Empty Bookshelf Reviews

So, it turns out that White is not really in either team’s official color scheme…

Another week, another win.  When will the Pro Bowl of unlikely prediction systems be held?

Simply, the Vikings have one of the least loved uniforms in all of sports.  The reason is they’ve got two big things working against them.  1) The color scheme.  Purple just doesn’t scream “sports!” to most people [especially this guy], and 2) The hideous, high school-looking uniform template.

Case in point, if you’re someone who can get past the Purple and Yellow, their current throwbacks are quite nice, with lots of classic football details (Northwestern stripes on the sleeves [I'm a sucker for the subtle Yellow stroke on the White stripes — details people!], sandwich stripes on the pants, and even if you hate Purple out of Principle [hey, that could be the name for an awful band], it’s not like Purple and Yellow don’t go together.

So when they wear their throwbacks for two games each season, the world breathes a sigh of “good enough” (the socks could use some stripes — I’m just saying), but every other week… wow, that’s bad.  In the interest of providing somewhat useful commentary beyond, “it’s bad, trust me!” I think the designers were going for a shape on the sleeves, torso, and pants which evokes the “Viking horn,” which is already features prominently on the helmet.  Or worse, do the panels evoke the shape of the mustache of the Viking head logo [or maybe the mustache is supposed to look like the helmet horns?  weird]?  If those aren’t it, I can’t really wrap my mind around what is is beyond “random panels strewn about.”  The Viking head logo inexplicably shows up on the hip, and with its White background, all it does is “break” the continous nature of the panels connecting the jersey and pants.  The Yellow Stroke around the various panels doesn’t terminate with the panels themselves.  Why, oh uniform designers, why?  (this is kind of like an inverted take on the Falcons’ equally ridiculous non-terminating pants details.)  It works a little better with the Purple pants, but, they’ve worn them something like three times in the last four seasons (though twice this year), so it’s almost like it doesn’t count.

The Eagles are wearing Midnight Green over White this week, so that puts the Vikings in White jerseys.  Overwhelmingly, the Vikings wear the White jerseys with White pants, but for completeness’ sake, I’ll mention that they wore Purple pants with White jerseys against the Bears in November.  And that was a… special look.  Speaking of special looks, they also paired the Purple jersey with Purple pants against the Cardinals this year in what I’ll call a Purple Out.  I wish I could say, “no one was harmed in the wearing of those uniforms,” but I honestly just don’t know.  I just don’t know!  The Purple pants are exceedingly rare, so it’s safe to assume we’ll see the White over White combination.

Among a variety of ugly combinations, I will mention that Purple over White is the best one, and the high contrast between jersey and pants works to somewhat lessen the jarring nature of those inexplicable/horn(?) panels.

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after, of course)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — Same as always.  Definitely one of the best helmet designs in the league.  I’m a sucker for “functional“ helmet designs.

 Vikings: 7 — I’ve included the above blurb about liking “functional” helmet designs for almost all of this season, so in the interest of putting my money where my mouth is, here’s the full seven points for the Vikings and their equally “functional” helmet.  I don’t love (or even like) the Purple, but it’s much better than when teams simply dump their logo on the sides of a helmet.

Jersey

Eagles: 7 — When fans think of the “post-Cunningham” Eagles, they’re picturing the Midnight Green jerseys.  A unique, bold color, detailed strokes and drop shadows on the numbers, and nice use of logos on the sleeves and collar.

 Vikings: 1 — See the detailed review of the inexplicable panels, above.  They’re getting a single point because I like the Yellow Stroke around the numbers and name.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 6 — The White pants provide nice contrast with the solid green of the jersey, and instead of plain white, the thick Black ad Green stripes (with the pencil thin grey stripe) on the side of the pants gives them a slightly modern touch.  Black over White socks also break up the White from the pants.  Minus one because I’d be interested in seeing Midnight Green socks.

 Vikings: 2 — The panel on the pants isn’t any more explicable than on the jerseys.  Two points because of just how crazy  and unexpected the Viking head logo on hip panel “sub-panel” is.  Also, they’re not the Purple pants, so that’s worth something.

 Intangibles

Eagles: 7 — Without meaning to get ahead of ourselves, this may be the last regular season appearance of this uniform set (more on this during the week), and at the minimum, it will be the last appearance of 2010 (the year, not the football season), so let’s hope they go out with a bang.

 Vikings: 3 — They wore their nice throwbacks last week, so there may some residual effect this week, unfortunately.

Final Score

Eagles 27

Vikings 13

Random related uniform trivia: The Vikings wear different helmets with the throwbacks than with the normal uniforms.  Notice the face mask (grey vs. purple) and the horn detail (the new helmet has shaded relief to give a hint of depth).

Random unrelated uniform trivia: The Bengals brought out their solid Black combination last week.  Many people hate the Bengals uniforms, especially the combinations which don’t involve any White components, but for whatever reason, I have a bit of a soft spot for their uniforms, and at the minimum, the extreme contrast between the solid Black of the Bengals and the solid White of the Browns     was an interesting look.

Those Vikings uniforms are awful.

