Capping it Off

New Era is plugging their new line of 59fifty caps on its Facebook page. Here's what the well-dressed Packer will be wearing on the sidelines starting this fall:

On the whole, there's not much to dislike. Sideline caps have been pretty outlandish at times, but these are clean and classy.

The only question I have for New Era is this: If Chicago can get its throwback on an "alternative" sideline cap, why can't the Packers have an interlocking "GB" to reflect the Lombardi glory days?

Come on, New Era. Make it so.

Living Color, Part II

As many of you know, Uni Watch runs a photo colorization gallery on weekends. This one was published today:

Next up is prodigious colorizer John Turney, who has one that a certain other dinner companion with Paul & Conn reader will no doubt appreciate:

Phil,

End LaVern (Lavvie) Dilweg is seen here modeling one of the lesser-known uniforms in the Packers’ historical closet.

The pants are described as “faded blue canvas”, the first time the Packers moved away from gold or canvas-colored trousers. Finishing off the look is a pair of gold socks with two navy blue stripes.

This uniform was worn for two seasons, 1927 and 1928, before being replaced by the famous “circle” 1929 uniforms.

From Packers uniform blogspot, the pants are the right color.

–John Turney

Great stuff, John.

I couldn't agree more. Outstanding work! The blue jersey/blue pants/gold socks is such an unusual combination.

Turney sends other examples of this work, including this gorgeous shot of the Packers playing the Rams at Marquette Stadium in 1952:

Love the autumnal color on the trees. I think that dark green/metallic gold Packers combination is highly under-rated.

He also sends this beauty of Verne Lewellen in the 1929-1930 uniform:

Outstanding work all around. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!

T.G.I... Saturday!

Looks like some of Jeff Saturday's new teammates are having some fun welcoming the center to the Packers:



Those are guards Evan Dietrich-Smith (playing Dragnet on the left) and Josh Sitton.

(h/t: Uni Watch)

"Number One in Your Programs, Number One in Your Hearts"

Football players, perhaps more than any other athletes, become identified with the numbers they wear. they don't have the same kind of effortless identification that baseball or basketball players have; professionals in other sports can go about the game with their faces in full view, but a football player's face is shrouded by his helmet.

His jersey number, therefore, takes on an enlarged importance. It's splashed across his chest, his back, his shoulders, so every fan watching can use it to pick him out on the field, out of the crowd of identically-dressed men wearing the same helmets.

Any Packer fan worth her salt knows the numbers. 14. 3. 15. 66. 92. Numbers than have become so identified with one man that the team has decided nobody will ever wear it again (even if there are a few glitches from time to time).

Then there is a second tier of retired numbers; numbers which aren't officially retired but are withheld anyway. Paul Hornung's number 5 has been kept off the field (except for 1987, when it was given to a player who later decided he didn't like the comparison). #4 is currently on the shelf, waiting for enough time to pass to heal the wounds between the Packers and Brett Favre.

Then there's good old number 1.

"King of the hill, top of the heap, A-number-one," if you listen to Old Blue Eyes.

One is, as the old song has it, the loneliest number. Everybody wants to collectively cheer "We're #1!", but few Packers have ever been personally associated with the number.

Packers fans rarely ever see the number 1 on a jersey, save annually in April at Rockefeller Center, where it is held aloft by a smiling freshly-minted young millionaire overflowing with confidence and promise.

The Packers have also occasionally used #1 for other special events:

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

But how about on the field?

According to John Maxymuk's excellent book Packers by the Numbers: Jersey Numbers and the Players Who Wore Them, the number one has only been worn by a single player, and then only for two seasons: 1925 & 1926.

That player was none other than Curly Lambeau.

Here's the beginning of Maxymuk's entry on the number. As he notes, Lambeau went on to wear #14 in 1927, #42 in 1928 and #20 in 1929 and 1930:

Technically, Maxymuk is right. No other player has worn the number 1 jersey. But we shouldn't be interpreted to mean that the digit hasn't been associated with anyone else in the organization. I can think of at least one other notable man who proudly wore the digit:

There it is, on the cap of Vince Lombardi. Where other men had their jersey numbers, Lombardi's gear was emblazoned with a proud number one. Truly "number one in their hearts".

It seems to me that the Packers have an unusual opportunity here. There is a uniform number that hasn't been worn in ninety years. It has only ever been identified with two men, both towering figures not only in Green Bay Packer history but the very history of the sport.

I propose that the team continues to keep the number out of circulation until August 2019, a mere seven ½ years away—it's lasted this long, why not?—and then retire it. If Lombardi and Lambeau both wore #1, I'm pretty sure no other Packer ever should.

Arts and Letter(head)s, Part V

Continuing our look at Packer letterhead through the years comes this exemplar from 1935.

This letter was sent from Curly Lambeau to a young player about to graduate from the University of Michigan:

Dear Ford:

     While on the Coast you told me you were undecided in regard to playing professional football.

     We plan on signing a center for the coming season and will pay you $110.00 per game if you wish to join the "Packers". Our league schedule is not drafted but we usually play fourteen games. We pay in full after each contest and all players are paid whether they play or not and, naturally, all injured players are paid immediately after the game.

     Will appreciate an early reply.

     With kindest personal regards, I am

Sincerely,

E. L. Curly Lambeau
GREEN BAY FOOTBALL CORPORATION

Not much to say in the way of æsthetics on this letterhead; it is nothing like the colorful styles we would see in the 1940s. It is simple and elegant, though, and I like the quotation marks around "Packers" (twice!).

