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Uniform trends the 49ers need to avoid in 2010 Pt. 1: Helmets

OK, well it’s another uniform post. The last one had a pretty neat discussion. Check it out. Anyway, as you may know, the 49ers will actually be trying to get new uniforms in 2010. From the consensus from many of you, a look that is reminiscant of the 1980s seems to be the best choice.

However, the NFL is a game of trends. When one team finds success in something, they usually have people who follow them. It’s a very popular things. Sometimes it’s a playcall. Sometimes it’s a defensive scheme. Heck, the West Coast Offense got popular here, now almost everyone uses it.

The same can be said for uniforms. And I have taken some time to look through some popular uniform trends that have occurred in the NFL for the past decade or so.

We’ll break down the uniform into four bits: Helmet, jersey, pants and socks. Then I’ll go talk about other elements if necessary. This post I’ll dedicate to the helmet.

HELMET STRIPES
First off, the 49ers helmet is one of the more unique helmets in the NFL today. Before the Revolution helmet became popular throughout the league earlier this decade, all players wore your Standard helmet. Notice that on the Standard helmet, there is a strip down the middle of the helmet that elevates. The Revolution helmet does not feature that due to the design of the back portion of the helmet.

Now why does that matter? When the 49ers unveiled their new helmet after their win in Superbowl XXIV, every helmet in the league was the Standard helmet. Because of that, the 49ers were able to design a helmet stripe down the middle that featured red, black AND gold. Notice that the raised portion of the stripe has the gold strip along the side. Such affects get lost in the new Revolution and Schutt helmets. Take a look at the difference in this picture. No gold in the stripe.

The 49ers aren’t the only teams victimized of this. Look at the Packers before and after.

Solution? The 49ers must design a helmet that compensates for this. They cannot design a helmet knowing that they have the extra space, because they might not be able to have it. The gold strips are part of the gold helmet, as is the Packers. But the Packers actually probably didn’t have that intent when they made their helmet stripes. The strip actually was intent to match their pants, which has no extra yellow lining.

And for some teams, that raised part just makes their already ugly helmet much worse. That’s FIVE different colors on that helmet!

What’s unique about the 49ers stripe is that their gold stripe does match their pants. Check them out here, here and here. Knowing the new looks of helmets these days, the 49ers need to actually be aware of the chance that most of the team will be wearing the new design helmets. Even though they got lucky with the last one, their next look (if they want to match their pants) will be split with older versions of helmets or newer versions of them. Older versions will give them that gold stripe, but the new ones won’t. Maybe one stripe only? Or maybe they can just eat it and just deal with the differences in looks. I mean, soon enough we’ll be dealing with this newly designed helmet.

Whatever helmet the players wear, I just hope they can take the wear and tear… just ask Steve Wallace.

And I think the Niners need a stripe. Especially with the possibility of them trying to be more nostalgic, they shouldn’t try to have anything like this or this.

And I know they won’t have a blank there. Those are usually reserved for teams that can pull it off, like them and them.

If they kept is simple and took away the black, the stripe they had on their old helmet works just fine with me.

FACEMASKS
One of the easier decisions I know the uniform designer has to make. It’s going to be one of three choices. It’s either going to go back to grey, red, or black.

Black probably won’t happen since I think the team should drop that from their scheme. Besides, if the team remains with their gold helmet, only those two colors are options. Red symbolizes a lot of teams that recently had uniform changes, like the Patriots.

While a lot of old school uniforms have reemerged, so have the grey facemasks on teams like the Giants, Colts and Browns.

Now, there are teams that have white facemasks (Chiefs, Bills), but that’s only because they have red helmets which allows the white to stand out to the referees during facemasks. The Redskins have yellow, which is similar to white facemasks on a red helmet; unless you’re the late Sean Taylor who decided to have a little bit of both (and look at those socks- those will be addressed later).

The Niners should keep it grey or red. If their uniform is going back to cherry red from the `80s, then they have to go grey. Can’t have too bright of a facemask. I don’t see any other solutions.

NUMBERS AND DECALS
All helmets these days are required to have the American flag on them. Some players like LaDainian Tomlinson and Dallas Clark try to wiggle out of this, but pretty much everyone has to have a flag on their helmet. It’s everywhere!

Knowing that, the 49ers have to make sure their logo doesn’t crowd too much of the back (like these guys) that it looks out of place.

But also to make room, the team has to think about adding uniform numbers on their helmets. Teams like the Steelers and Bengals, Broncos and Giants have these. Doubt the Niners would go this route, but if they do, I hope it’s small like the Broncos and not on the front also like the Steelers. And I hope it’s not THIS BIG.

Last year, the Niners honored Bill Walsh with a “BW” decal. Doubt they would continue that, but I think for a team with such a rich history, it would be nice.

And like the aformentioned image, I would like the neck bumper to be blank instead of having the 49ers script on it. But that’s usually just optional for the players, so I can’t complain too much.

And also, I want what Eli’s having. Notice the white bumper on top of his face mask, between the numbers and below the red stripe. It’s a small Giants logo. But if you look closer, the rubber logo is actually raised up. Another closer look on Derrick Ward’s bumper. Another look. The Giants are the only team that has this feature, and they have different ones for home, road games versus wearing their red alternates. These were used two years ago (here, here). The red one is used for the red alterante tops. This was used last year. The red alternate tops will have those two colors reversed.

Pretty neat! Wish the rest of the league wasn’t so plain and boring.

Doubt the 49ers would go for something like this, but if they did, wouldn’t it be cool to have the SF right on the nose bumper? I would like that a lot.
(*Credit to Paul Lukas from UniWatch for those Giants bumper pictures.)

So there you go folks. I pretty much made football helmets uninteresting. But as I ponder about the new uniforms, something tells me that the designers will have to look into these popular trends that teams are using. Let’s just hope they make the right choice.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 am and is filed under Helmets, Uniform, 49ers, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.