Luckily, I take credit for a win no matter how close the predicted score is to the actual score, so that Cowboys game was another in the win column, thank you very much.

 So, we’re at the second Giants game of the year.  I got the first one pretty much spot-on, so let’s see what we can do about the second one.

 The Giants are rarely a “White at Home” team, so we’ll see them in Blue over Grey.  I detailed this last time, but for a quick recap, both Giants home and away pants are grey, but the away pants show a red-blue-red set of offset, thin stripes, and the home pants are the same grey, except with wider, connected blue-red-blue stripes.  I’ll call this a nice attention to detail sort of…um, detail, but really, kind of boring, regardless of the execution.  Let’s face it, Grey (not Silver) is not a dynamic color; in sports, it’s most often thought of as the drab base color used for MLB’s away uniforms.  There’s a reason people think of this, not this when they think of the Cardinal.

 The Giants have what is inarguably a classic uniform, but is that enough to beat the Eagles in their second-tier White over Green combination?

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — Same as always.  Definitely one of the best helmet designs in the league.  I’m a sucker for “functional“ helmet designs.

Giants: 6 — OK, sue me.  I like it more this week than I did last time.  The Metallic Blue with a simple Red stripe with the perfectly proportioned logo simply works.  A point is subtracted because this helmet was designed in the 1950s.  The Giants couldn’t come up with a better design more recently?

Jersey

Eagles: 3 — The White jerseys are unfortunately nondescript compared to the Midnight Green.  I’ve said it before, so I’ll say it again, the White jersey just doesn’t say “Eagles” the way that the Green one does.  Sure, it’s grown on me a bit this season, but it’s not the one.

Giants: 3 – Their solid Blue home jersey is unfortunately described as, well, just that.  It’s a solid Blue jersey with White numbers and name.  They’re hiding a small “ny” logo above the front numbers, but that’s it.  It suffers from the same problem as this year’s Eagles throwbacks.  There’s just nothing there other than a sea of Blue.  Classic or not, this is boring.  At least their White jerseys (with their misbegotten Red accents) have Northwestern stripes on the sleeves to have something going on other than numbers on a solid color.

Pants

Eagles: 3 — The green pants are still a dubious decision at best.  The Midnight Green tends to look generically “dark” on the lower half of the body, not an immediately noticeable color.  The two-tone socks also work better with the white pants than the green pants.

Giants: 2 — As mentioned above, Grey is a color suited (pun!) baseball team’s drab, away, set, not a major component of a football uniform.  No no no.  This is all unfortunate because the wide, connected stripe pattern is a nice, visually interesting touch, and of course, the Blue socks contrast nicely with the White sanitaries (sure, most colors contrast with White, but still…)

 Intangibles

Eagles: 6   Green is a Christmas color.  Bring it, Giants fans.

Giants: 1 — Here’s one point for having a classic uniform set and I’d rather them dress like this than like this, so I can respect their respect for history.  BUT, let’s face it, history class can be boring if the topic isn’t interesting, and the Giants uniforms are pre-World War I history of Europe.  Giants fans (and 19^th century European history buffs), bring it on.

Final Score:

Eagles 19 

Giants 12

Random unrelated uniform trivia:

The Cardinals and the Texans wore solid Red last week.  The Texans get my vote.

The Chiefs looked pretty darn good in their (rarely seen, but second time in 3 weeks) Red pants, and Falcons decided on a White-out.

Eh, the Eagles in White, and the Giants in Boring Blue. Nothing to see here this week.

Called it.  9-4.

Maybe it’s not the biggest game of the season in terms of records, but it’s Eagles/Cowboys, so it’s always an event.

 Throughout the previous 13 weeks of UniDictions, I’ve made numerous references to the concept of “White at Home” teams, and now that the Redskins have broken their “rule” and brought out their spectacular, new Maroon over Yellow combination (and even the rare-before-this-season Maroon over White) for games in Maryland, this leaves Dallas as the only full-season “White at Home” team (I’m ignoring their primarily blue throwbacks they wore against the Saints on Thanksgiving, though.).

Because of their strict White at Home rule, it is very uncommon to see the Cowboy’s solid Navy jersey uniform set (details of why I’m calling it a “set” instead of just a jersey are outlined below).  In fact, they won’t even be worn once this year (big news related to this, later).  Usually, this uniform is only seen when they player either (A) other “White at Home” teams [such as the “warm weather” teams in September and October] or (B) home teams looking to capitalize on the supposed bad luck which accompanies the Blue jerseys stemming from a playoff loss in 1968.  The Eagles have been known to play into this jinx as well (’99, ’01, ’06 , ’07 and the NFC Championship game in 1981).

