ohio State's Pro Combat uniforms." Ugh — I reeeealllly hope that's not a sign of things to come....

It was followed up by a comment from Simply Moono, who added this:

While not good news, I should clear the air here and say that it won’t be like 'Bama's AmPac pants from last year:

but more like the Florida Nike Pro Combat 2011 unis from their bowl game against Penn State (see #94 here).

The top of the stripe (as shown with #94) will start from the bottom of the belt chamber, but — for the most part — will still be a full stripe.

Also see: the new Nike Team Sports uniform builder. The "Three Color Stripe" option on the pants will give you a general visual, although I'm sure that the belt chamber won’t be that big.

Uni Watch prexy Paul Lukas gave us a screencap of the uniform builder website:

As might be expected, Paul himself had the best comment:

And now a simple question: WHY?

Answer: possibly just because they're Nike. A swoosh on the hip might not be sufficiently distinctive to brand the new uniforms as "theirs."

This might not be all bad, if the truncated stripe isn't too obvious. It could look like a simple belt loop. But now I find myself wondering what other changes Beaverton might have in mind for the Green and Gold.

I am still really hoping that they'll make the obvious fix to the Packers' sleeve stripe problem.