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https://www.ocregister.com/2018/05/...g-and-say-yes-to-the-rams-throwback-uniforms/
Yo NFL, do the right thing and say yes to the Rams throwback uniforms
Vincent Bonsignore
May 18, 2018 at 6:43 pm
We get it, the National Football League has a lot on its plate right now.
Among them, trying to make the game safer and sorting out the national anthem controversy and figuring out what constitutes a legal catch or not and adapting to the potential new world of legalized sports gambling.
So we’ll cut the powers that be a little slack if they’re not taking seriously the uproar going on in Los Angeles about the Rams god-awful mix-matched uniforms and a bunch of frustrated fans who turn to everyone and anyone for help.
Including the NFL’s New York City headquarters, which holds the key to turning the whole embarrassing situation into a feel-good story with a happy ending.
But rather than oblige, the NFL responds with a tone-deaf shrug of the shoulders as if to say: Them’s our rules, partner. Deal with it.
Even though, you know, we’re only the second-biggest market in the country, and after kicking us to the curb for 21 years you’d think the NFL would bend over backward trying to do everything possible to ensure a positive, healthy, long-term reconciliation.
Especially when, in this case, that “anything” is so incredibly easy and makes so much sense.
All it would take, really, is a teeny-weeny little tweak to the current rules.
As in, chilling out and letting the Rams wear their blue and gold throwback uniforms the next two seasons. Or until they roll out their permanent new unis upon opening their new stadium in 2020
That’s it. A simple, painless yes to a request that will have a minimal, if any, effect outside of a bunch of very appreciative fans in Los Angeles.
It’s a gesture about as harmless and innocuous as a cop pulling someone over for day-old expired tags, then letting them off with the promise they’ll head directly to the DMV to renew their registration.
That minimal amount of effort and rule-bending would send a powerful message from the NFL to its hardcore, devoted customers. The ones that rob Peter to pay Paul to buy season tickets and team gear and stadium hot dogs and beer more than four times above the normal costs.
The ones that tune in to games on TV each week in numbers that dwarf every other professional sports league and drive up network rights fees and help pay players and coaches and front office executives and league office personnel exorbitant amounts of money.
To those fans, the ones paying everyone’s salaries and making sure the money train keeps churning down the tracks, the NFL would be saying: We hear you. We’re listening. We get it. And we’re going to do right by you.
But I digress.
Like I said, the NFL has a lot going on. So maybe they just haven’t gotten around to opening up all those emails from the Rams explaining their fans frustrations about the current uniform situation. The ones pleading with the league to give them more leeway to wear their throwback uniforms until they roll out a fresh new brand and color scheme in 2020.
Or maybe, being all the way across the country in New York, the NFL just doesn’t appreciate the level of frustration fans feel upon watching their favorite team playing in mismatched uniforms that look like they were haphazardly yanked out of boxes from various different eras and thrown together right before kickoff.
For whatever reason the NFL seems to be poo pooing the whole thing as no big deal. All the while hanging its hat on a bunch of silly, archaic rules that make the young fans they’re trying to impress – and the old ones they want to hang onto – scream.
When the Rams returned to Los Angeles in 2016, after spending the previous 21 years in St. Louis, they came back with the uniforms they’d been wearing since 2000. Nothing against St. Louis, per se, but that uniform and color scheme wasn’t just a slap to the face of Los Angeles Rams fans who suffered for more than two decades without their beloved franchise, they were universally despised for lack of pop and the link they represented to the most woeful era in Rams history.
On every level – from emotional to aesthetics – the uniforms were a terrible eyesore.
The Rams, understanding the need for change to mark their new era in Los Angeles but also the immediate importance of appeasing their local fans, inquired to the league about wearing their throwbacks through the process of making a complete uniform makeover.
The plan was to unveil the new look at the grand opening of their new stadium in 2019 – now 2020 after weather issues pushed back the opening by a year – but also create an immediate connection in their former home.
Could the Rams have rolled out the new uniforms sooner? Yes. But they felt strongly it didn’t make sense to do it while playing at their temporary home at the USC color and logo dominated Coliseum.
