NFL Uniform Ranks: 25-32

Riddle me this Ravens fans: How often do you see something like this pop up on your social media feed?

And let’s not kid ourselves- you click on it. Sure you’ll get rerouted to a handful of pop-up ads for muscle growth, hair growth, other ….miscellaneous growth, etc. But c’mon! You NEED to know how the random obscure blog site ranks the Ravens uniforms!

Then it hits you- Mr. Blogger knocks them back into the middle of the pack. And what’s worse? They rank the other AFC North teams in the top 10 because ‘tradition blah blah blah keeping true to form blah blah blah…’ And the next thing you know, you’re on your phone viciously texting your brosef about how screwed up the writer of an obscure blog is by ranking those uni’s the way he did!

Just know you’re not alone. We’ve all been there. And as part of your therapy to help you cope with those moronic bloggers and their insane rankings, we’re here to provide you with a reasonable, realistic ranking of NFL uniforms.

Okay, maybe ‘reasonable and realistic’ is a stretch. It’s more like ‘Baltimore biased real talk.’

Let’s go ahead and call out some of these traditionalists for not being progressive and changing with the times (isn’t that the ‘hip’ thing to do these days?). Let’s point our collective fingers (not that finger!) at Dan Snyder’s Redskins and wag them ferociously. Let’s all get a good chuckle at the expense of the team who was too lazy to paint the logo on both sides of their helmet.

What matters the most here is that we’re all in this together. We’ll get through this together, and you’ll come out on the other side never raising a single eyebrow next time that obscure sports blog ranking pops up.

And what better place to start than the cellar!

32. Cleveland Browns

Team Colors: Orange, Brown

The Good: The 2015 season introduced us to a new era in Browns uniforms, featuring new fancy pants, an alternate orange jersey and new lettering on the jerseys. That’s all the good I can muster up for this uniforms.

The Bad: Everything. I will never grasp a franchise that goes by the name ‘Browns’… yet orange is their primary team color? An yes, I know the Paul Brown tie in here (or is is the ‘Brown Bomber’ Joe Lewis? Even Cleveland doesn’t know why their team is named what they are!), but still, you have your option of colors and you’d think the brain trust that put together a uniform for this team would’ve been intelligent enough to say “if we call them the Browns.. MAYBE we can use the color brown as the primary?”

And of course the helmet is essentially a Valencia orange with a racing stripe.

And call me crazy but isn’t this Cleveland’s actual logo?

Sorry, I meant this.

Where’s the incorporation of your team’s logo ANYWHERE in the uniform? Sleeves? Helmet? Pants? Socks? Cleats? Mouth guards? ANYTHING???

You had ONE JOB Jimmy Haslam…

How to Fix It: Traditionalists be damned! Add the team logo to the helmet! Heck, pretty much everything in Cleveland is damned… but I’d make that dog show up somewhere in the uniform, and not just on the team website and that small faction of fans at the stadium that goes by… I think it’s the Pound Puppies?

And honestly, something needs to be done about a team named after a boxer and/or original owner, but I’ll save that for another time…

31. San Francisco 49ers

Team Colors: Red, Metallic Gold

The Good: Full disclosure- I actually love their new alternates for 2015.

The black is ‘on fleek‘ (isn’t that what the kids say these days?).

The Bad: With those alternates, the 9ers totally whiffed by keeping the gold helmet instead of a different lid. But at least the helmet is truly gold, while the pants on the non-alternate uniforms look more like every pair of Walmart khakis ever worn by Jim Harbaugh. Actually, you know what their color combo really reminds me of?

Then there’s the logo on the helmets that simply say ‘SF.’ That’s so MLB. Take a page from the Ravens and work that team logo/mascot in with the city name!

How to Fix It: The black alternates are too BAMF to limit to 1 or 2 games a season. Make those the road unis, then add black accents to the other kits and REVERT TO THE OLD LOGO FROM THE 60’s!! I mean look at this logo!

How much more kick ass would that be?!

30.  Pittsburgh Steelers

Team Colors: Black, Gold, White

The Good: They managed to get the logo on one side of the helmet! Congrats guys!

The Bad: They either forgot to add the logo to the other side, or they were so proud of the time they painted that logo on one side many years ago, that they’ve spent all of their time bragging about that logo on one side instead of accomplishing anything new, like painting the other side… (see what I did there? Think rings, then let it sink in…).

And let’s talk about team colors. If you ask ANY Steelers fan what their team colors are? They’ll obnoxiously scream at you ‘BLACK AND YELLOW.’ Except that’s not accurate at all, as their colors are actually black, gold and white. So next time you see a Steelers fan chanting black and yellow? Kindly (or not) remind them that they are an idiot. (I’ll let Snoop and Whiz Khalifa know)

Then there’s the logo… Steeped in tradition and steel mills and blah blah blah. It’s a circle with 3 stars and the team name. It’s also 2015. You can do better than that lazy one-sided logo.

How to Fix It: Oy… where to start? First and foremost, LOGOS SHOULD BE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE HELMET! YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL FOR HAVING IT ON 1 SIDE ONLY, YOU JUST LOOK FOOLISH/LAZY!