A quick note on the following: I claim none of this following research as my own (though the illustrative graphic is my own).  Check out the much more detailed ESPN.com Uniwatch write-up by Paul Lukas for even more gory details.  Pretty much everything is summed up in this picture of the mediocrity, but the highlights:

• The White and Blue jerseys are different designs (not just “inverted” dark and light colors), including offset stroke around the numbers on the Blue jerseys, logo on the throat on the Blue jerseys, logo on the sleeves on the Blue jerseys.
• The colors don’t match (intra- and inter-uniform).  The solid color jersey is Navy.  Where’s the Navy on the White uniform set?  Instead, the blue on the White uniform set is Royal Blue. The pants are different shades of Silver, neither of which matches the helmet.
• Sleeve stripes on the White jersey are two, wide Royal Blue stripes with Black strokes, sleeve stripes on the Navy jerseys are White-Silver-White sandwich stripes with an incongruous Star logo sitting in the middle of set of stripes.

Click on the picture for the larger version.

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after, of course)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — Same as always.  Definitely one of the best helmet designs in the league.  I’m a sucker for “functional“ helmet designs.

 Cowboys: 6 — It’s iconic and perhaps the most understated detail in a $1.3 billion shrine to American opulence.  One point is removed because the shade of Silver doesn’t match the Silver pants… either of them. (note: for color professionals out there, please spare me the “it’s difficult to match colors on different substrates, especially if metal fleck is a component.”  I know, but they’ve had 40+ years to get it right!”

Jersey

Eagles: 7 — When fans think of the “post-Cunningham” Eagles, they’re picturing the Midnight Green jerseys.  A unique, bold color, detailed strokes and drop shadows on the numbers, and nice use of logos on the sleeves and collar.

 Cowboys: 1 — There are few things Eagles fans hate more than the sight of a Cowboys jersey, especially if it’s White.  Objectively, it’s a 6 (the shoulder stripes break up the plain-ness of it, though the Black strokes on the sleeve stripes don’t match the stroke-less numbers), but subjectively, we’re giving it a 1.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 6 — The White pants provide nice contrast with the solid green of the jersey, and instead of plain white, the thick Black ad Green stripes (with the pencil thin grey stripe) on the side of the pants gives them a slightly modern touch.  Black over White socks also break up the White from the pants 

 Cowboys: 3 — OK, Cowboys.  Get your colors figured out, and we’ll talk.

 Intangibles

Eagles: 6 — Have I gotten used to the Midnight Green over White, and now it’s old-hat and not worth the full 7? 

 Cowboys: 0 — The Cowboys suck.  I may have offered a few points here if they were in their Navy over Silver combination (obscurity=points, people), but they’re not.  Hey Jerry.  How about making your uniforms…you know, uniform?

 Final Score

Eagles 26

Cowboys 11

Random unrelated uniform trivia: The Ravens sported Purple over Black last weekend for the first time since 1996 (and another view of the Purple jerseys over Black pants from ’96).  Not a good look…

Random related uniform trivia: here are some pictures of a rather hideous Cowboys semi-throwback (some call them “fauxbacks”) from the mid-90s (and according to Wikipedia, up to 2003,  the year before the current throwbacks were introduced).  Notice the “normal” helmet and the offset stroke on the numbers (even on the White jersey version).  At the minimum, we can agree that the current throwbacks (with a White helmet) are a better look.

Also, here’s an even more in-depth overview of their uniform history (I’ve sort of taken the premise that the uniform hasn’t much changed since 1964, even though that’s not quite the case).

Classic old school and classic “new school” uniforms are a nice combination.

OK, so maybe last week wasn’t my finest.  I could invoke the “score wraps to zero every 28 points” clause, but that’d just be sad.  My (and the Eagles’) loss makes the system 7-4.

Next up, the Texans.  My process for doing these UniDiction usually involves scouring the Internet for pictures of the various uniform combinations for the “pre-UniDiction” segment, and usually, these searches end up on random team-related forums because that’s really the only place (other than UniWatch Blog, you’ll find people discussing the finer points of infrequently seen uniform combinations, of which the Texans have more than their fair share.  Digging through these forums, I found out something amazing about Texans fans.

They hate the Cowboys.

Awesome.  I think I may have just picked my “AFC team I’ll say I’ll follow, but will likely ignore unless they make it to the Super Bowl against someone other than the Eagles.”

But wait.  There’s more.

The Texans have somewhere between “a whole bunch” and “a bajillion” uniform combinations, but, get this, they announce all of them before the season starts.  (note: the Bengals, another team with a whole lot of possible combinations, do this too, but let’s face it, I already have an AFC team…. which I picked two minutes ago).  People in the Texans’ PR and media departments — thank you.

Onto the uniforms.

The Eagles (who kindly announce their uniforms the Tuesday before the game) are wearing what should be their “official” home uniform, Midnight Green over White, and the Texans, according to their oh-so-handy uniform schedule, are in White over Blue.

The Texans have three special monochrome combinations, and they get special names.  All-red is “Battle Red,” solid Blue is “Deep Steel Blue,” and White over White is “Liberty White.”   Every now and then (twice ever?), they’ll wear Red over White, and their normal home uniform is Blue over White.  If I had to pick one, I think I’d go with the Red over White, but that might only be because it’s rare.  In general, it’s a good looking uniform, though, and the fact that it’s from after 2000, and doesn’t look like a space suit, is a nice touch.

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after, of course)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — Same as always.  Definitely one of the best helmet designs in the league.  I’m a sucker for “functional” helmet designs.

