The Draw Play

The Titans have changed their uniform!

This was probably the least noticed change I’ve seen happen. Poor Titans. Nobody ever seems to care.

I like the new duds. I’m also disappointed by them. They didn’t go far enough to me. But the changes they did make feel like they are for the better.

I’m a big fan of the sword style shoulder pads. Takes an element from their previous look and makes it better fit a theme. It looks great. I…don’t mind the two stripes on the pants? They are just sorta there. It looks fine. I wish we’d had more sword motifs on the pants. I’m a big fan of the blue helmet. The league is plagued by boring white helmets. White helmets suck. They just look unfinished, like people forgot to paint them. The only white helmets that work are the Colts and Jets, mostly because white is such an important element to their color scheme instead of just the “away” versions. The blue Titans helmet just looks better. But I wish they had made it the powder blue instead of the navy blue. The navy blue looks too heavy on the white away uniforms, and too many teams have dark blue helmets already. Nobody has powder blue helmets. That would have been a unique look.

I love how they put the 3 red stars on the collar of the jersey. But it is on the inside of the collar, where no one will see it. So…why? Also, check out how good that light blue uniform looks. That should be the primary. More powder blue, less navy blue. Stand out more.

The most controversial element of the uniform seems to be the font. Nike seems fond of silly fonts. I’m okay with it. I like how they generally went with a sharp, angled theme overall in the redesign. It looks a little silly and I don’t think it will age well, but it’s no alarm clock number atrocity like the Bucs.

I generally consider this to be a small incremental upgrade when I was hoping for a bigger overhaul. The Titans had one of the more “meh” looks in the league. The logo is unique but somehow dull. The helmets were white, like half the league. They wore two shades of blue, dark blue being the most overused color in the league. The only real uniform element that set them apart was the way the different color shoulder stripe worked. It wasn’t enough to make them stand out in any real way.

I think the Titans are one of the teams in the league that could have actually benefited from a Jags/Hawks/Browns/Bucs style full redesign. Now the Browns/Bucs/Jags uniforms generally get panned, but I think it’s mostly because the Browns and Bucs already looked stellar and did not need to change. I have few issues with the Browns and Bucs uniforms in a vacuum (The Bucs numbers are shit and the BROWNS pants is shit, outside that they look fine), but compared to their old duds, they suck. The Jags uniform is mostly panned because the helmet is one of the worst concept executions in uniform history. They are apparently ditching it this season. Good.

But if you think about it, the Jags and the Hawks uniforms gave those teams an actual look again. Can you remember the uniforms before those two changed? No, because they were pathetically boring. The Hawks uniforms hadn’t been memorable or good since the grey helmet era. The Jags hadn’t been good since this. The Hawks current unis are a bit much but honestly pretty good. The Jags uniforms are meh, but they are still more striking and unique than the boring goop before this. If they use the teal alt jersey more and fix that fucking helmet they are gonna look fresh.

There are basically two ways to go when updating uniforms. You take the look back to a classic, simple style, or you go full modern with fresh ideas and see what sticks. The Vikings took a garbage prior attempt at looking modern and went classic, and they look so much better for it. The Hawks took a boring, more classic look and went full modern, and look much better for it. The Titans took a boring attempt to look modern and went…slightly more modern. I think they could have pushed it so much farther than they did, and I also think they could have taken it back to a more classic Oilers look and been hella fresh. Instead we get a mild upgrade that honestly I don’t see lasting too long before tweaks hit.

Those tweaks need to be MORE SWORDS. I want sharp angles EVERYWHERE. I want the Titans to look like a video game spike pit. The alternate sword logo is so damn rad, MAKE IT THE MAIN LOGO.