"If Found, Please Return to..."

Reader Jeremy Weber sent in this great tip from yesterday's game (and Tim O'Donnell has added a clearer photo).

Last year, the Packers added small green identification numbers to the back of the helmet. It appears that they have altered the style for this season, seen here on punter Tim Masthay.

Don't know about this. Although adding the name may make identification easier, it seems as though putting the number in the oval will make it harder to read. This is obviously intended for the players and not fans (unless this is some brilliant/cynical ploy to "authenticate" game-worn items for the team's charity auctions), but even on HD this blurs to an indistinguishable green blob at any distance.

Not to mention it further clutters the alread-overcrowded real estate. Do we really need five separate decals on the back of each helmet?

Subtle Changes Redux

Well, there they go it again.

Last year, it was black cleats instead of white. For this season, the Packers have made an even more subtle change to the uniforms, adding player numbers to the back of the helmet.

Here's a closer view from the preseason:

There is a certain logic about it; there are situations when you may wish to make it easier for players to quickly identify their helmets.

Although the Packers have gone without helmet numbers for the past fifteen years, they were a part of the team's uniform for decades before that. In the early 1950s, they were hand-written on the front of helmets:

By the Lombardi era, the team was marking helmets with military-style stenciled numbers, as seen here on Bart Starr's helmet (post-quarterback sneak in the Ice Bowl):

I have read that these numbers were made by running a marker over the stencil, but haven't seen any conclusive evidence to confirm this. Judge for yourself.

In the 1980s, the Packers switched from stencils to green Dymo tape, seen here on a Mark Shumate 1985 gamer:

The Dymo tape was in use as late as 1993 or early 1994, as we can see on Ty Detmer's helmet in this photo with Mark Brunell:

It appears to have been dropped by the 1994 season.

Since then, no numbers. Until now.

The new helmet numbers use the same font as those on the jersey, and appear to be printed on a clear decal laid atop the white stripe.

ESPN.com's Paul Lukas believes this is the first time a team has ever put two-digit numbers in the center of a helmet stripe. In the Lombardi era, double-digit numbers straddled the stripes while single-digits were placed within the white center stripe:

I like the numbers, but the back of the Packers' helmets are getting ridiculously cluttered. Part of the reason that the numbers look so sharp on the Lombardi-era helmets is that they were alone back there.

I guess I can understand the NFL logo, but think it's time that the flag be removed. Nobody doubts the unfaltering and boundless support that the NFL, the teams and the players have for our troops. And do we really need the warning label? Can't they move it to the inside, or can't the players just sign some sort of waiver and free up all that space?

Week 6: Stripes!

Watching the Packers roll the Seahawks in Seattle this weekend, I was reminded of what I really dislike about the Packers' road uniforms.

It's the stripes.

Part of the essential beauty of the Packer uniform lies in its repetition of themes - the pants match the helmet's colors and striping. White stripe between two green stripes against gold. The same pattern is repeated all over the Packers' uniform.

But on the road jerseys, the stripes are a mismatch.

I don't know why they made that choice - I'm presuming that the team thought gold against white didn't provide enough contrast, so the outer stripes were changed to green, and everything else flowed from that.

This could have been easily solved by putting thin green stripes around the outer gold stripes, similar to what the Steelers do with their gold stripes:

See? A touch of black, and they can keep the standard striping. Not so hard.

This Packer sleeve stripe pattern is one of the last vestiges of Forrest Gregg's 1984 overhaul (the subject of a future post, no doubt). It's also terribly ugly, as were most of Gregg's uniform "improvements." I really can't stand those little white stripes around gold.

Personally, I prefer the classic Lombardi look for the road whites:

It's not trying to be a photo-negative of the home jerseys, but finds a balance that works well on its own. No little white stripes needed.

For Thanksgiving 2003, the Packers wore a modified version of this jersey as part of a 1960s throwback:

I think those were a huge improvement over the regular road jerseys, and would love to see this brought back full-time. Not so sure that the "glory years" of 1984-87 are particularly worth enshrining in nylon.

Week 3: Sometimes a subtle change is the best change

Can't believe we're through the first three weeks and only now talking about this - there was a potentially Earth-shattering development in Packers uniforms this year.

Huge. Ground-breaking. The first significant change (meaning that the manufacturers' logo swaps don't count) since Nike slashed away at Lombardi's sleeve stripes in 1997. For such a uniform-conscious, conservative team, this is big.

Black cleats.

Hey, I'm serious. The Packers have been wearing white cleats since 1974. In the preseason, they wore the standard white cleat we're all used to seeing:

Then, when the regular season started, the Packers came out of the tunnel in black cleats, as seen this week against Dallas:

Now, there is some variation allowed. Every player must wear cleats which are predominantly of the team's official color. Rodgers wears cleats which have a much higher percentage of white than either Collins or Desmond Bishop above:

Nothing really new there, as Favre's white cleats usually incorporated a fair amount of green.

I'd love to know what the specific regs are, but the NFL is extremely reluctant to reveal this kind of information. If anybody has a copy, let me know.