Texans: 6 — Sure, Red, White, and Blue don’t make the most unique combination of colors, but it works (and the Red has a slight amount of blue in it, and they’re using Navy, so it’s not exactly the same as the standard “red, white, and blue.”).  The steer’s head makes a “T” for Texas, and the whole thing evokes the Texas flag.

Jersey

Eagles: 7 — When fans think of the “post-Cunningham” Eagles, they’re picturing theMidnight Green jerseys.  A unique, bold color, detailed strokes and drop shadows on the numbers, and nice use of logos on the sleeves and collar.

Texans: 3 — I’m not a big fan of White jerseys in general, but the Red numbers really pop, and the Blue patches at the shoulder are an interesting, unique alternative to traditional stripes or trim on the sleeves.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 6 — The White pants provide nice contrast with the solid green of the jersey, and instead of plain white, the thick Black ad Green stripes (with the pencil thin grey stripe) on the side of the pants gives them a slightly modern touch.  Black over White socks also break up the White from the pants 

Texans: 6 — I’m a sucker for the fact that they use White as the “meat” and Red as the “bread” of the “sandwich” striping.  Keeping that ridiculous metaphor going, it also helps that there’s a nice helping of meat.  It definitely gives them a modern (but understated) look.  I am not a fan of the Blue socks which cause the pants to visually collide with the socks.

 Intangibles

Eagles: 7 — This is the Eagles’ premiere look, so I expect them to play like that.

 Texans: 7 — Nice uniforms and they hate the Cowboys.  That’s the full 7.

 Final Score

Eagles 26

Texans 19

 Random related uniform trivia: The Texans were originally going to use White helmets.  Read more about it (and other lost helmets).

Maybe my favorite uniform match-up of the season.

Another close one last week; me: Eagles 26 – Giants 14, real-life: Eagles 27 – Giants 17.  That makes the system 7-3.

I don’t have a great feeling about this week’s game.  The Eagles are in White over Green, and they’re playing against another one of the “classic” NFL uniforms this week in the Chicago Bears.

As I’ll detail below, I don’t love the Bears uniform (even though they’re wearing the preferred combination), but it’s certainly a good one.

The Bears are generally a Color at Home team, though there have been a few exceptions.  So, even though they have a new throwback this year, they’re saving it for divisional rivals and not the Eagles.  We’ll see them in Navy over White.  (they have been known to wear solid Navy and solid White, but it’s been a few years since either look has appeared).  They also have an Orange alternate, but it won’t be seen this year because the throwbacks take their two slots in the schedule.

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after, of course)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — Same as always.  Definitely one of the best helmet designs in the league.  I’m a sucker for “functional” helmet designs.

Bears: 3 — In terms of design details, the wishbone “C” logo has just enough going for it to not look like a plain letter cop-out.  But, they really need something to break up the two halves of the helmet.  Maybe a White or Orange stripe (or a combination).  The helmet looks more “old” than “classic.”

Jersey

Eagles: 3 — The White jerseys are unfortunately nondescript compared to the Midnight Green.  I’ve said it before, so I’ll say it again, the White jersey just doesn’t say “Eagles” the way that the Green one does.  Sure, it’s grown on me a bit this season, but it’s not the one.

 Bears: 6 — The fact that the orange sleeve stripes all get White strokes is the type of detail we reward here at the uniform desk at Crossing Broad.  The only thing that doesn’t really work is the shade of Navy used.  It just looks….dead.  Thankfully, the White stroke adds some visual punch to the stripes.  PS: The “GSH” on the sleeves stands for “George S. Halas”, an important figure in the history of the Bears and the NFL itself.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 3 — The green pants are still a dubious decision at best.  The Midnight Green tends to look generically “dark” on the lower half of the body, not an immediately noticeable color.  The two-tone socks also work better with the white pants than the green pants.

Bears: 6 —  Doing pretty much everything right (an Orange and Navy “sandwich” stripe, orange sock stripes with White strokes which match the jersey sleeves), I can only find fault with the fact that the Navy is just too dark to really make the uniform stand-out no matter where it shows up.

 Intangibles

Eagles: 6 — Um….they were wearing White over Green when Michael Vick made it so Madden 98 (for the Genesis) provided a more accurate representation of a “real” NFL game against the Redskins, so that’s got to count for something.

Bears: 2 — My running theme above is, “I like it, but the Navy Blue is too dark,” so being that the Bears’ color are Navy Blue and Orange, this is the only place I can really bring the pain.  Also, the striping is not consistent between the Navy and White version of the pants, jerseys, and socks.  Sure, the Eagles are inconsistent, too, but that’s…. hmm…. it’s different.

Final Score

Eagles 19

Bears 17

Random uniform trivia: The Redskins broke out White jerseys over Yellow Pants for the first time in a long time last week.  It was actually a pretty good look, though it makes jobs like mine especially difficult when trying to predict what they’ll wear.  Thank goodness we’re not playing the Rams this year.  Heck, the Texans will be challenging enough.

One of the better uniform match-ups of the Eagles’ season.

