Dec 9, 2014

Paul LukasESPN.com
Close
- Sports journalism's foremost uniform reporter
- ESPN.com columnist since 2004
- Also blogs at uni-watch.com
Follow on Twitter

Don't look now, but the NFL has come down with a serious case of mono.

No, not that kind of mono. We're referring here to the increasing tendency for teams to wear solid-colored uniforms, with matching jerseys and pants. Among uniform aficionados, this is often known as "going mono," which is short for "monochromatic" or single-colored. The usual lingo is to refer to the mono effect by color: "The Rams went mono-blue last night" or "The Cardinals will be going mono-red this weekend."

Leaving aside mono-white (a different topic for a different day), here are a few things you should know about going mono:

1. Mono is a fairly recent NFL phenomenon. Going mono was pretty much unheard of in the Super Bowl era until 1997, when the Eagles wore mono-green for for a game against the 49ers. The league was then mono-free until 2001, when the Saints wore mono-black for several games. That set the stage for the mono floodgates to open in 2002, when a slew of additional teams experimented with the mono look. In the dozen years since then, many more teams have gone mono -- sometimes as a one-off experiment, sometimes as a default look.

2. Mono allows for the element of surprise. NFL teams are required to script their jersey schedules before the season starts (the home team can choose to wear white, and the road team has to wear the opposite), but they don't have to pre-select their pants. So even if you already know that, say, the Chiefs will be wearing their red jerseys for a given home game, they can still surprise you by deciding at the last minute to add their red pants to the mix, creating the mono-red look.

3. Some teams have mono immunity. Certain teams simply can't go mono, because they don't have a matching set of jerseys and pants. The Steelers, for example, wear gold pants for every game but don't have a gold jersey; the Raiders wear silver pants for every game but don't have a silver jersey; and so on.

4. Mono is controversial. The mono effect tends to make the uniform look more like a one-piece superhero costume. As such, it creates highly contentious debates around the uni-verse, with younger fans usually supporting the mono effect and old-schoolers lining up against it.

Mono-color Chart

Whether you're for mono or against it, most fans would agree that it looks better on some teams than on others.

Here's a breakdown of which teams have and haven't gone mono in their current uni sets, and one observer's take on whether they should do so in the future (click on the "Yes" indicators to see the team's recent mono looks):

