Why the Seattle Seahawks Cannot Wear Throwback Uniforms

Guess it's not all on Paul Allen. :?

A friend brought up how the Seattle Seahawks have never worn their throwback uniforms since they gave them up in 2002. I started looking for an answer and it is true, but the answer for why was much more complicated then I thought.

It turns out the NFL changed their uniform rules to allow alternate jerseys in 2002, making them very popular with teams. There is also a rule where the uniforms have to be at least 10 years old before they can be worn as a throwback jersey.
Sometimes that is confused with the rule where a uniform has to be 5 years old before you can change it.

Since the Seahawks first changed their uniforms in 2002, the first time they were eligible for throwback uniforms was in 2012. That was the year they unveiled the current design with the alternate ‘Wolf Grey’ that has been so popular.

In order for the Seahawks to wear their throwback uniforms, they would have to give up the grey alternate and adopt the throwback as their alternate uniform instead.

The dream of the Seahawks wearing silver helmets again was crushed last year when the NFL made a new rule where teams were prohibited,

"The use of alternate colored helmets, eliminating many of the historically accurate throwback uniforms that had been in use up to that point. Teams are still allowed to use alternate decals (or no decals at all) for their throwbacks, but they must use them on the regular helmets.“

When I found that out, I was honestly kind of sad and I hope the league will eventually change their minds.

The time to wear the throwback (to me) has to be when we play old AFC West opponents: the Chiefs, Broncos, Chargers, and Raiders. That happens to be this year, and we have not heard anything about a uniform change, so I think it is going to be a while.

By the way, the picture above is not the original throwback uniform because the face masks are blue, and that didn’t happen until 1983.




I like the wolf grey. But I don't know if it's enough to sacrifice the throwbacks. :3-1:

http://hot975online.com/time-to-break-o ... -seahawks/

This sucks, grey helmets with the grey pants were sick. The league has too many arbitrary rules.

Good ol' No Fun League. Give me a break. Why does the NFL give a rip if a team wants to honor their past AND have alternate contemporary jerseys? And why is it that the Steelers (as an example) can wear both their standard black AND yellow helmets? That right there seems to contradict this rule.

Thanks for the explanation all the same Bruce. I've often wondered what the exact terms and limitations are when it comes to throwbacks.

I agree, I would dump the Wolf Grey's in a heartbeat if it meant we could wear our throwback uniforms from time-to-time. Although it defeats the purpose if we couldn't wear the silver helmets. Geez NFL. :34853_doh:

Jettison the wolf grey. Like yesterday. I know we've had a lot of success in them but man it would be great to see our boys in the old blue and silver.

The helmet rule sucks too. Putting our old logo on our current helmet would not work at all. ukeface:

PlinytheCenter":1dl84dnk said:

Jettison the wolf grey. Like yesterday. I know we've had a lot of success in them but man it would be great to see our boys in the old blue and silver.

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Amen. It seems completely ridiculous to me that it may never happen.

Didn't know about that helmet rule. I guess that means the Pats can't wear their sick throwbacks. I lloved the old patriot compared to the flying Elvii.

That helmet rule messes everything up. The Rams old school blue and white, Cowboys original white, Broncos orange Falcons red, heck even the Bucs original. This sucks.

I strongly dislike Goodell. ukeface:

Aros":3c0a20oi said:

Good ol' No Fun League. Give me a break. Why does the NFL give a rip if a team wants to honor their past AND have alternate contemporary jerseys? And why is it that the Steelers (as an example) can wear both their standard black AND yellow helmets? That right there seems to contradict this rule.

Thanks for the explanation all the same Bruce. I've often wondered what the exact terms and limitations are when it comes to throwbacks.

I agree, I would dump the Wolf Grey's in a heartbeat if it meant we could wear our throwback uniforms from time-to-time. Although it defeats the purpose if we couldn't wear the silver helmets. Geez NFL. :34853_doh:

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Steelers are a legacy team, they get special favors for them. Like in Super Bowl XL, we were supposed to wear Road Jerseys but for some reason they got to.

Too many of you livin' in the past... (kind of like 49er fans)

Sorry, bros (and chicks) but these are the Seahawks of the here and now... new jerseys are the envy of the league.

