Fansided

Evaluating ESPN’s NFL uniform rankings

By Stanford Crissey

Jan 25, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; General view of mannequins with the uniform and helmets of NFL teams at the Super Bowl shop at the NFL Experience at Phoenix Convention Center in advance of Super Bowl XLIX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 25, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; General view of mannequins with the uniform and helmets of NFL teams at the Super Bowl shop at the NFL Experience at Phoenix Convention Center in advance of Super Bowl XLIX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports /
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Looking at ESPN’s ranking of NFL uniforms

There’s not a lot of NFL material to write about between May and August. Even 24 hours a day of DeflateGate coverage can’t tide fans over until the preseason starts.

Thankfully ESPN has a solution: ranking of the NFL’s uniforms. ESPN’s Paul Lukas, the website’s “uniform expert,” graded out the National Football League’s threads from No. 1 to No. 32, all while admitting his own biases along the way. His post is all in good fun, and so is ours.

Lukas’ full rankings can be found here, but his top five are the Steelers, Raiders, Packers, Bears, and Chargers (in that order). The bottom five are the Falcons, Buccaneers, Cardinals, Bengals, and Jaguars (Jags being the worst.)

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Fans of the top teams should be pleased, while fans of the bottom teams may be wondering “what the hell?” (Though not Jaguars fans; come on, that helmet looks like someone forgot to finish spray painting it).

Now, uniforms are important. After all, as Jerry Seinfeld reminded us, when it comes down to it we’re really just rooting for clothes.

That being said, let’s make some corrections to the Worldwide Leader’s list. I realize that ESPN did not ask for my opinion, which is really their loss. So, without further ado, here you go, fair readers:

Ranked too high:

San Diego Chargers (5) – Sure, the lightning bolt is cool. But how can they be rated this highly when their throwback powder blue look is exactly 12,000 percent better?*

*A rough estimation. No math was used to arrive at this number.

Kansas City Chiefs (10) – This color red has never looked good anywhere, in any situation. Easily the most boring NFL uniforms.

Cleveland Browns (20) – They should be punished even more for taking a top-five uniform and ruining it. Although ruining things is the Browns’ strong suit, after all, so we shouldn’t be too surprised. It’s like someone was sitting in the Browns’ front office and thought, “what if we had the Seahawks uniforms, but orange?” That nobody said “no” to this person is a true shame.

Ranked too low:

St. Louis Rams (19) – First of all, those helmets are probably the league’s best. That alone has to get the Rams onto the top half of the list. And even though they should definitely revert to the classic yellow-and-blue look, these uniforms are solid.

Carolina Panthers (27) – Come on, who doesn’t love powder blue? Lukas’ main criticism is that the Panthers uniform set hasn’t changed in the 20-plus years since their inception; but he uses the same logic to laud the the Raiders and Packers (both top-5 unis, by his estimation).

Faultiest reasoning:

Chicago Bears (4) – Really? The Bears’ logo is “starting to feel a bit dated?” The logo is a hundred years old; if it was ever dated, that ship sailed sometime around 1950. Also, the same logic is applied when discussing about what makes the Cowboys’ and Steelers’ unis so great – the tradition behind them. You can’t use the same argument in both directions.

CANNOT BE RATED LOW ENOUGH:

Jacksonville Jaguars (32) – Who designed this helmet??? A half-finished paint job enthusiast? Someone who likes gold, but not too much gold? Are they saving the rest for when they win the Super Bowl? If so, they could be waiting a while.

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