NFL - New Uniforms 2013

 

Three National Football League teams over the past month have unveiled new logos, or changes to their old one, and all three have had extravagant events this past week to show the world the new uniforms that the players will don to match those logos. I do not think that each of them were a success. I do not think that all of them are a complete failure. I do, however, think that they can easily be ranked against each other with a clear cut number one.

Here are my rankings of the three new uniforms and logos.

#3 – Jacksonville Jaguars

Let us first take a look at the new logo for the team known as the “Jags.” When I first saw new logo I was utterly disgusted, but I must admit seeing it more and more it is starting to slowly grow on me. To be honest, I did not think that there was anything wrong with the one that they had previously been using and therefor I did not think that it needed to be changed. I then began to look at it more and more and I have come to the realization that the old one was not only out of date, but it was really dark and not realistic. The logo itself contained to much black, the spots looked like little finger hotdogs, the ear was a triangle and showed no resemblance of an ear, the eye seemed to be looking at the person viewing the logo instead of looking straight ahead which gives the impression that the wild cat has a lazy eye, and the whiskers that are trying to be portrayed seemed to look more like the ferocious beast took a scratch to the face in a fight then whiskers.

As I mentioned before, the new logo at first did not impress me as I thought it looked to feminine to be a professional football team logo. Then it grew on me for the simple fact that it now looks more realistic for all the reasons that the old logo did not. The ear looks like an ear, the patches on the fur now look like patches, the whiskers look like whiskers, and so on. I also like the way that the team changed the way the tongue looked as is now has a more natural flow. I did not see anything wrong with the old tongue shape, I just believe the new one was a good choice. I do still find it weird that the tongue is that teal color, now joined by half of the nose and the eye, but it is a style design that I understand and ultimately I think that it gives the logo more of a pop.

The jerseys are not all that hateful. They unveiled three new tops, a black, white, and teal, along with two new pants, a black and a white. The sleeves for each of the jerseys are a different color than the main color of the jersey and each of the jerseys have these scratch like stripes on their shoulders that look to be the same color of the jersey just a different type of fabric. The font decision is consistent with the new script they use on logo featuring their name, however the outlining colors are not consistent and bother me. I have the same issue with the strips on the pants. They try to use as many colors as they can for the numbers and the striping on the pants and I don’t think in the end it works in the overall uniform scheme (I think they work each individually, but not together).

The downfall to these new dreads for the Jaguars, and the reason they are ranked last (out of the new uniform designs) is there new dreadful looking helmets. I mean if you think that these helmets you are one of the four; colorblind, a naive Jaguar fan trying to convince yourself that they look good, an overwhelming college football fan, or simply a fool. To me they would be ranked last out of all NFL teams helmets they are that bad. The helmets have the Jaguar head logo place in the middle, like most teams do, then have the color “fade” from black to gold. I use quotation marks on the word fade because there is very little resemblance of any fading; to me it looks more like one color stops and the other color begins. I think that the idea is okay, not great, but the execution was horrendous. If the “fade” would have been more prominent I think it would have looked a tad better, but two colors like that on a NFL helmet should not happen. The designer at NIKE said that the color change was due to the fact that Jaguars hunt from the shadows, however the logo appears be hunting from the sun into the shadows so therefore his explanation makes no sense. The owner of the team called the idea “revolutionary,” I call it a joke.

The one thing that I absolutely love about the new uniforms is the military inspired patches that are placed on the left peck with the Jaguar facing towards the heart, as they do in the military.
Overall the new logo is a vast improvement, the jerseys aren’t that bad, and the helmets are terrible.

#2 – Miami Dolphins
              

When I first saw the Dolphins’ new logo I immediately disliked it and, unlike the Jaguars logo, I still think that it is pretty ridiculous. Okay, so yes I know the dolphin featured in the logo has more of a realistic flow to it and the older logo depicted a dolphin wearing a football helmet, which isn’t possible, but the older logo represented the franchise better in my opinion.  Another thing that the old logo has over the new one is the way the dolphin is shaped. In the now old logo the dolphin appears to be leaping out of the water, which makes the part about the sun being behind the dolphin. The new logo the dolphin appears to be swimming, which makes the sun in the background confusing. The only way the sun can be in the background of a picture with a dolphin swimming, as is the case, the sun would need to be underwater, or the dolphin would have to be the first of its kind to be able to fly, almost like the whales in the movie Anastasia. I personally did not think anything wrong with the old dolphins’ logo, however if they wanted something new they should have done something such as this photo I found on the internet. I think it would have been a better choice.

Design I thought would have been a better choice.

 Now let us move on to the jerseys themselves. The jerseys, like the Jaguars, are not hateful and they will be something that fans will easily buy and wear. This being said, I think that there is too much teal in the uniforms and not enough orange. The Dolphins have always enough orange in the uniform to counter-balance the teal they decided to wear. These jerseys do not have that orange and I personally think that the teal is over bearing. The numbers seem to have random points in which one area of each of the number seems to curve which gives a bubble letter effect and makes the style goofy looking because other areas of the numbers have straight edges (look at the top left and then the top right of the numbers 2, 3, and 9 to see my point). They did a good job in keeping the outlining colors consistent with both the white and the teal jersey numbers outlined by what it seems to be orange and a darker teal color. The color of the numbers will be teal on the white jerseys and white on the teal jerseys, again keeping it simple so that the outlining numbers can match on both.

