Friday, August 24, 2012

ESPN's Uniform Power Rankings

This week, Paul Lukas has been running a ranking of all uniforms in the four major sports in his ESPN Uni Watch column. 122 uniforms, from worst to first, all week. Today, he unveiled the top 25.

And, no surprise, the Packers rank pretty high.
#6.  Green Bay Packers

Green and gold is the perfect autumnal color palette for a fall sport, the road design just about holds its own with the home uni, and the Pack's helmet logo still feels vibrant and relevant (unlike, say, the Bears' logo, which is starting to feel dated). Green Bay also has leapfrogged ahead of most NFL teams by not switching to the new Nike collar. Only two quibbles: The TV numbers have gotten intrusively large, and my kingdom for some striped socks.
The crack about the Bears' logo is tempered somewhat by the fact that Lukas ranked them higher; Chicago came in at #2.

As for the TV numbers, I agree that the increasingly-tight uniform cuts have eroded the real estate around them, making them appear ever-larger:

I cannot agree with his insistence on striped socks, only because the uniform is busy enough as-is. Were the Packers to adopt Braisher stripes on their socks, they'd need to consider removing the striped neckline, the last vestige of Forrest Gregg's 1984 redesign.

The Packers would also have to consider how to balance the sleeve stripes and sock stripes. I don't think a single set of Braisher stripes, as they wear on the sleeves, would look good on socks. They could add a second set of stripes to the sleeves, but that would require some creative thinking.

Fix the sleeve stripe problem, remove the neck stripes, and then it's those sock stripes standing between the Packers of 2012 and a truly classic uniform:

And that's certainly worthy of a ranking higher than #6.

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