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — This continues to be one of the best helmets in the league.  ”Functional” details are the best.  Let’s face it, simply putting the team’s logo on the side of a helmet is boring.

Giants: 3 — Blue and Red always go together, but really, “NY” alone is boring.  This isn’t unheard of with New York teams, but even the 80s-90s Giants helmet had something going on on it.  Sure, they have a heritage of plain helmets, but old does not equal good. 

Jersey

Eagles: 7 — When fans think of the “post-Cunningham” Eagles, they’re picturing the Midnight Green jerseys.  A unique, bold color, detailed strokes and drop shadows on the numbers, and nice use of logos on the sleeves and collar.

Giants: 2 — A few issues with their White jersey.  And each one of these issues is Red.  The jersey is plain, but it works.  The Northwestern strips on the sleeves add just enough detail to keep them from looking like a White t-shirt with numbers on the front and back.  Sure, Red is one of their official colors, but it simply doesn’t look….correct.  Here’s a picture which has been digitally altered by the Uniwatch people to replace the Red with Blue.  Ahh, that’s better.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 6 — The White pants provide nice contrast with the solid green of the jersey, and instead of plain white, the thick Black ad Green stripes (with the pencil thin grey stripe) on the side of the pants gives them a slightly modern touch.  Black over White socks also break up the White from the pants 

Giants: 6 — Interestingly, both pants the Giants wear are Grey with a combination of Blue and Red stripes.  Their home pants get thick stripes of Blue-Red-Blue which are flush to each other and the away pants get thinner stripes of Red-Blue-Red with the Grey base material peeking through.  Socks are Blue at home and the incongruous Red on the road.  So, we’ll see the thin Red-Blue-Red stripes and Red socks tonight.  Both pants designs are, at worst, harmless, with my preference being the thicker, connected stripes of the home pants.  Those Red socks make me think of the Red details on the White jersey.  They should be Blue.

Intangibles

Eagles: 6 — This is the Eagles second game in their signature uniform combination, and let’s face it, it looks good.

Giants: 3 — The fact that the Giants’ nickname is “Big Blue” means that Red should be a highlight color (think of how Blue is one of colors of the Phillies, and aside from the great-looking alternate hat, it’s always hiding as either the dot on an “i,” on the button on the crown of the standard hat, or as the stroke on the alternate uniforms).

Final Score

Eagles 26

Giants 14

Random, relevant uniform trivia:

The Giants wore a Red alternate jersey from 2004-2008, and they combined it with both the away pants and the home pants.  I actually liked the look, but historical or not, “Big Blue” should not be wearing solid Red.  Here’s a lengthier rant on the state of the Giants (by a Giants fan…).  For the record, the whole “It doesn’t make sense for Big Blue to be wearing red” thing is not something I cribbed from Uniwatch/Paul Lukas, but I’ll point out that his analysis is much more complete than mine.

Sure, the Giants uniform is plain, but it’ll be a pretty good looking game, actually.

Real Score: Eagles 26 – Colts 24.  UniDiction Score: Eagles 26- Colts 23.  Come on, you can admit it.  I’m onto something here.

This week is an interesting one; it’s the first “second game” of the NFC East intra-division match-ups, and the Eagles opted to wear White over Green for their home game, so tonight’s game in Washington D.C. (well, Maryland, to be exact),  is going to almost be a repeat of the Week 4 match-up.

The Redskins don’t post their uniform plans the way the Eagles do, so working backwards from the fact that the Eagles are in White over Green, this puts the Redskins in Maroon jerseys over… probably Yellow pants.  They make break out their White pants (like they did for the first game against the Eagles), but they’re home this time, and it’s a prime time game, so I think it’s safe to assume they’ll be in their “prime time” uniform combination.  (Dear sports jingo enthusiasts….it’s on.)

Of course, they haven’t been 100% consistent with the “Maroon over Yellow at home,” either, as they broke out the Maroon over White for their home game against the Packers, so if there’s an “emergency edit” of this article around 8:25 tonight… I wouldn’t know anything about that.

[the following is much of what I posted for their first game with some tweaks here and there...]

The Redskins have a generally traditional uniform, with their only “outside the box” detail being the Maroon over Maroon combination.  They also have an “all white, all the time” combination which hasn’t shown up this year, as well as a new-as-of-2010 Maroon jersey, Yellow pants look.  (note: the Redskins officially call the color “Burgundy,” but more often than not, it looks Maroon, so that settles it.  AND look at the RGB triples on Wikipedia which show that Burgundy is Maroon with some blue added.  I’m not seeing any blue in their color.  In more color semantics, they call the yellow “Gold,” but it looks like plain yellow to my eyes.)

Prior to this season (with their snazzy new yellow pants), the Redskins had been a “White at Home” team, so like the Cowboys with their Blue jerseys, the Redskins’ Maroon jerseys over White pants had been a rare sight.  Ten weeks into the 2010 football season, and the White jersey never appearing for home games, I think it’s safe to say that the 2010 Redskins are not a “white at home” team.  (of special note for the previous link: that page was just updated last week to include the first half of the 2010 season).

