Good morning, everyone. Despite the somewhat dark nature of the title of this entry, it isn't. Rather a somewhat interesting trend that has cropped up among NFL teams as training camps start up this week; the color of the helmets.
As many of you have follow football probably already are aware of, the National Football League starting this year is ditching the silly, draconian one shell rule for their helmets. Put in place due to concerns about player safety and CTE (and screwing Bucs fans out of seeing them in action for the 2013 season against Arizona, a game I attended). This means that several of the league's 32 teams will have the option of utilizing a throwback design, or a new design. Now the NFL won't go overboard with them like college teams do, but just the sight of seeing different helmets in the NFL is a refreshing change fans have waited for a long time though. Unfortunately for Bucs fans, they have to wait another year, citing "SuPpLy ChAiN iSsUeS." Yeah, right.
But for 13 other teams, they are implementing this new policy, but the main alternate helmet being utilized is a black helmet. Six of the said thirteen teams will sport a black alternate helmet: Arizona, Philadelphia, Washington, NY Jets, New Orleans, and Carolina. Add that to Atlanta, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh who already have black helmets, and you have over a quarter of the league. Quite honestly, I'm surprised that Las Vegas didn't have their own black helmet, but then again, maybe they had "supply chain issues." I tend to think it's the Raiders not wishing to jerk with tradition.
The other teams to sport an alternate helmet are Chicago (orange, which will make them look like the University of Illinois), Houston (battle red), and Cincinnati, who are paying tribute to Seigfried and Roy by wearing a white helmet with their tiger stripes. The throwbacks are the 1960s Dallas Cowboys, the pre-Drew Bledsoe New England Patriots (and Pat Patriot), the 1967 Atlanta Falcons (with a red helmet and a gold stripe), and the classic NY Giants helmets from the 1980s.
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