Team	Gone Mono?	Should They Go Mono?
Bears	Yes	The NFL's best uni set deserves better. Let's hope they never do this again.
Bengals	Yes	Cincy's uniform is more like a costume to begin with, so why not? Heck, let's see them go mono-orange while they're at it.
Bills	No	The Bills routinely went mono-blue with their old uni set. But while their current set includes blue pants, they haven't paired those pants with their blue jerseys. Probably best to leave it that way -- the current uniform is a fairly old-school design that doesn't lend itself well to the mono treatment.
Broncos	Yes	Denver's uniform was conceived as a superhero costume. If you like the basic template, you probably like the mono-navy look; if you hate the template, the mono effect probably just confirms your feelings. In short: Sure, go for it.
Browns	Yes	The mono look just doesn't work for the league's most traditional uniform. But the Browns are due to get new uniforms in 2015, and Nike will likely make the new set more mono-friendly, for better or worse.
Buccaneers	No	The Bucs don't have pewter jerseys or red pants (at least not yet), so the mono look isn't available to them, which is probably for the best.
Cardinals	Yes	Arizona's basic uniform is laughably bad, so why not go mono? Can't hurt. And hey, it honors the team's 1970s heritage.
Chargers	No	San Diego hasn't gone mono-navy with their current uni set, but they did once with their prior set, for a 2003 neutral-site game against the Dolphins (there are some highlights here). A Photoshopped image of their current uniform rendered in mono-navy doesn't look half-bad. Look, it's Lightning Bolt Man! But if the Chargers really want to blow people's minds, they should consider -- wait for it -- mono-powder blue.
Chiefs	Yes	The Chiefs have gone mono-red three times, most recently on Nov. 30, as a tribute to sidelined teammate Eric Berry, who reportedly loves the solid-red look. It's a nice gesture but a garish on-field look. Stick the basics, KC.
Colts	No	The Colts can't go mono because their wardrobe doesn't currently include blue pants. But it used to. Should they revive the blue britches? Maybe. And if so, should they go mono-blue? Definitely not.
Cowboys	No	The Cowboys famously have major color problems -- two different shades of blue, three different shades of silver -- so the last thing they should do is attempt to go mono. The jersey and pants probably wouldn't match. Fortunately, their current mix-and-match options don't allow for the mono look anyway.
Dolphins	Yes	The Dolphins totally own their shade of aqua, but that doesn't mean they should overdo it. It was too much of a good thing when they first went mono-aqua back in 2002, and it didn't look any better when they revived the look this season.
Eagles	Yes	Philly introduced black pants this season just so they could pair them with their black alternate jerseys and go mono. Yeah, whatever -- mono-black is so played out. But they went mono-green for one game in 1997 and again back in 2002, which is an idea worth revisiting.
Falcons	Yes	Atlanta hasn't gone mono-black since 2008, and the black pants are no longer included in their uni set, so the mono effect is no longer available to them. Too bad -- much like the Cardinals, the Falcons have a costume-like uniform that actually works quite well in mono.
49ers	No	The Niners wear gold pants for every game, so they can't go mono. They're due to get a new alternate jersey next season, though -- will it be gold, setting up a mono-gold look? Hope not, but it's a possibility.
Giants	No	The Giants have two sets of pants -- gray and white -- neither of which can be used to go mono. Just as well -- we wouldn't want Big Blue to look that blue.
Jaguars	Yes	Don't really understand why a team would want to wear mono-black in the hot Florida sun, but whatever. If you're going to wear the NFL's worst uniform, you may as well take it to its logical extreme.
Jets	Yes	Green is the favorite color here at Uni Watch HQ. But the Jets brought back the Namath-era look in the late 1990s specifically because it was, you know, the Namath-era look. Doesn't make sense to go mono with it.
Lions	No	Little-remembered fact: The Lions experimented with blue pants in 1998. Fortunately, they never wore them with their blue jerseys. As it stands now, they have mono immunity, because they wear silver pants for every game.
Packers	No	Little-remembered fact: The Packers' early uniform history includes several instances of mono-green (and, according to the mighty Gridiron Uniform Database, mono-yellow), but their current wardrobe doesn't allow for either of those looks. Should they try one of them, as a throwback? Sure, if they want, but not as part of their primary uni rotation.
Panthers	Yes	The league's most dated uniform set (looks sooooo '90s) actually looks better in mono-black. And hey, panthers are black, right? Makes sense.
Patriots	Yes	When the history of the Brady/Belichick era is written, will anyone remember that the Pats went mono-navy for a few games in 2002? Let's hope not.
Raiders	No	You can't have the iconic silver and black unless you have, you know, silver and black. Tinkering with that look would be a mono no-no.
Rams	Yes	This team can look so good when it wants to. But not when it goes mono-blue.
Ravens	Yes	We're talking some primo mono right here. Ravens (the birds, not the team) are black, and Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" is a very dark poem, so going mono-black totally makes sense. Plus anything that reduces the amount of purple in a uniform earns bonus points.
Saints	Yes	New Orleans, one of the most colorful, festive cities in America, deserves better than a team clad in mono-black. Pair those black jerseys with the gold pants, people.
Seahawks	Yes	Not a big fan of the Seahawks' scuba look (they look so much better with some contrast between the jersey and pants), but they've made the mono-navy look their own and have been successful to boot, so there's no fighting it.
Steelers	No	It's hard to imagine the Steelers abandoning their gold pants as long as the Rooney family still owns the team, but you just know there's someone at Nike pushing them to try black pants "just once" to create a mono-black look.
Texans	Yes	The Texans are a rarity: They've gone mono with two different colors! For most teams, this would be overkill, but the Texans' uniforms are so characterless that it's hard to dislike anything that jazzes them up.
Titans	Yes	Another team that's gone mono with two different colors. Team ownership has put the kibosh on the powder blue jersey, so we won't be seeing mono-powder blue again. With navy likely to become the team's primary jersey color in 2015, will we see more mono-navy? Possibly, but the feeling here is that they'd be better off sticking with a more traditional contrasting look.
Vikings	Yes	Ewwwww.
Washington	Yes	Washington has pretty much abandoned its burgundy pants, which is just as well, because the mono effect doesn't work for this team. For all the things Dan Snyder has done wrong, let's give him credit for reviving the gold pants -- and hope he sticks with them.

One final thought: As noted in a recent column, Uni Watch is very much in favor of more color-versus-color games. Now imagine what that would mean for a game between two mono-clad squads. In addition to going mano a mano, the teams would also be going mono on mono -- nice.

Paul Lukas has never caught that other kind of mono. If you liked this column, you'll probably like his Uni Watch Blog, plus you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Want to learn about his Uni Watch Membership Program, be added to his mailing list so you'll always know when a new column has been posted, or just ask him a question? Contact him here.