Unidiction below, but I’ll warn you, the Maroon over Yellow is pretty spectacular.

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after, of course)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — Same as always.  Definitely one of the best helmet designs in the league.  I’m a sucker for “functional” helmet designs.

Redskins: 3 — It’s a nice color combination, but regardless of the political correctness of the logo, it’s sloppy that the man pictured is wearing feathers, and the logo itself is “wearing” feathers.  It’s like snacks on snacks, not wholly unnecessary, but overkill.  This helmet seen with throwbacks every now and then is much better, combining symbols with neither  redundancy nor caricature.  And for retro for the sake of retro, these throwbacks use this rather ugly design which also ends up looking “cleaner” than the official helmet.

Jersey

Eagles: 3 — The White jerseys are unfortunately nondescript compared to the Midnight Green.  I’ve said it before, so I’ll say it again, the White jersey just doesn’t say “Eagles” the way that the Green one does.  Sure, it’s grown on me a bit this season, but it’s not the one.

 Redskins: 7 — Now then, speaking of jerseys that are intertwined with the team’s identity.  They have a unique color scheme (quick: name another team who uses maroon as the main color.  Answer: the Cavaliers.), the colors complement each other, and while they lack a graphic to add some flavor to the design (like the Eagles heads on the shoulders of the all of the Eagles jerseys), they still look like a complete NFL jersey.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 3 — The green pants are still a dubious decision at best.  The Midnight Green tends to look generically “dark” on the lower half of the body, not an immediately noticeable color.  The two-tone socks also work better with the white pants than the green pants.

Redskins: 7 —  It takes real (foot)balls to get away with wearing mustard yellow pants  Luckily the maroon matches.  The picky out there (me, included) will notice that the striping pattern on the Yellow pants does not match the striping pattern on the White and Maroon pants.  White and Maroon get simple double-stripes of the non-pant color from the 3 color options, but the Yellow pants get what I’ll call a “sandwich stripe” with White being the meat and Maroon being the bread.  (We take our figurative language very seriously here at Crossing Broad.  The same goes for our sandwiches.)  Speaking of stripe inconsistency, the Maroon socks worn with the Yellow pants include stripes; the Maroon socks worn with both the White and Maroon pants do not include any stripes.  But, inconsistency aside, they look good.

 Intangibles

Eagles: 2 — Sure, as the away team, the Eagles aren’t completely in the driver’s seat in terms of the uniform they have to wear, but really Eagles fans, White over White is a better look if we’re forced to wear the White jerseys.  Points are awarded this week because the banishment of the pink breast cancer “awareness” gear has greatly improved the gridiron aesthetics all month.

Redskins: 6 — What else can I say?  Maroon over Yellow is a great look.  In fact, it’s so good, that I’m going to dock one point for failing to consistently use it as their only home uniform.

Final Score

Eagles 15

Redskins 23

Random uniform trivia: The Vikings wore Purple pants with White jerseys yesterday (which followed them wearing Purple over Purple the week before).  Those games are the first time the rarely seen purple pants have been worn since 2007 (according to Wikipedia… which cites a dead link on the Vikings official page.  Ladies and gentleman, I present to you, Wikipedia!).

Also, speaking of uniforms, Kyle Kendrick had an English Bulldog dressed as a cocktail waiter (or ring bearer?) at his wedding over the weekend.  Awesome.

The Eagles bring it down, but the Redskins take it up.

Ok.  So, 6-2 doesn’t have the same ring as 7-1, but with a system this arbitrary, that’s still pretty good, right?  Right?

Two really big uniform stories this week.  1) The Eagles will actually be wearing their “official” home uniform today for the first time this season. 2) The Colts will be wearing their 1955 throwbacks which are making their first regular season appearance.

And, oh yeah, it’s no longer October, so the ridiculous pink breast cancer “awareness” gear will be gone- the NFL profits off the sale of that gear, yo.

UniDiction after the jump.

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — This continues to be one of the best helmets in the league.

Colts: 7 — The solid Navy Blue is a good, rich color, but I’m divided about moving the horseshoes to the back of the helmet.  They’re difficult to see in practice, BUT I think they’re supposed to be the “this is what you see after the horse/colt runs you over.”  I’ve awarded the Eagles points for their “functional” aspect of the helmet wings, so I’ll give points for the “just ran you over” footprints on the Colts helmets.  We value attention to detail here at Crossing Broad.

Jersey

Eagles: 7 — Finally, half-way through the season, the Eagles will be wearing their “proper” home uniform set.  Midnight Green jerseys over White pants.  When fans think of the “post-Cunningham” Eagles, they’re picturing the Midnight Green jerseys.  A unique, bold color, detailed strokes and drop shadows on the numbers, and nice use of logos on the sleeves and collar.