The Dolphins will only showcase two new pants, like the jerseys, a white one and a teal one. The design scheme from the numbers can also be seen here on the pants. The pants will have stripes down the side of each leg that will showcase a larger (2 inch or so) stripe that, like the numbers, will be white or teal depending on the pants color. Two much smaller stripes will be on the each side of that stripe and will be the same darker teal and the orange that also outline the numbers.  I do not think they are bad and I like the idea of a solid theme, however the teal still over powers the orange to the point that the orange almost seems unnoticeable.

The helmets for the Dolphins will be the traditional white and will show the new dolphin-sun logo on both of the side. One of the changes is that the facemask will be white. It is not a bad look, but I would have liked to seen the Dolphins make the facemask orange, again to even out the colors (For those who were wondering the old Dolphins helmet featured a teal facemask). The Dolphins, continuing to do a great job keeping everything similar, made the stripe down the center helmet the same stripe that is seen on the white pants. Overall not a bad helmet like the Jaguars, but nothing special about them either. They are middle of the road.

Overall the Dolphins changed a logo that did not need to be fixed and focus on the color teal too heavily; they are just one step above the Jaguars new look (and that is only because of the Jags helmet).

# 1 – Minnesota Vikings

By far the Minnesota Vikings unveiled the best new look to the world, I mean it was not even close. If it were a race it would be Usian Bolt versus Fat Albert in the 100m. The Vikings kept the traditional Norseman logo, they just made a few tweaks to make it bolder and stand out better. The horns are cleaner without the scratchy black marks in them, the braid in the hair is shorter and thicker, and the lines throughout the hair and face are now thicker giving a more detailed look. These are all slight changes, but overall it gives the team a newer, cleaner look.




The old Vikings jerseys had always been too busy for my personal liking, not any more. The team decided to go simpler, my goodness did they pull it off. The have two different jerseys, a purple and a white and in both they allow the newer, darker shade of purple to do the talking (They also now have more of a gold, not yellow). The numbers are not bad, but they could be improved. I like how they look at first, but then a small part of them bother me. There are points on certain numbers that tail out and look good when matched by with a number with rounded ends, however the look doesn’t flow when met with a number with a corner (Look at the 28 to see what I mean by looking good and then look at the bottom of the 52  and top of 65 to see what I mean by not flowing). The colors of the numbers are extremely simple with no outlining colors, which make for a clean, sharp look. The sleeves have to stripes on them. The bottom one which is gold stays the same width, however the top one (white on the purple jersey and purple on the white jersey) starts as the same width as the gold then slowly increases as it moves towards the back of the jersey. I read that it was supposed to give the look of a Vikings ship. I think that it would have been better to keep both stripes the same width all the way through, but the way they did it is still pretty clean.

 The pants are pretty nice as well and again they are only in purple and white. Each pants have a total of three stripes on them that combine to make one large stripe. Starting from the back of the pants the strips have a wide white stripe, a thinner purple stripe, and the same thin gold stripe. The white pants, again starting from the back, have thicker purple stripe followed by thinner gold and purple stripes. Both pants have the same stripe width and style, but the colors do not coordinate completely the same (the white pants have two colors, purple pants use three) and the theme is lost a little.

 

The helmet upgrade is truly remarkable and is a good mix between traditional design and a new look. Like the jersey the helmets are a darker colored purple. The horn on the helmet remains, but the helmet does not have a gloss look on it anymore as the helmet now has a matte finish, which makes the look "more manly" according to DE Jared Allen. The facemask has also been changed from purple to black and allows the helmet to have an extra kick.

 

Overall the Vikings did a tremendous jobs combining a traditional look with new ideas. I absolutely love these new Vikings dreads.

 

Well those are the new looks that will be on the backs of several NFL teams this fall. If your team has not announced any changes do not expect anything new from them as it is a very complicated process of changing uniforms in the National Football League. Also, the NFL has a five year rule that states that teams cannot change their logo or uniforms if they had previously done so within the last five years.

 

Hope you were satisfied with your team's draft, I know I am. 

 

-JM

 

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Redskins 2013 Schedule

The 2013 NFL schedule has been released to the general public. It often surprises me how many people are uneducated about how the NFL schedule is developed. All but two games are planned years in advance. The AFC divisions and the NFC divisions play each other every four years. This portion of the schedule counts for four of the sixteen games.  AFC divisions will play each other every three years, and the same with NFC divisions. This, again, will count as four games. Six more games will come when each team will play the other three teams in their division twice (once home, once away).  If your keeping track the total of games is now at fourteen. So where do the other two games from? Those games are decided on your previous year’s divisional standing. If you finished second in your division you will play the two NFC teams that finished 2^nd in their division that you were not already scheduled for.