Honestly, it’s the same gripe I have with many of these cellar dwellers- where’s the actual team logo? Do you have a team logo? If 3 stars in a circle is a logo, then my kid in Pre-K makes ‘logos’ everyday at school…

Also, as much as I LOVE watching this franchise become the laughing stock of NFL fans around the world? Save yourselves the embarrassment and get rid of these throwbacks…

They’re such a…. yup. BUZZ KILL.

29. Washington Redskins

Team Colors: Burgundy, Gold, White

The Good: Even if the Ravens completely revamped their color scheme, the Redskins would still have uglier uniforms. Oh, that’s not a positive? Then I guess I’d say the positive is at least they aren’t MY team.

The Bad: Let’s address the elephant in the room, Mr. Snyder. I may not be the most PC person in the DMV, but Danny Boy, you’re hurting your franchise more than anything by keeping the logo/team name. It’s time for a change. Think about it- fans buying all new apparel (not like they planned on keeping those RG-Knee jerseys anyway), it would help the process for building a new stadium, you would be less of a villain in the league… tradition be damned (I feel like that’s becoming a trend for me).

And something about burgundy and gold makes my skin crawl. Maybe it comes with the territory of being brought up a Ravens fan. Or maybe it’s my growing bitterness for the other end of the BW Parkway, as I’m constantly bombarded by Skins fans reminding me that they have a better record than my Ravens this year (then I point to my Super Bowl banner and laugh). Either way, it’s just not a good look.

How to Fix It: Start from scratch- new logo and new color scheme. If I may make a suggestion for that misguided fanbase, I’d say stick to something that represents D.C. and perhaps go with something like the ‘Washington Wait-Which-Garage-Did-I-Park-In‘ or ‘Washington That-Light-Was-Green-for-Literally-2-Seconds.’ Or maybe something political based like ‘Washington Wait-Can-We-Impeach-Him‘ or ‘Washington Deficits.’

28. New Orleans Saints

Team Colors: Black, Gold

The Good: It’s… um…. there’s some gold in it and… eesh… I’ve got nothing.

The Bad: Quick quiz- what is the name of the symbol on the Saints helmet? WRONG. It’s called the fleur de lis, which roughly translates into a lily flower.

So there you have it- the Saints have a flower on their helmet. How quaint.

Quite frankly, I don’t care what you say, that symbol is straight up the corn emoji.

How to Fix It: If they want to keep their logo then own that flower and go full-blown lily not just a silhouette of one. If the flower doesn’t fly, then maybe switch to something else like a Bounty Hunter perhaps?

Also, I’d LOVE to see the Saints rock a ‘black out’ uniform (take a step back… think Ravens Super Bowl… and there’s the joke).

27. New York Jets

Team Colors: Hunter Green, White

The Good: With so many teams in the NY/NJ area that are much more successful than the Jets, they more or less fade into the background, where people don’t realize how abysmal their uniforms really are.

The Bad: 2 words- COLOR. RUSH.

What a train wreck that was! The D-Linemen all looked like the Jolly Green Giant, the center looked like Slimer from Ghostbusters, and everybody else pretty much blended in with the turf.

On a side note- has anybody ever seen a green jet?

How to Fix It: SILVER! Add silver! Yanno… like the color of an actual jet? Also have the entire team grow Fitzpatrick-esque beards. This won’t help the uniform, I just want to see it.

26. Oakland Raiders

Team Colors: Black, Silver

The Good: I feel like their team colors reflect everything that is Oakland. And more so, the Black Hole. I can’t imagine that place being as crazy with any other colors than Black and Silver (say, Chargers powder blue?). And it totally works with the whole pirate thing they have going on. 

The Bad: Let’s talk about this pirate fella on the helmet.

I see swords. I see an eyepatch. But is he really a pirate? He just looks like some guy with an old school helmet on who just had Lasik surgery done on one eye. I mean even his expressionless face isn’t screaming ‘AARRGG MATEY!’ And is he squinting? Why is he squinting? If he has an eye patch on one eye and he’s squinting with the other, I’m pretty sure in the pirate world he becomes plank-walking material at that point…

How to Fix It: Look, the Raiders on the field and fearsome don’t really go together. Maybe they need to model their pirate, or ‘raider,’ off of a pirate that reflects their team a little better? Maybe something like this?

NAILED IT.

25. Cincinnati Bengals

Team Colors: Black, Orange

The Good: I get to laugh at them every year in the playoffs. Oh, and they continue to draft QB’s whose hair matches their team colors, so good job there guys!

The Bad: First of all, the Bengals joined the football party about 20 years after their Ohio counterpart, the Browns. So what did then-owner Paul Brown decide? “Let’s use orange too!” There’s thinking outside of the box Paul… Although if Paul Brown was as cheap then as Mike Brown is today, he probably chose the orange because he got a discount on the uniforms as Cleveland Browns misprints, or perhaps a BO-GO at the time of inception for the franchise.

And the biggest issue I’ve always had with this team is the tiger striped helmets. They’re ridiculous.

And think about this Ravens fans- you’re in a division with a team that has a fully tiger stripped helmet, a team with a solid orange helmet with no logo, and a team that has a logo on only one side of the helmet.

Queue the hillbilly banjo…

How to Fix It: Win in the playoffs. Seriously, people won’t make fun of you as much if you could actually win in the playoffs.

Actually, I take that back. I’d still laugh at those helmets.