Lets start with the Niners. Compare the new helmet (top) to the more recent model below.

Ok… this is on the surface a move akin to what the Jets did a decade ago when they reached back to the uniforms of their glory days. I understand the sentiment, I do. However the Jets went from a uniform that was a radical departure back to a great uniform giving the team the psychological lift and break with recent failures. That change worked.  The Niners by comparison, never really made a switch from their glory days instead going with tweaks upgrades and minor changes that never really changed their overall look. For my money the changes they made were great… all worthy and all improved the look but at the same time there was never any doubt you were watching the boys from the bay.
The 3D numbers rock and red face mask works like a charm. But most striking is how much better the helmet stripe is as a blood red one with thin black borders as opposed to the candy-ass white with thick red borders.
So what did they do? Yep, they tossed a decade and a half of progress right out the window. I know they’re the duds from the Montana Young glory days of the franchise but hey those guys are never comin’ back and the blood red is just much better than the fire engine red. The teams of San Fran’s Super bowl era won their titles in spite of their lame-o threads, not because of them. It’s only the cruel gods of fate an irony that they won at a time when their uniforms were more likely to be associated with salad tossing than salad days.
Now on to the Lions and their “new uniform” First picture new uniform, second picture old.

I feel like an eco criminal wasting the nano bit of electricity it takes to type and post these words because while you can see changes… the font, the angrier Lion, the changes in striping… nothing really seems that much different.  I live for this shit but if I missed the articles and pictures about these changes, I’d have been watching (reluctantly) some highlight involving the Lions and would not have noticed anything different. Detroit is like the guy at work who isn’t a bad guy but is so boring that you avoid him whenever you can and when stuck interacting with him your inner dialogue is entirely about trying to figure out the quickest least offensive way of getting the hell  away from him asap.
But since since the point of this blog is to go on and on about this crap, I will grudgingly admit that while the sum of the changes don’t add up to much, I do like the Logo changes.  Take a look.

The Logo is an improvement. The old one could be mistaken for a continent or some amorphous land mass on a map. The new one is at least clearly and instantly identifiable as a lion. He now sports clearly visible teeth and an (you knew it was coming click here)  angry eye
As usual I picked up a little tidbit while reading Uniwatchblog about this change. Apparently the mascots nickname is Bubbles. Clearly this is adding insult to injury to the unfortunate Detroit fans so I set out to discover how this mini-tragedy came to pass. I poked around the internet and came up with two separate theories on the origin of the moniker.

First this

The logo is named after the Lion's owner, William Clay Ford.

THE GREATEST OWNER IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS!!!!

This of course begs the question of how the hell a captain of industry wound up such a sad ass nickname. As these things go, I was already regretting the waste of life and time that this subject was inflicting on me and decided not to go down that road and resolved to check out only one more search result on the logo name before moving on. I was hoping the second one would confirm the first and give me some confidence that I had found an accurate answer to this burning question. It was not to be. (Channeling Richard Dawson from his Family Feud hosting days)Next one said!…

With the transition to the new logo I have seen a lot of articles referring to the Lion mascot as "Bubbles."  That is not his his real name, the "Bubbles" moniker was started by longtime radio Personality Arthur J. Regner the third.  In the late 90's Art and I were hosting "The Sunday Afternoon Sit-In" and Art was on one of his classic tirades and he started in on how stupid the Lion logo was and he screamed "he looks like he is batting at bubbles."  From that point on Art, myself and most of the WDFN air staff began referring to the Lion mascot as "Bubbles."  Among Art's many entertaining contributions to the Detroit sports scene is naming the Lion logo "Bubbles."  Someday, when accounts of how the Lion mascot was named Art will get his due.
The futility of commenting on the NFL black hole that is Detroit is givin’ me a tumor. So on to Jacksonville. In this picture the player seems to be giving a thumbs down and I tend to agree.

The Falcons and the Cards Vikes  got  new different boldly-go-where-no uniform-has gone before pants stripe designs right. This? Not so much

Left, Jags new. Right Jags old. Left almost looks like an Eagles jersey or a Dolphins top. I support the movement towards simplifying but they went too far. Paul Lukas over at Uniwatchblog goes on about how they shouldn’t have taken the gold out of the design and I have to agree.  The gold is what makes the Jags uni distinguishable… easily identifiable… a uni that even if you don’t like it, stands out in a crowd. When  I look at the re-design he words generic,  mediocre, and average come to mind. Not the word that should apply. On the plus side I like the more basic font. It’s just more of a football font than the old one with the pointy accents.
The Helmet has the Puerto Rican hot rod paint job that has sparkles and changes color a bit when viewed at different angles. The sparkles trend has got to stop. The only time a real man should have any interaction with sparkles is when your kid makes an arts and crafts fathers day card or the sparkles that rub off from close contact with strippers. They do not belong on the gridiron.

So the Lions, the Jags and the Niners have put their cards on the table and the changes are a bit underwhelming. They’ve been referred to as “New Uniforms”… I look at them and see something closer to tweaks or modifications than new uniforms.
For anyone looking for deeper analysis that goes into excruciating detail and has way more pictures check out www.uniwatchblog.com  or go to the team websites. Nothing about these changes really blows my skirt up.

Ken