All Wolf Greys are the best of our battle armor. And when they can, I would bet the Seahawks will adopt them as their Second Primary uni... at least that is the hope, my hope.

Blue and Silver were so 2001. So old they almost seem like a mirage. AFC Seahawks if you will. Not hating as you old timers as I became a fan in '97. So I only had 4 years with those jerseys, and I hardly remember them in my adolescencent years.

I don't have those 20 years of remembering the time before I was a fan. And I know many of you those are your wonder years as a fan, the 80's that were so fun, and the 90's that weren't so fun. But again those were your AFC Seahawks playing in the Kingdome.

What I remember most are the NFC Seahawks playing at Qwest/Century Link.

The team that donned monotone Seahawks blue that made the most dominate run in franchise history with:

5 Straight Play-Off Appearances
4 Straight Division Championships
First 13 Win Season
First Conference Championship
First Superbowl Appearance

And the current Seahawks who have became the envy of the NFL starting an even more dominant run under Pete Carroll than Mike Holmgren's success between '03-'07.

Lot of memorable moments under Caroll that I don't even need to list, and I love what the Seahawks have done with their jersies and they've pretty much become the colors of bad ass, smash-mouth, dominant football.

And Paul Allen... if he hasn't given the green light for a Silver and Blue revival in the last decade, I doubt he will do so now, he even chose puke Lime Green over the Old School throwbacks.

Frankly if any message is clear its that these current Seahawks are Allen's regime, his franchise, this is his empire, what he built, and the change of Uniform have been symbolic of that and as he brought the Seahawks into its new age, an era of success.... he has slowly let the past fade away as such... into the past.

You guys should too.

However if the Seahawks do adopt Wolf Grey as a primary which they can I believe after 2015. Its a possibility the Seahawks could go with Throwback alternates with a little Nike flair added, and what better year to unviel those bastards than 2016 to celebrate 40 years of the Seahawks in Seattle.

RunTheBall":3qav8g4t said:

Steelers are a legacy team, they get special favors for them. Like in Super Bowl XL, we were supposed to wear Road Jerseys but for some reason they got to.

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I think the AFC and NFC alternate home/away every year for the SB, and home gets first pick on the unis. Basically, every even-numbered year the AFC gets to pick (everyone in Denver had a boner because they were going to wear their orange...ooooooo.)

I still don't see why teams can't just slap a temporary vinyl on their helmets for throwback games. Even swapping the facemasks shouldn't be a big deal. It also seems silly that players only have one helmet? The NFL is a multi-billion dollar industry, what is so difficult about replicating custom helmets for players so that they have more than one? Especially with the tirades some of these guys go on, slamming the crap out of them on the ground...

morgulon1":17rou6rk said:

That helmet rule messes everything up. The Rams old school blue and white, Cowboys original white, Broncos orange Falcons red, heck even the Bucs original. This sucks.

I strongly dislike Goodell. ukeface:

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I get the feeling that if people bought alternate helmets like they do alternate jerseys, this helmet rule would cease to be in place. Follow the money . . .

“Our Head, Neck, and Spine Committee, chaired by Drs. Hunt Batjer and Richard Ellenbogen, and the Player Safety Advisory Panel, chaired by John Madden and Ronnie Lott, have recommended that players no longer wear different helmets as part of a ‘Throwback’ or ‘Third’ uniform,” the memo from the league office said. “Our office supports this change and has reviewed it with the chairman of our Health and Safety ownership committee, Dr. John York, who concurs with this recommendation.”

The league office told all teams planning to wear throwback uniforms this season that players must wear their regular helmets on throwback dates. The outside of the helmet can be modified by removing or replacing decals, but the helmet itself must stay the same. Once players have properly fitted helmets that they’re comfortable wearing, the NFL doesn’t want them changing helmets during the season just for appearances.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... k-helmets/

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PlinytheCenter":fod3duv4 said:

Jettison the wolf grey. Like yesterday. I know we've had a lot of success in them but man it would be great to see our boys in the old blue and silver.

