The Seattle Seahawks' Throwbacks Are Easily The NFL's Best New Uniforms

As we gear up for the National Football League’s return, several of its teams have used the sleepy pre-training camp period to roll out new uniform designs. The Colts, Browns, Jets, Vikings, Buccaneers, Titans, and Seahawks will each look a bit different for at least one game this year. (We’re hoping a few of them will stick with their re-designs for more than one game—and that others scale it back.)

Some ground rules: we know that the Arizona Cardinals have made some slight alterations, but not enough to really make a splash. And while the Eagles are rumored to be up to something, nothing’s official yet. This post is dedicated to the teams that really went for it. Without further ado, let’s rank the NFL’s new crop of alternate uniforms, from worst to best.

7. Indianapolis Colts

The internet has already roasted these on a spit for days on end, so we’re not trying to pile on—but these are categorically bad. Whenever they wear these alternates, the Colts are going to look like a Mid-American Conference team playing on a Tuesday night.

Indianapolis admittedly doesn’t have a ton to work with. Royal blue and white is one of the most rote color schemes a team can use. But the way out of that was not with black. Also, pairing a blue top with blue pants harkens back to the Color Rush era, which produced some of the most memorably tawdry looks in NFL history. Going with white pants, or even black ones if they insisted on it, would make these much easier on the eyes.

But the real crime here is the helmet. All they did was take the team’s standard white lid—one of the more classic and instantly recognizable ones in the league!—and paint it black. It feels like uniform designers should know that blue and black rarely ever works, too. It’s all a little too What if Madden allowed you to tweak the jerseys? for my taste.

6. Cleveland Browns

The Cleveland Browns—a team whose main logo for years has been their orange helmet—have decided to rock a white helmet for three games this season. There’s been an epidemic over the last decade or so of teams across all major sports unveiling all-white or all-black uniforms for no real reason. I wouldn’t quite put this Browns get-up in that category, although I do wonder if this would have looked better with the traditional orange bucket remaining up top.

The jersey, I think, is quite good. Orange and brown are much better as accent colors than as primary ones. The font for the letters and numbers, as well as the stripes on each shoulder, work very well. I just can’t get over the helmet. The Browns are known for their orange helmets! And always have been! Going all white top to bottom makes it virtually impossible not to look like a Stormtrooper, a problem that only gets worse when you’re running around on the field with other people dressed exactly like you.

Of course, the whole point of creating new jerseys is to sell them to the public. I suspect people will buy these in droves. If the players like them—which usually means, if the players win in them—that’s just icing on the cake. We’ll get three opportunities to see how that goes, as Cleveland is slated to wear these in Week 2 against their rivals in Pittsburgh, again in Week 6 vs. the 49ers, and then on Thursday Night Football for a Week 17 clash with the Jets.

5. New York Jets

I’m not really sure what to make of these, to be honest. The throwback logo is splendid, and it’s great to see a 2023 Jets uniform that leaves out black. But these still feel a few edits away.

My first reaction when I saw these, just like when I saw the Colts’ duds, is that they look like a college team. Understated can be good, but in this particular case, the plainness of the uniform looks sort of…low budget? Unfinished? Again, they were close, but these unis have not crossed the goal line yet. I suspect these will look good on the field, though, and the fact that they’re wearing these exclusively for primetime games (Monday Night Football on September 11 against the Bills and Sunday Night Football with the Chiefs on October 1) will give the jerseys an air of importance. Also, to give credit where credit is due: the helmet is wonderful.

4. Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings found themselves in a similar yet vastly different situation than the Colts. Both teams have mostly plain jerseys that have been glued to their backs since the 1960s. But while the Colts are stuck with a yawn-inducing blue and white, the Vikings’ purple and gold is a colorway entirely unique to them, at least in the NFL.

Pivoting away from purple and gold obviously wasn’t going to happen—and would have been a Ragnar-sized misstep—so the Vikings leaned into nostalgia. And they did a really good job. The old school look of the jersey numbers is infinitely better than the modern ones they’ve been wearing for the last few years. The matte finish on the helmet is really sweet, too. The only nitpick here is that it looks a little too Washington Huskies, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A Justin Jefferson throwback jersey is immediately a must-cop.

3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

These are polarizing, but I adore them. The swashbuckler logo, the creamsicle jerseys, the risky orange and red combination. It’s all here, and the Bucs were smart to bring them back.

As they sail into the post-Brady era, Tampa Bay will be searching for an identity. While these won’t be their chief uniforms, they absolutely have a place on an NFL field. We’ll have to wait until October 15 for these to hit the gridiron, but if the overall fan reaction is as positive as mine was, they should find some more games to throw it back to the ‘70s.

2. Tennessee Titans

Yes! Absolutely!

All the Titans did was bring back the Oilers jerseys their forefathers wore when the franchise was still in Houston…but that’s all they had to do! Powder blue and red goes thermonuclear on any sports uniform, and while the current day Titans have dabbled in that combination, they were genius to look backwards and let the Oilers do it better.

If this trend of modernizing an old look continues, there are several organizations that should do exactly what the Titans did here and dust off their original style.

1. Seattle Seahawks

The undisputed king of the ‘70s revival, though, has to be the Seattle Seahawks. Like the Buccaneers, who entered the league alongside them for the 1976 season, the Seahawks are paying homage to their original look. The results are beyond outstanding. Groovy, even.

Everything from the silver helmet, to the kelly green secondary color, to the logo that sends the entire Pacific Northwest down memory lane, is wonderfully executed here. Kudos to the Seahawks for embracing tradition. The next step here is convincing the franchise to just make these the regular jerseys, but for now, the team will have to settle for giving the NFL its best uniform of the 2023 season.