Colts: 3 — See, here’s the thing with a team like the Colts wearing throwbacks.  Their normal uniforms are pretty much throwbacks.  Nothing against their classic normal uniforms, of course, but these throwbacks are pretty much identical except for having triple stripes on the shoulders/sleeves instead of double stripes. “Classic” doesn’t necessarily mean “best,” though, and their White jersey, whether the new throwback or their normal throwbacks-in-anything-but-name jerseys, are very unremarkable with their gigantic field of white with sparse use of color.  Thankfully the Colts have a “history of winning,” so no one gets up in arms about their harmless uniforms.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 6 — The White pants provide nice contrast with the solid green of the jersey, and instead of plain white, the thick Black ad Green stripes (with the pencil thin grey stripe) on the side of the pants gives them a slightly modern touch.  Black over White socks also break up the White from the pants 

Colts: 6 — See above about the “throwbackness” of the jerseys.  Today’s pants replace the double stripe with a single super-wide stripe, and solid blue socks over white sanitaries are replaced with white socks with triple blue stripes.  I like them.  The thick blue stripes get rid of the plainness of the white pants, and the triple striped socks connect the bottom half of the uniform with the top half.

Intangibles

Eagles: 6 — The Eagles will finally be wearing their “real” home uniforms today.

Colts: 7 — It’s a strong move for a team whose current uniform is pretty much a throwback to wear a special throwback which is more-or-less identical except for the helmet.  NOTE: I was tempted to add an additional 7 points to “Intangibles” based on “Peyton Manning will be wearing this uniform today,” but I figured that would be philosophically unsound with respect to the purpose of this column.  You’re welcome, professional journalists.

 Final Score

Eagles 26

Colts 23

Random, relevant uniform trivia:

The Colts wore blue pants for a few games in 1995.  That weird feeling you’re getting when looking at these pictures is called cognitive dissonance.  The Colts shouldn’t be wearing blue pants…. even if it’s actually a pretty good look.

All in all, a pretty good looking game.

6-1.  Breath it in.  This is rarefied air, people.  In what’s probably the most arbitrary, non-cephalopod-based prediction “system” ever, these UniDictions are coming in huge.  Of course, I’m ignoring the implicit spread created by predicting the score, not just the straight-up winner, but I take wins where I can get them.

The Eagles are visiting the Titans this week, and the fact that the Eagles are in White over Green (…again.  ”Serious” question: will the Midnight Green jerseys ever show up this year?  It’s part of their official uniform, gadnabbit.) was posted to Gameday on Tuesday. Being that the Eagles are the visitors, they don’t have a say in whether they’ll wear White or Color jerseys, so I can’t ascribe this combination to outside-the-box-thinking by Reid and Co.  (Maybe White over White would be outside the box thinking.)  Your 2010 Philadelphia Eagles: 2 quarterbacks, no uniform strategy to speak of.

Of course, the Titans won’t make this UniDiction easy.  Generally, their home combination is Light Blue (“Titans Blue”) jersey over Navy Blue pants, but they’re known as team which has no issue mixing and mixing and matching and matching their various jerseys and pants (three different pants, three different jerseys).  In fact, the team’s proclivity for uniform variation warranted a USA Today article in 2006.  I’m going to play it safe and assume they’re in the “standard home” combination.  I doubt we’ll see them in monochrome “Titans Blue” or “Navy Blue.” For completeness sake, I’ll mention they’ve worn a Navy over White combination, but it’s been a while (at least two seasons) since they’ve worn the white pants from what I can tell, so almost zero odds we’ll see those on Sunday.  And, generally, the Titans different components are only color swaps, the stripes and other details are identical except for swapping one color for another.  It’s not like the Eagles, where their White pants have two stripes, and the Green pants have three.

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — Still one of the best helmets in the league.

Titans: 2 — OK.  So, the “T”  is a sword (probably because swords are awesome), three stars (because the Tennessee state flag has three stars in a similar-ish arrangement), and some flames, invoking either Titan VIP Prometheus and his theft of fire, or, um, playing into the Titans’ past as the Oilers, and showing a burning Oil Derrick.  Each of those is unlikely for different reasons, so let’s assume it’s equally probable it’s because “flames are cool.”  Well, maybe the sword is due to noted Titan Zeus’ gift of an adamantine (Wolverine!) sword to  Perseus, but I’m not sure Perseus was technically a Titan.  Anyway, it’s a non-sense combination of symbols, and the blue contrast stripes taper off for no reason around the crown of the head.   Blech.

Jersey

Eagles: 3 — The White jerseys are unfortunately nondescript compared to the Midnight Green.  I’ve said it before, so I’ll continue to say it, the White jersey just doesn’t say “Eagles” the way that the Green one does.  Ask someone what the Eagles’ colors are, and “White” will never be his or her first answer.

Titans: 3 — There are definitely worse “non-traditional” designs, out there, but I’m not sure I can get on board with the shoulder yokes.  It looks messy on the sleeve are where the “body” color meets the “yoke” color.  I’m generally not a fan of “can’t make up their minds” colors (like the Lions), but the Navy Blue yoke is larger than the typical “contrast color” area and thankfully, the dark highlight color is not black (see the Lions’ link above).  But, any color which is within the Baby Blue “spectrum” doesn’t have a place being the main color of a uniform, even if it’s origin is a legitimately retro source.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 3 — I still don’t like the Green Pants.  With the last three weeks being even more chances to see them, the Midnight Green pants tend to look generically “dark” on the lower half of the body, not an immediately noticeable color.  The two-tone socks also work better with the white pants than the green pants.