Makes sense.
In the meantime, they pleaded with the NFL to relax its rule stipulating teams can only wear their throwback uniforms twice a year. This is important to note, as the Rams understood the vast majority of their local fans identify most with the uniforms they wore in Los Angeles and Anaheim from 1973 to 1994. Just as importantly, they knew how much fans truly despised the St. Louis era uniforms.
If the league could just find it in its heart to do the right thing, the Rams surmised, everybody would be happy. Including, you know, fans that would happily shell out big-time money to update their team-gear collection with their beloved colors. Only this time with names like Goff and Gurley and Donald on the back rather than Dickerson and Youngblood and Slater.
Talk about a no-brainer.
But the NFL just shrugged its shoulders.
No can do.
The frustrated Rams did get league approval to replace their St. Louis era helmets with their late 1960’s navy blue with white horns helmets and decided to go exclusively with white jerseys – albeit the St. Louis style – at home. It wasn’t perfect, and upon close inspection, the helmets clash with the jerseys and pants. But it was a bit of an improvement.
At home at least.
On the other hand, when they played on the road against teams that wore “away” uniforms at home – the Cowboys and Jaguars come to mind – it meant the Rams donning their St. Louis era blue jerseys with the throwback white and blue helmets and either blue or white pants.
The result was a uniform scheme that looked like someone went shopping at multiple thrift stores and threw everything together at the last minute. It was embarrassing, to say the least, and not worthy of a high school team let alone one from the NFL.
No matter how much the Rams protested to the league about taking the field looking like some low-budget, third-rate team wearing hand-me-down uniforms yanked from bygone eras, the NFL simply shrugged its shoulders.
A year later, nothing has changed. And with the 2018 kickoff just over 100 days away, it looks like the Rams and their fans will have to suffer through another season in uniforms the whole world is laughing at.
That is unless the NFL would just do the right thing.
It’s a harmless, painless OK. A no-brainer if there ever was one.
Just let the Rams wear their throwbacks the next two years.
Yo NFL, do the right thing and say yes to the Rams throwback uniforms
Vincent Bonsignore
May 18, 2018 at 6:43 pm
We get it, the National Football League has a lot on its plate right now.
Among them, trying to make the game safer and sorting out the national anthem controversy and figuring out what constitutes a legal catch or not and adapting to the potential new world of legalized sports gambling.
So we’ll cut the powers that be a little slack if they’re not taking seriously the uproar going on in Los Angeles about the Rams god-awful mix-matched uniforms and a bunch of frustrated fans who turn to everyone and anyone for help.
Including the NFL’s New York City headquarters, which holds the key to turning the whole embarrassing situation into a feel-good story with a happy ending.
But rather than oblige, the NFL responds with a tone-deaf shrug of the shoulders as if to say: Them’s our rules, partner. Deal with it.
Even though, you know, we’re only the second-biggest market in the country, and after kicking us to the curb for 21 years you’d think the NFL would bend over backward trying to do everything possible to ensure a positive, healthy, long-term reconciliation.
Especially when, in this case, that “anything” is so incredibly easy and makes so much sense.
All it would take, really, is a teeny-weeny little tweak to the current rules.
As in, chilling out and letting the Rams wear their blue and gold throwback uniforms the next two seasons. Or until they roll out their permanent new unis upon opening their new stadium in 2020
That’s it. A simple, painless yes to a request that will have a minimal, if any, effect outside of a bunch of very appreciative fans in Los Angeles.
It’s a gesture about as harmless and innocuous as a cop pulling someone over for day-old expired tags, then letting them off with the promise they’ll head directly to the DMV to renew their registration.
That minimal amount of effort and rule-bending would send a powerful message from the NFL to its hardcore, devoted customers. The ones that rob Peter to pay Paul to buy season tickets and team gear and stadium hot dogs and beer more than four times above the normal costs.
