The Denver Broncos soundly defeated the San Diego Chargers on this past Monday night to improve their record for the season to 6-0. However, they are certainly not undefeated, at least not in all senses: for the second consecutive week, the Broncos donned throwback uniforms that were nothing less than a sartorial train wreck.
For years now, the NFL has tinkered with the look of its on-field product by having teams put on “throwback” uniforms, i.e., ones designed to replicate the look of the team’s uniforms from an earlier era. This costuming of the players for a game or two had proven popular in Major League Baseball, and the same has generally applied in football. If nothing else, the fact that they continue to do it is evidence that it has been a shot in the arm for the league’s merchandising revenue.
Then the Broncos took the field in Denver on Sunday, October 11, 2009 in what the team’s website called an “American Football League legacy game against the Boston Patriots… to commemorate 50 seasons of Broncos football,” and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that some history is best forgotten.
The derision for their “legacy” outfits was swift and terrible (not unlike the ghastly uniforms themselves). D.J. Gallo at ESPN.com’s Page 2:
…I heard the announcer say they were throwbacks to the franchise’s original uniform in 1960. I seriously doubt this. Why would the original design of the team’s uniform be based on the colors seen at the bottom of a bronco’s stall? That’s disgusting.
Yes. Yes, it is. We all thought it, but Mr. Gallo wrote it. I had decided to go with something a little more restrained, like “the messy result of a fight between a jar of mustard and a bottle of Hershey’s syrup,” but there’s no rewind button once the image of bodily waste has been invoked.
Then came the Broncos’ above-mentioned defeat of the Chargers in San Diego this past Monday night. The two teams have long been bitter rivals, and a bit of a tussle erupted between opposing players during the pre-game warmups. I can’t help but suspect that Denver’s vintage duds, even in their slightly less horrifying visiting-team variation, provided an irresistible target for mockery which then escalated into the ensuing scrum. As if things weren’t bad enough for San Diego, the ignominy of their 34-23 loss was compounded by having come at the hands of a team in garish jockey-stockings while they had sported their sharp powder blue vintage Chargers gear. Verily, the fashion police were nowhere to be found.
In a post-game interview, ESPN football analysts asked Denver’s Eddie Royal (pictured above finishing one of the two long kick-return touchdowns he scored during the game) how he and his teammates were feeling about their, uh, distinctive throwback uniforms. Royal’s response was (to paraphrase), “Hey, I’m good with the uniforms. They’ve worked! We’re 2-0 in the throwback uniforms!”
Yeah Eddie, but guess what: you’re 4-0 without the throwback uniforms, numbnuts! And unlike the last two weeks, no spectators’ eyes were damaged by watching you guys in those first four wins!
For the good of the nation, the Denver Broncos’ throwback uniforms must be seized and destroyed.
