Stylish in the NFL

Our own intrepid leader, Joey Wendt, attended the 2014 NFL Owners’ meetings in Orlando this week, where all of the NFL’s coaches, managers, GMs and owners were putting their heads together to discuss the future of the League.  We’ve dressed a lot of NFL players and personnel in our time, and Joey is always out there making sure that the NFL’s finest are looking their best!

In honor of the occasion, let’s take a look back at some of the NFL’s most stylishly sartorial men from over the League’s long history.  Let’s be honest, being stylish and in the NFL is a relatively recent development (which we’d like to think we had something to do with! :D), so most of these guys are of a recent vintage.

CAM NEWTON

VICTOR CRUZ

DAN MARINO

TOM BRADY

REGGIE BUSH

 

HANK STRAM

JOE NAMATH

ADRIAN PETERSON

TIKI BARBER

BRAYLON EDWARDS

TOM LANDRY

JIM BROWN

Unused NFL Logos

It’s the height of the football season, so let’s take another quick trip into the world of the NFL.  The last couple of times we were here we took a look at some of the more questionable design choices of the current NFL…

No comment.

What about logos, though?  Those contribute just as much to the overall “feel” of a team’s image as the uniform designs themselves do.  The NFL is very good at logo continuity and integrity, especially compared to some other leagues.

We’re looking at you, NHL.

But what about the logos that we almost got?  The lost logos of the NFL, if you will?  …Well, let’s just say there was a reason they were lost.

Seattle Seahawks

Seattle’s less-than-threatening mascot, a sea hawk, better known as an osprey, never lent itself well to logo design with its small head and ruffled feathers.

Less “scary football player,” more “eccentric college professor.”

The Seahawks did their best with this slightly sleepy looking osprey head for many years, mostly relying on the strength of their great color scheme to get by.

In 2002, the team decided to do a makeover to bring the logo more in-line with modern team logos.  They came up with this:

An improvement to be sure, with the osprey looking genuinely ready to kick butt.  Ultimately, they rejected it, opting instead to go with this…

Otherwise known as the exact same logo with a different helmet color.  Well, not all of these are going to be that drastic, right?  After all, NFL teams aren’t crazy.  They wouldn’t go completely off the deep end, right?

Indianapolis Colts

…Okay, maybe they would.  For many, many years, this has been the logo of the Colts, both in Baltimore and in Indianapolis.

For the 2001 Season, the team wanted something new, something exciting, something that just screamed “Indiana” and “Indianapolis” and “not hideous.”  How could they go wrong, with one of the simplest, cleanest logos and color combos?  They couldn’t possibly muck this one–

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!  KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!!

What the heck are we even looking at here??  The blue has gone purplish, the font design is lifted from a cereal box, and the horse head is some sort of terrifying, abstract Picasso-esque monstrosity!  What were they thinking?  Thankfully for everyone, the Colts didn’t go with this, instead choosing the following update:

A new, slightly darker blue.  Don’t mess with success, people.

New England Patriots

The Pats used to have a rather busy logo for their first few decades…

They didn’t replace it until 1996, but in 1978, someone in New England got the idea to toy with the logo.  After several different versions, here’s what the team almost went with.

Not bad, and definite shades of what they chose later…

But it looks more like a logo for a special branch of the US Postal Service than a football team.  Pass.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Oh, poor Jacksonville, here you are again.  Before deciding on the Jaguar head for the logo in their inaugural 1995 Season, the Jags had an entire logo and uniform set all ready to go from 1993 to late 1994 featuring a very different Jaguar…

A bit minimalist, and darker, without the aqua in the later logo.  We rather like this one, actually, and considering the extreme “’90s-ness” of the one they eventually went with…

And then updated this year…

We kind of would have liked to have seen how that other, more dignified logo would have fared over the years.

Miami Dolphins

The Miami Dolphins started out with another AFL-staple clearly hand-drawn logo design, which they kept through the 1996 Season.

For 1997, the team finally wanted something new.  This…  This is what they came up with.

?????

Uh…  Well, if we’re talking airline livery…  Circa 1981…  Sure, good design.  But for an NFL team?  It looks like they swiped it from the dolphin enclosure at SeaWorld.  The logo was outdated the moment it was designed, and accentuates the orange and aqua of the Dolphins logo over the much more prominent and well-known lily-white.  The team scrapped it, opting instead to update its existing logo, making the titular dolphin more three-dimensional, well-defined…

..And crankier, apparently.

This year, the team went back to the abstract, with a logo that…  Looks more like the scrapped 1997 logo, actually.

Fly Dan Marino Airways!

Buffalo Bills

The Bills logo has been the same since 1974.  This familiar, sleek, and very functional design, that was actually rather ahead of its time in terms of logo design, looking for all the world like a logo from the late ’80s or early ’90s.

In 2002, the team tried to finally swap it out with a new logo, one that was less abstract, and referenced the “B” in “Buffalo Bills.”

Is it just us, or does this look like the logo of an investment firm?

It’s probably for the best that they stuck with the old logo…

San Francisco 49ers

You may know this logo well, it or some slight variation on it has been the 49ers logo for basically forever.

Did you know that in 1991, the team changed it, even going so far as to make entirely new helmets, and introducing the new logo and helmets at a press conference before the 1991 Season?  Why haven’t you ever heard of this?

This is why.

Yeah, the Bay Area basically went insane, demanding it be changed back.  The response was so overwhelmingly negative, the team did so just days later.

Cleveland Browns

Oh, my, where to start?  The Browns have never had a true logo, per se, always just being represented by their helmet, in one way…

Or another…

Or another…

Oh, come on, really?

The Browns have always had secondary logos, though, that served as something, anything, to put on products and flags for the fans, like…  Uh, “Brownie the Elf”?  What the heck?