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Agreed. The wolf grey unis absolutely suck. They look like the white unis covered in soot. As if they just staggered out from within the cloud of dust after the World Trade Center collapse. You don't need three different color versions of the exact same current uniform (one of which looks like a 'dirty' version of the whites), you need to have a legitimate throwback uni that you can trot out once a year which celebrates the origins and history of the franchise.

OK, I'm in the 38yr club, but I'll pass on the throwbacks. I dunno...the old hawk in a coma conjures images of brilliant games followed by slapstik comedy, Dave K. bar-o-soap-style backward fumbles & angry indian spirits rubbing salt into our wounds. They were almost but not good enough at their best.
Why do some of you persist with the desire to go back? It's warped to wax nostalgic about having yer fingernails pulled out with pliers.

Aros":2cp56w4f said:

Good ol' No Fun League. Give me a break. Why does the NFL give a rip if a team wants to honor their past AND have alternate contemporary jerseys? And why is it that the Steelers (as an example) can wear both their standard black AND yellow helmets? That right there seems to contradict this rule.

Thanks for the explanation all the same Bruce. I've often wondered what the exact terms and limitations are when it comes to throwbacks.

I agree, I would dump the Wolf Grey's in a heartbeat if it meant we could wear our throwback uniforms from time-to-time. Although it defeats the purpose if we couldn't wear the silver helmets. Geez NFL. :34853_doh:

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The short answer: Money.

Through NFL Properties, the marketing arm of the league which licenses all the merchandise sold by the league, there are scores of contracts with vendors and manufacturers like Nike of everything from clothing to coffee cups, and in these contracts, there are specific provisions that are inserted in order to protect the vendor from having their contracts compromised by individual teams that for one reason or another, want to do something different that would limit the sales opportunities of the item the vendor paid good money for.

There are also rules designed to protect us customers. For example, a team cannot replace their base jerseys, such as our Nike blue home jersey, every few years so that you and me don't go out and buy a game jersey one season only to have it become obsolete the following season.

So while these rules may seem nonsensical to us, they make perfect sense to some accountant or lawyer within the league office. I can almost guarantee you that Roger Goodell couldn't change policy regarding the use of uniforms even if he wanted to unless it had something to do with player safety.

RunTheBall":5ml88mp9 said:

Aros":5ml88mp9 said:

Good ol' No Fun League. Give me a break. Why does the NFL give a rip if a team wants to honor their past AND have alternate contemporary jerseys? And why is it that the Steelers (as an example) can wear both their standard black AND yellow helmets? That right there seems to contradict this rule.

Thanks for the explanation all the same Bruce. I've often wondered what the exact terms and limitations are when it comes to throwbacks.

I agree, I would dump the Wolf Grey's in a heartbeat if it meant we could wear our throwback uniforms from time-to-time. Although it defeats the purpose if we couldn't wear the silver helmets. Geez NFL. :34853_doh:

Click to expand...

Steelers are a legacy team, they get special favors for them. Like in Super Bowl XL, we were supposed to wear Road Jerseys but for some reason they got to.

Click to expand...

They were the assigned home team and thus had the right to chose white. :roll:

Yea, I was delighted to see the Stealers choose white in XL. I hated those road kill whites. Holmgren's teams used to get slaughtered wearing those threads. That's one of the reasons why wolf grey appeals to me like it does.

I believe the Steelers chose white because they were a wildcard team and we're winning in white all through the playoffs.

HawKnPeppa":25q23tdj said:

OK, I'm in the 38yr club, but I'll pass on the throwbacks. I dunno...the old hawk in a coma conjures images of brilliant games followed by slapstik comedy, Dave K. bar-o-soap-style backward fumbles & angry indian spirits rubbing salt into our wounds. They were almost but not good enough at their best.
Why do some of you persist with the desire to go back? It's warped to wax nostalgic about having yer fingernails pulled out with pliers.

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Because it's a great way to honor the players and coaches that came before.

Because it's a part of our history that should not be forgotten.

Because those uniforms were awesome.

Because there is not enough of those jerseys being worn in the stands or on the street, and a Lynch #24 throwback would sell like water in the desert.

The one thing about our old uniforms I hated was that silly stoned seagull. It was almost as bad of a logo as Tampa Bay's gay pirate.