The NFL Color Rush is a promotion done in conjunction with the National Football League (NFL) and Nike that promotes so-called "color vs. color" matchups with teams in matchup-specific uniforms that are primarily one solid color with alternating colored accents, primarily airing on Thursday Night Football. Despite being promoted as color vs. color, some games have one team wearing traditional white uniforms, either by choice or out of necessity. The uniforms do not count against each team with regards to their allowed alternate uniform allotment. The games have received mixed responses from fans.
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Early years
In the early days of the NFL up through World War II, it was not uncommon to see teams wearing their team colored uniforms against each other, often only wearing a second jersey if the uniforms were too similar. Following the arrival of the rival All-America Football Conference where each team had both a team colored jersey and a white jersey, NFL teams began adding a white jersey as a neutral color to avoid color clashes. Again, this was only used if teams such as the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers (the latter before the arrival of Vince Lombardi) played each other and had similar jersey colors. Additionally, NFL teams were not required to add a white jersey.
It would not be the AAFC (which partially merged into the NFL in 1950) that would change the status quo, but the mainstream adoption of television. Due to the technical limitations of TV airwaves at the time, broadcasters could only air games (and all other TV programming) in black and white, making it hard for fans to tell their teams apart. Out of necessity, starting with the 1957 NFL season, all NFL teams were required to have both a team colored jersey and a white jersey, with the team colored jerseys being worn at home and white jerseys being worn at away games. This caused teams such as the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Green Bay Packers, and Los Angeles Rams (none of which had a white jersey for the 1956 season) to add a contrasting white jersey. In the Rams case, it also forced the team to drop their gold jersey, as it was considered "too light" to wear against teams wearing white jerseys, replaced by blue jerseys. Other teams such as the Cleveland Browns that had worn white as their primary home uniform were also no longer allowed to wear those jerseys at home.
For the 1964 NFL season, the league allowed the home team to decide which jersey could be worn at home, which prompted many teams to wear their white jerseys at home so that fans could see the colors of the visiting team. With blackout policies not allowing the home games to be aired in home markets until 1973, this also meant that fans not attending games in person at times only saw the team's darker colored uniform on TV, which depending on the television they were watching may still be in black and white. Despite this rule change and the widespread adoption of color television by the end of the 1960s, the color/white rule generally remains in effect for the NFL even as college football relaxed its jersey rules in 2009.
Leaguewide promotions
The NFL began to allow exceptions as part of leaguewide promotions, beginning with the league's 75th Anniversary season in 1994. For the first time, the NFL allowed teams to wear throwback uniforms and in some cases allowed color vs. color as long as the colors did not clash with each other.
Color vs. color matchups would continue for a time in the early 2000s, mostly on Thanksgiving games. In 2002, the league allowed alternate uniforms with some jerseys being allowed to be worn against a colored jersey if it was light enough. Examples included gray jerseys worn by the New England Patriots in the 2000s and the Seattle Seahawks of the present day, as well as a one-off gold alternate by the New Orleans Saints that was worn against the Minnesota Vikings in 2002.
In 2009, the NFL celebrated what would have been the 50th season of the American Football League by allowing each of the original eight AFL teams wear AFL-era throwback uniforms. One of those teams, the Kansas City Chiefs, was granted special permission by the NFL to allow the visiting Dallas Cowboys to wear their early 1960s throwbacks against the Chiefs (wearing throwbacks of their predecessors, the Dallas Texans) in "The Game that Never Was".
Initial rollout
For the 2012 NFL season, Nike replaced Reebok as the league's uniform supplier. As Nike had been the longtime supplier of the Oregon Ducks football team and used the Ducks as the team to start the trend of college football teams radically changing their uniforms on a regular basis, some had speculated that the NFL was about to follow college football's path, or at the very least one team becoming the "Oregon of the NFL". The Seahawks, Vikings, Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Dolphins, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are to date the only teams to completely redesign their uniform since Nike took over, but none of them became the "Oregon of the NFL", with the Browns, Dolphins, and Vikings opting for more traditional styles. This was further subdued in 2013 when the NFL banned alternate helmets out of fears of concussions.
During the Packers annual shareholder meeting in 2015, the team nonchalantly mentioned that color vs. color matchups would be allowed as an option during Thursday Night Football contests in 2015, while becoming mandatory in 2016. Initially, this belief thought teams would be allowed to wear their normal uniforms against each other or even their alternates. However, in a surprise, on October 30, 2015 the NFL announced the initial "Color Rush," a series of four Thursday contests in which all eight teams will wear specially designed alternate uniforms.