Titans: 6 — If they’re in Navy Blue pants, I really can’t find too much at fault.  The general template is nice: color “A” body, wide, alternating color “B”-”C”-”B” stripes.  Pretty much a classic look.  The use of “Titans Blue” as a contrast color against Navy is much better than using Navy against “Titans Blue.”  Honestly, the infrequently seen Navy over White is a better look, though.

Intangibles

Eagles: 6 — Points awarded if only because I’m getting the feeling we’re only going to be seeing the White jerseys and Throwbacks this year.

Titans: 2 — While Navy over White is preferred, the usual “away” combination of White over “Titans Blue” is barely an improvement to the “Titans Blue” over Navy, and their White over Navy has the same problem as the Eagles’ White over Green: the pants look generally “dark,” not an unmistakable color that says “Titans.”  And there logo doesn’t make any sense.

 Final Score

Eagles 19

Titans 13

Titans blue-overload with the Eagles white means no good.

True to the whims of the football gods this season, like all of the NFL teams, Crossing Broad is no longer undefeated.  It was a good run while it lasted.  We regroup, refocus, and re-prognosticate, with clearer Unidictions than ever.

According to Eagles Gameday, they're in White over Green, again.  We're not sure why they continue to mix up their "normal" home/road combinations, but if this really the re-building year the organization has been implying, perhaps they're re-building at all levels.  Right.

Looking at this week's bird of prey themed match-up, we've got the Eagles' modern classic design (though a lesser combination) and the Falcons' modern-for-the-sake-of-modern design.  Of course, the Falcons have some quite nice throwbacks.  Of course, to minimize the risk of being accused of liking the throwbacks just because they're old/retro, I think their best "historical design" was the 1990-2002 uniform.  So, with the Eagles in White Jerseys, and the very unlikely possibility that the Falcons will wear throwbacks, that would put them in Red Jerseys over White Pants.  (for completists, here's a picture of the Falcons' White over White combination.)

The UniDiction

Either 2, 3, 6, or 7 points awarded for each category (safety, field goal, touchdown, touchdown+point after)

Helmet

Eagles: 7 — I was thinking about why this helmet is just so iconic, and it came to me clearly and suddenly.  The design on the helmet is not a logo of the team nor a wordmark, but evokes an eagle the way that the Rams helmet horns get the point across without just doubling one of the trademarks.  Definitely one of the best helmet designs in the league.

Falcons: 3 — Two big issues here and another cool detail.  1) For the 2003 re-design, the designers did the "how can we make the current, widely recognized logo look meaner?" move, so increased stroke width, got rid of clean right-angles, then added additional strokes.  (example: old logo is just white line art on a black field.  The new logo is black and red with white stroke, then silver/grey stroke.) I will sat that the mouth/head of the old logo was in desperate need of an update, though.  2) In Black Helmets, the Falcons look like they should be wearing Black Jerseys.  In Red Helmets, it looks like they should wear Red Jerseys.  They don't always do this, especially with respect to the current jersey set and the current throwbacks.  In one pretty cool detail, the Falcon on the current helmet makes an "F".  Details never go unrewarded on Crossing Broad.

Jersey

Eagles: 3 — The White jerseys are unfortunately nondescript compared to the Midnight Green.  I've said it before, so I'll continue to say it, the White jersey just doesn't say "Eagles" the way that the Green one does.

Falcons: 1 — Are armpit highlighting features really necessary on a football jersey?  Does adding a small patch of contrast color above the armpit area make it so it looks like an intentional design element, and not an armpit patch?  No, it does not.  Also, while they thankfully did not pick a "futuristic" typeface for the numbers, I generally prefer stroke to drop shadow.  The Falcons do have a Black alternate jersey (based on the current design, not the throwback) floating around, but they can't wear it this year due to the throwback being the "alternate," and they only ever wear it with Black pants (as far as I can tell), so that's not exactly a win, either.

Pants + Socks

Eagles: 3 — I still don't like them.  With the last two weeks being even more chances to see them, the Midnight Green pants tend to look generically "dark" on the lower half of the body, not an immediately noticeable color.  The two-tone socks also work better with the white pants than the green pants.

Falcons: 2 — OK, I'll admit that the fine line going down the hem of the left and right sides of the jersey, then meeting with identical lines on the pants is a nice touch.  What isn't a nice touch is that that fine line morphs into a useless triangle of red and black at the knee.  There's a difference between eschewing convention (such as using a fine line instead of thick stripes), then there's just the false mindset that "modern = different for the sake of different."

Intangibles

Eagles: 6 — Well, I guess wearing the "away" uniform at home is outside the box thinking on the Eagles' part.  Let's hope it works out.

Falcons: 3 — The flying bird logo makes an "F!"

 Final Score

Eagles 19

Falcons 9

Go Birds Eagles!

The Eagles White over Green and the Falcons in anything do not make for a good looking game of football.