 Because this is a Redskins post I will use them as an example to show what I mean. Last Year  (2012) the Redskins played the AFC North (Ravens, Browns, Steelers, and Bengals).  This year (2013) they will play the AFC West (Chargers, Raiders, Chiefs, and Broncos).  2014 they will play the AFC South (Jags, Colts, Texans, and Titan), and in 2015 they will play the AFC East (Patriots, Dolphins, Bills, and Jets). After that the rotation will begin again in 2016 with the AFC North.

The same goes for the Redskins playing the other NFC divisions. Last year (2012) they played the NFC South (Panthers, Saints, Bucs, and Falcons).  This year (2013) they will play the NFC North (Packers, Bears, Vikings, and Lions) and then in 2014 they will play the NFC West (49ers, Seahawks, Rams, and Cardinals). The rotation then begins again with the NFC South in 2015.

Since the Redskins won their division and already plan to play the NFC  North this year, their remaining two games will consist of the division winners of the NFC West, the 49ers, and the NFC south, the Falcons.

Okay now that I have explained how the schedule is constructed, let me show you the 2013 Washington Redskins schedule.

REGULAR SEASON

Sep 9 7:10PMEST  Eagles ESPN  

Sep 15 1:00PMEST @  Packers   FOX

Sep 22 1:00PMEST   Lions  FOX

Sep 29 4:25PMEST @ AT  Raiders   FOX

BYE

Oct 13 8:30PMEST  @  Cowboys   NBC

Oct 20 1:00PMEST  Bears   FOX

Oct 27 4:25PMEST  @ Broncos   FOX

Nov 3 1:00PMEST   Chargers   CBS

Nov 7 8:25PMEST  @  Vikings   NFL

Nov 17 1:00PMEST @  Eagles   FOX

Nov 25 8:40PMEST   49ers   ESPN              

Dec 1 8:30PMEST   Giants   NBC

Dec 8 1:00PMEST   Chiefs   CBS

Dec 15 1:00PMEST  @  Falcons   FOX

Dec 22 1:00PMEST Cowboys  FOX

Dec 29 1:00PMEST  @  Giants  FOX

Things I find Interesting about the schedule.

-The Skins are currently scheduled to play five nationally televised games this year.  I find it interesting to look at who the Redskins play in those games. Three out of the five games are the teams in the Redskins division; the Cowboys, the Giants, and the Eagles. By scheduling three out of the six Redskins divisional games to be on the big stage the NFL is implying two things.  One thing it is saying that they intend the Redskins to be a good show and put up points. Two, the NFL suspects that the NFC East will be a tight contest throughout the season and should be showcased for all to see.  Also by scheduling the Redskins to play the Eagles on the first Monday night of the season they are expecting, and were convinced, Robert Griffin III will be able to start the season for the Redskins, if not they would not have scheduled this game to be on Monday night. The NFL also scheduled the two most well-known option QB’s, Kaepernick and Griffin, for a prime time game expecting it to be a high scoring and very entertaining.  

- The bye week is going to be a challenge for the Redskins. I know for myself, as a player, that was one of the first things I looked for when I recieved my schedule in college. I always wanted it as close to the center of the season as possible. I know in the moment players want the bye week early, however after that bye week passes you realize it is going to be a long time until you get a significant break again in your season. The Redskins will only play four games before their bye in week five and then will play twelve games. I do not know about you, but I have played nine games in a row before and the toll it takes is extraordinary. So an early bye will be a very difficult hurdle for the Redskins to jump in order to repeat as NFC East division champions.

-Like last year,  the NFL has back ended the Redskins schedule with division games. In the first eight games of the season, the Redskins only play two division games (vs Eagles - 9/9 and Cowboys - 10/13)  and both of them are in prime time. The last eight games of the season the Skins will play four divisional games with three of them in the last five weeks. That is a tough way to end the season if you ask me. 

-The Redskins only play two away games back-to-back in consecutive weeks. They do play back-to-back away games in week four and six but the bye week in week five separate those games.

-Long away games to Dallas, Denver, and Oakland all happen early in the season. After the Redskins play the Broncos in week eight they will not have to travel out of the eastern time zone to play a football game. Which is an underestimated advantage late in the season; at least I believe it is.

I am not going to make and predictions on the season just yet as we are still very long away from the beginning of the season. 

HAIL TO THE REDSKINS!

Is it September yet? 

-JM

3-on-3 Basketball, BMX Freestyle Next Olympic Sport?

HOLD THE PHONES! The International Olympic Committee has to be kidding me right?! It was just in February that they announce they were dropping Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling a sport that has been around since the Olympics began thousands of years ago. Although wrestling will compete in one more Olympics, the 2016 games in Rio de Janerio, it will be gone by the 2020 games, where the host city has yet to be determined. 

Past Olympic wrestling champions have spoken publicly about the move by the IOC. Khasan Baroev of Russia, 120 kg (264.5 pounds) gold medalist at the 2004 Summer Olympics called the move “mind boggling” and American Rulon Gardner, winner of an Olympic gold medal at the Sydney Games, told The Associated Press, "it's the IOC trying to change the Olympics to make it more mainstream and more viewer-friendly instead of sticking to what they founded the Olympics on.”

 

Well Rulon, you are absolutely correct. Yesterday it has been announced that the IOC is mulling the idea of adding