The ones that tune in to games on TV each week in numbers that dwarf every other professional sports league and drive up network rights fees and help pay players and coaches and front office executives and league office personnel exorbitant amounts of money.
To those fans, the ones paying everyone’s salaries and making sure the money train keeps churning down the tracks, the NFL would be saying: We hear you. We’re listening. We get it. And we’re going to do right by you.
But I digress.
Like I said, the NFL has a lot going on. So maybe they just haven’t gotten around to opening up all those emails from the Rams explaining their fans frustrations about the current uniform situation. The ones pleading with the league to give them more leeway to wear their throwback uniforms until they roll out a fresh new brand and color scheme in 2020.
Or maybe, being all the way across the country in New York, the NFL just doesn’t appreciate the level of frustration fans feel upon watching their favorite team playing in mismatched uniforms that look like they were haphazardly yanked out of boxes from various different eras and thrown together right before kickoff.
For whatever reason the NFL seems to be poo pooing the whole thing as no big deal. All the while hanging its hat on a bunch of silly, archaic rules that make the young fans they’re trying to impress – and the old ones they want to hang onto – scream.
When the Rams returned to Los Angeles in 2016, after spending the previous 21 years in St. Louis, they came back with the uniforms they’d been wearing since 2000. Nothing against St. Louis, per se, but that uniform and color scheme wasn’t just a slap to the face of Los Angeles Rams fans who suffered for more than two decades without their beloved franchise, they were universally despised for lack of pop and the link they represented to the most woeful era in Rams history.
On every level – from emotional to aesthetics – the uniforms were a terrible eyesore.
The Rams, understanding the need for change to mark their new era in Los Angeles but also the immediate importance of appeasing their local fans, inquired to the league about wearing their throwbacks through the process of making a complete uniform makeover.
The plan was to unveil the new look at the grand opening of their new stadium in 2019 – now 2020 after weather issues pushed back the opening by a year – but also create an immediate connection in their former home.
Could the Rams have rolled out the new uniforms sooner? Yes. But they felt strongly it didn’t make sense to do it while playing at their temporary home at the USC color and logo dominated Coliseum.
Makes sense.
In the meantime, they pleaded with the NFL to relax its rule stipulating teams can only wear their throwback uniforms twice a year. This is important to note, as the Rams understood the vast majority of their local fans identify most with the uniforms they wore in Los Angeles and Anaheim from 1973 to 1994. Just as importantly, they knew how much fans truly despised the St. Louis era uniforms.
If the league could just find it in its heart to do the right thing, the Rams surmised, everybody would be happy. Including, you know, fans that would happily shell out big-time money to update their team-gear collection with their beloved colors. Only this time with names like Goff and Gurley and Donald on the back rather than Dickerson and Youngblood and Slater.
Talk about a no-brainer.
But the NFL just shrugged its shoulders.
No can do.
The frustrated Rams did get league approval to replace their St. Louis era helmets with their late 1960’s navy blue with white horns helmets and decided to go exclusively with white jerseys – albeit the St. Louis style – at home. It wasn’t perfect, and upon close inspection, the helmets clash with the jerseys and pants. But it was a bit of an improvement.
At home at least.
On the other hand, when they played on the road against teams that wore “away” uniforms at home – the Cowboys and Jaguars come to mind – it meant the Rams donning their St. Louis era blue jerseys with the throwback white and blue helmets and either blue or white pants.
The result was a uniform scheme that looked like someone went shopping at multiple thrift stores and threw everything together at the last minute. It was embarrassing, to say the least, and not worthy of a high school team let alone one from the NFL.
No matter how much the Rams protested to the league about taking the field looking like some low-budget, third-rate team wearing hand-me-down uniforms yanked from bygone eras, the NFL simply shrugged its shoulders.
A year later, nothing has changed. And with the 2018 kickoff just over 100 days away, it looks like the Rams and their fans will have to suffer through another season in uniforms the whole world is laughing at.
That is unless the NFL would just do the right thing.
It’s a harmless, painless OK. A no-brainer if there ever was one.
Just let the Rams wear their throwbacks the next two years.
