October 24, 2016 at 12:30 p.m.
Shoutouts & Callouts
Somebody hush the 'Color Rush!'
Shoutouts & Callouts
I'm, of course, talking about the jarring all-white look the Packers sported last Thursday in their 26-10 win over the Chicago Bears. It's part of the NFL's Color Rush promotion for Thursday night football games. The program started last season and the results, to my eyes, have been less than spectacular.
It's odd enough to see the Packers in their road white tops at home, but to ditch the traditional gold pants for solid white? No thanks. Apparently nobody in the NFL office got the memo that it's well after Labor Day and the all-white look needs to be shelved for the winter.
As much as I didn't like the look, the Packers skated through the color mush, as I like to call it, relatively easy and the Bears were practically unscathed, sporting an all midnight blue look they've used in the past.
Just do a quick Google search for "NFL Color Rush" to see how bad it can be. The Rams left their fans in St. Louis with an eyesore of a farewell last year, with an all-yellow look that was only made worse clashing against Tampa Bay's all red-orange attire. Washington gets the same all-yellow treatment as the Rams. Denver and Miami's uniforms come straight from an Orange Crush machine. Minnesota and Baltimore received all purple outfits with yellow numbers.
The program debuted with the N.Y. Jets in all green playing the Buffalo Bills in all red. It looked more like a bad Christmas light display than a football game.
The worst look of all: Seattle with an all neon-green look with blue numerals.
Thinking about it, an all-white look for the Packers might not have been the worst thing in the world. On it's own the yellow alternates sold in some shops with green numerals don't look all that bad, but throw in the classic yellow pants with a yellow helmet and yellow socks and the Packers would have looked more like a bunch of bananas than a bunch of football players. All green? While from the waist up it would have looked traditional enough, that look too would have been ruined by green pants.
So what's the solution? Why don't we just leave well enough alone. Again, the Packers wore their road tops for this game, so it's not like the Packers are trying to drum up more jersey sales like they are with their throwback alternates.
This isn't college football. We don't need to use every color from a box of highlighters or jerseys that look like the actual mascot (I'm looking at you, Oregon). Sure there are some teams, mainly the newer teams within the NFL that have gone way out in left field with their looks to appeal to a younger fan base, but when you've got a tried and true good thing, what's the point in mucking it up?
It goes back to the old mantra: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The Packers, in my option, are one of the several "hallmark" teams in the NFL whose classic look should not be touched. The same could be said for the Bears, Cowboys, Redskins, Chiefs, Colts and Raiders. Both New York teams, after straying away from their original looks in the 1980s and 90s, are also on this list. I'd throw the Steelers on this list, too, if they'd ever go back to the standard block numerals and get rid of their "bumblebee" throwbacks. The teams listed above have clean, simple, iconic looks that resonate with fans of all ages.
The look the NFL has tried to push on us for Thursday night games might resonate with some millennials and that's it.
The good news is we are only a couple of years away from 2019, when the NFL will celebrate its centennial season. Back in 1994, when the NFL celebrated its 75th anniversary, every team trotted out throwback uniforms and most all of them looked really cool. San Francisco loved their throwback look so much that they rode it all the way to a Super Bowl XXIX victory. Another revival of the throwbacks would be much easier on the eye than what the NFL has subjected fans to with the Color Rush campaign.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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