If short on style, this letter is very revelealing in its content. $110.00 per game, whether a man plays or not, injured or not, and even months after the conclusion of a season the following year's contests were not yet set.

Unfortunately, Curly's offer wasn't quite enough to entice this young man to Green Bay. Gerald Ford decided instead to go to law school, then private practice and eventually (following a stint in the Navy during WWII) politics.

Auction Gold - Forrest Gregg's 1959 Blanket

Another gem comes to us from the current MEARS auction:

1959 Forrest Gregg Green Bay Packers Personal 54" x 60" Blanket

Vince Lombardi dubbed Forrest Gregg as the best player he ever coached. It was the Gregg who pried open holes as Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung received the praise.

Sourced directly from Gregg is this blanket honoring his performance in 1959. "GREEN BAY PACKERS" and a football are centered on front. A swatch has "Forest Gregg '59" chainstitched on the lower right corner. A few minor stains and minor hole (near name swatch) are the only qualifications.

Amazing. I wonder how often these were issued to players?

Take a Knee (Pad)

News from the NFL Owners' meeting that the league will mandate thigh and knee pads for all players, beginning with the 2013 season. The NFLPA is objecting to the rule being implemented outside of collective bargaining, but that seems overly political to me.

The thigh pads were very prominent in the mannequins at Nike's unveiling event, but I didn't think they'd actually require players to wear them.

The easy snark is that "knee pads will do soooo much to prevent concussions", but this seems to me to be consistent with the NFL's overall goals so far. There is no inconsistency in stressing player safety while exploring an 18-game season; in fact, the former is a prerequisite to the latter.

I do worry, though, that it's a step in the wrong direction. Adding body armor is what got the NFL into the situation it is now, and for years I've been arguing that the solution is to reduce padding, not increase it. Then again, I'm not terribly sympathetic to the union's concerns, considering how many former players are currently suing the league over the NFL's ignoring safety concerns, and how many current players continue to demonstrate their profound objections to the ongoing safety concerns.

At the very least, mandating knee pads will end the biker-shorts look that many receivers, notably Greg Jennings and Donald Driver, have been wearing in recent years:

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UPDATE 5/23/12:   Paul Lukas reminds me of this excellent article by Stephen Fatsis on the reasons behind players abandoning pads.

In Case You Doubted That It's Still "EQUIPMENT"

As the first images start trickling out of the rookie training camps, eagle-eye uni spotters have noticed that the rooks' jerseys still bear the "NFL EQUIPMENT" patch, worn on all gamers since 2002 but mercifully retired as part of the transition to Nike as the exclusive league-wide uniform supplier.

Jim Biever, Packers.com

I presumed that meant they were wearing old Reebok jerseys in camp. It's a fairly common custom to recycle old practice gear It's not unheard of to keep game uniforms around after a supplier switch; for years after the Packers moved from Starter to Nike in 1997, Brett Favre continued to wear his old Starter cold-weather jersey with the manufacturer's logo covered up.

Paul Lukas asked Nike about these patches, and received the following response from publicist Brian Strong:

"The NFL shield is reserved for anything worn on gameday (including uniform, sideline, etc). The NFL Equipment logo is placed on anything worn outside of gameday (training, practice, workouts, lifting, etc). So what you’re seeing in training camp is definitely not old inventory."

Sure, he can say that, and maybe that's generally the case around the league, but not in Green Bay. Check out this photo of outside linebacker Dezman Moses with coach Kevin Greene:

Jim Biever, Packers.com

Moses is clearly wearing a reconditioned jersey, with the Reebok vector logo covered up:

Although I'd rather that the "NFL EQUIPMENT" logo had just been retired, it's good to know the NFL's official rules for its display.

More on Those Washington Helmets

Hydro Graphics, Inc. has confirmed that they were responsible for Washington's throwback helmets. They posted these pictures to their Facebook page:

You can really get a sense of the texture.

I wonder how this trompe-l'œil will appear in person. It's certainly more visually interesting than the solid glossy brown helmets: I worry that it could look overly artificial and silly in person, though. We'll have to see in a game.

But Can They Do Pleather?

The Washington Redskins have unveiled throwback uniforms to celebrate their 80th Anniversary:

Washington Redskins

This is worth our notice for the unique faux-leather treatment they've given the helmet:

Sky Kerstein

Helmet treatments have been the bane of NFL throwbacks since the first ones were rolled out in 1994. When throwing back to an era before helmet logos and striping, the standard conceit has been to wear a plain, unadorned shell:

The originals look great, but the modern interpretations look unfinished and awkward. The rich texture of the leather is missing.

In an earlier post, I proposed a different approach to the blank brown shells with gray facemasks. Perhaps, I thought, if they added some subtle shading, a slightly darker shade of brown, it might hint at the old leather strips:

This takes my approach to its logical conclusion, and fixes what I think is the biggest problem with leather helmet-era throwback uniforms.

The Redskins didn't specify, but that leather-like finish is undoubtedly the work of Hydro Graphics Inc., Nike's standard supplier of custom finishes. HGI has already created helmets for the Giants in the last Super Bowl and commemorative helmets for the outgoing Jaguars owners.

Shame that we won't be seeing the Packers' throwback blues this season, but if and when they return for 2013, I expect that we'll see their helmets outfitted with a similar finish.