Pictured: your childhood nightmares.

And then a “B” in a football…

And then a…  Dog face?  Because of the “Dawg Pound,” whose name has nothing to do with the team name or colors or city, but is actually because of a really obscure story involving Hanford Dixon, a Browns cornerback in the 1980s?

Well, he’s angry, at least.

Well.  Whatever they actually flirted with as an official logo in 1965 can’t be any worse than those, right?

Presenting your local high school football team.

Yeesh.  Go with the dog, guys.  He’s much better.

Color Commentary on the Color Commentators

In case it isn’t obvious from our blog and our Facebook page, we’re kind of big on football here at Joseph’s.  And this is the time of year when we’re most excited about it: just as the preseason starts!  Preseason means football on television again for the first time in months!  It also means that in just a few weeks, those wonderful, cozy Sundays spent in front of the TV with friends and family watching America’s favorite game will be here again.  What does any of this have to do with us, custom suit designers?  Well, for one thing, a lot of our customers are NFL players and people associated with the League.  Which is a big reason football season is so exciting for us, especially based, as we are, in the hometown of the defending Super Bowl Champions!  But another fantastic pastime is returning along with the football season: the pre-game shows and their commentators, who are always, ALWAYS decked out in top-of-the-line suits and accessories.

If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times: just because a suit cost a lot or was made by a great company doesn’t automatically mean it looks good or that you’re wearing it right!  With that in mind, let’s take a look at the “big three” NFL pre-game broadcasts and their lineup of sartorially-minded sportscasters.
CBS – The NFL Today

CBS’ broadcast has the feel of being the most old-fashioned of the three.  While FOX, being FOX, is somewhat flashier, and NBC is full-on epic, complete with a John Williams-penned opening theme, CBS still feels like the broadcasts from the halcyon days of the Steelers and 49ers in the ’70s and ’80s (somewhere out there, a Baby Boomer Packers fan is rolling their eyes).  And their lineup of hosts is no exception.  Featuring the always stalwart Boomer Esiason, Dan Marino and James Brown, the group is perked up by “The Chin” himself, Bill Cowher, and the always energetic and hilarious Shannon Sharpe.  This is reflected in the way they dress:

Left to right: Sharpe, Marino, Brown, Cowher, Esiason.

Nice, all of them, but a little “run-of-the-mill broadcaster” in some cases.  Esiason and Brown could pass for Senators.  Marino spices it up a little with unusual ties.  This works sometimes, like in this picture, where the seemingly mismatched colors work with the pale blue undershirt.  Other times, not so much.

But check out Coach Cowher, who seems to have embraced the power of the pinstripe wholeheartedly. For a guy best known for this…

AAAAHHHH!!

He certainly cleans up well:

It’s very easy to overuse pinstripes and end up looking like a ’20s gangster. Cowher never does this, and always wears pale, subtle pinstripes, that accentuate his fit form, and make him look quite dashing.

But the winner on CBS?

He wears pink ties and pocket squares without a care in the world.

Shannon Sharpe take elements that would look garish and over-the-top on many people, and makes them WORK.  Mostly because he carries himself with a comfortable, happy, easy confidence.  If he felt awkward, he’d look awkward.  As is, he just looks classically flashy and suave.  And pocket squares can make an outfit all on their own, but only if they’re used right.  Sharpe uses them right, picking the right suits to add them to, and the right colors of squares to add.  Just look at this guy!

He KNOWS he looks good.

We cannot stress this enough, all the money and tailoring in the world doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have the confidence and swagger to make it a part of you, like a second skin.  Sharpe does this in spades.

FOX – The NFL on Fox

FOX, flashy as it is with its orchestral hard rock theme and big, yellow graphics, would seem to be the perfect place for a bevy of Shannon Sharpes.  Instead, they have a group of more old-school names…

Left to right: Menefee, Bradshaw, Long, Strahan, Glazer, Johnson.

But they dress a lot flashier than their opposite numbers at CBS.  Colorful ties abound, as does a spectrum of suit colors, through blacks, blues, greys and even a touch of violet.  Some with pinstripes, some without, some with pocket squares, some without…  The experimentation looks great on the very, very tall Howie Long, who towers over everyone but Michael Strahan.  A three-piece black suit with a pale violet pocket square and tie?  Up-scale flashiness.  Nice.  But the crew cut isn’t doing him any favors.  Strahan has the same kind of comfortableness with color and style experimenting.  They both work, really, so it’s a tie here.

All bow before The Gap.

Gotta love the hatched lines in the fabric.

NBC – Football Night in America

Ah, NBC.  Poor NBC.  It’s getting torn a new one for its Olympic coverage right now, and the golden days of Must See TV are long gone.  But say what you will about the occasionally awkward Faith Hill intro sequence, NBC Sunday Night Football is probably the slickest sports production on TV right now, and the pre-game show is no exception.  Headlined by Bob Costas, the analyst team is an unusual mix of sportscasters, former players and coaches of extremely varied ages and styles.

C’mon, he’s been the voice of the Olympics for 20 years, Costas deserves his own picture!

Left to Right: Patrick, Dungy, Harrison.

Really, all of them do it well.  Costas, despite his small frame, always wears great color combos and well-tailored suits for his build.  Rodney Harrison has a lot of fun with his suits, bounding between traditional and blindingly unusual from week-to-week, and Tony Dungy and Dan Patrick are always sartorially solid, dressed perfectly every week.  So who wins this round?  The guy who isn’t there yet.

This guy.

Hines Ward will be joining Football Night in America this season, and a quick look at some of the more fantastic suits he’s worn over the years tells us he’ll be bringing a Sharpe-like fun and confident tone to the show.

Just leave the dance moves at home, Hines.