The initial rollout featured the Carolina Panthers and Tennessee Titans wearing their regular alternate uniforms (with the Panthers debuting "Carolina blue" pants), while the Dallas Cowboys revived their white "Double Star" uniforms from the mid-1990s (while debuting white pants) and the then-St. Louis Rams wore a yellow version of their 1973–99 throwbacks for the games. The other four teams involved wore all-new uniforms for the games:
Full rollout
For the 2016 NFL season, it was expected that all 32 teams would now participate, with some teams eager to unveil their Color Rush uniforms. The Pittsburgh Steelers—one of the league's more conservative and tradition-bound teams with regards to uniforms—were the only team that did not participate in the 2015 Color Rush that revealed their Color Rush uniform style (but not revealing their uniform itself) before the leaguewide unveil, confirming that it wear all-black uniforms with gold numbers on Christmas Day against the Baltimore Ravens. The team had planned on wearing a Color Rush uniform for its only Thursday Night match up against the Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium, but opted for the home game on Christmas against its hated rival and will wear their standard road uniforms against the Colts. It was later announced that Thanksgiving games were exempt from the Color Rush promotion.
On September 13, 2016, the NFL and Nike unveiled the Color Rush uniforms for all 32 teams. The eight teams that participated in the Color Rush the year before will continue their uniforms while the Steelers had already announced theirs. For 2016, the Jets, Browns, and Rams will wear their regular white uniforms (see below), while the Cardinals, Falcons, and Texans will also wear their regular white uniforms due to their opponents wearing similar Color Rush uniforms and their opponents being the home team. The Lions, Colts, and Redskins will not wear their Color Rush uniforms at all for 2016 due to Thanksgiving games being exempt and none of the three teams having other Thursday night games or (in the Steelers case) playing on Christmas Day. The 2017 Pro Bowl also features the two conference all-star teams in solid red and blue colors respectively.
Team by team
If Color Rush uniform is identical to an existing uniform, "First Use" in a Color Rush game is shown in italics.
Jerseys and pants
Uniforms are primarily one color, although the uniforms include different color accents for the jersey numbers and uniform details. Many uniforms duplicate the stripes and shoulder details of the team's current uniforms, but many do not. The Green Bay Packers' Color Rush Uniforms have the same stripe patterns on the sleeves as their regular uniforms, for instance. Conversely, the New England Patriots Color Rush uniforms mimic the stripes of their uniforms of a previous era. Whereas NFL teams most commonly wear pants in a contrasting color, all the Color Rush uniforms have pants and jerseys of the same color.
Shoes and socks
Color Rush uniforms also have matching colored shoes (instead of black or white) and matching socks.
Helmets
Most teams helmets do not change for the Color Rush games. The Denver Broncos, the New York Giants, and the Los Angeles Rams will wear helmets with versions of older logos affixed in 2016, while the New York Jets wore helmets with the same logo but with a different shade of green, in metallic, in 2015. Since NFL rules dictate that players wear the same helmet throughout the season, only the decals can change, and the shells remain the same color. As a result, although the Broncos Color Rush helmets resemble the ones from early history of the franchise, it is the same shade of blue as currently used.
Opposing team whites
If the Color Rush color is too similar to the home team, or if there are issues with visibility for color-blind viewers, the visiting team will wear their whites. It is unclear how each of these team will modify elements of their uniform for the Color Rush games, if at all. At least one team, the Arizona Cardinals, was given a choice between wearing their traditional white-on-white uniforms or a specially designed all-white uniform from Nike. The Cardinals opted for their traditional whites, with white socks. In week two of 2016, the New York Jets wore white facemasks instead of green, white gloves, solid white socks instead of white with green stripes, and white shoes instead of their usual black in the spirit of the Color Rush program. In week three, the Houston Texans modified their uniforms by wearing solid white socks instead of their blue and white socks. In Week 15, the Rams wore their regular white uniform but switched the horns on the helmet from gold to white, marking the first time the team wore white horns on a helmet since the 1972 season; this was also done as a nod to the Fearsome Foursome.
Color blindness
The first game between the Bills and Jets proved to be particularly problematic, with the Bills' all-red uniforms and the Jets' kelly green outfits being indistinguishable to those with color blindness. The other three games managed to avoid any controversy.
For 2016, Nike brought in doctors from Mount Sinai Hospital to point out potential colorblindness issues. Aside from red-green, the NFL is also avoiding brown-purple (Browns/Ravens) and yellow-green (Rams/Seahawks) matchups, requiring one of those teams to wear white uniforms in those games.
Team participation
Some tradition-rich teams such as the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants chose to wear an all-white ensemble instead of wearing an all-team color ensemble due to not wanting to mess with tradition, despite the Packers playing at home in their first Color Rush game and the team having a historical precedence with an all-green uniform in the early 1950s. (The Packers wearing white in the Color Rush game also marked the first time the team wore white in a home game since a two-game experiment at Lambeau Field in 1989, and only the second time in the team's 97 year history.) Giants co-owner John Mara said that Nike initially approached the team about doing an all-red ensemble (which Mara rejected out of hand) and later an all-blue ensemble (which Mara initially approved, but got cold feet at the last minute) before going with the all-white look as a nod to the Bill Parcells era of the 1980s. Other teams that chose white as their Color Rush uniforms have either traditionally worn white (such as the Dallas Cowboys) or have already worn one-color ensembles as part of their regular uniforms on a regular basis, such as the New Orleans Saints and Cincinnati Bengals; in the latter's case, the team wore white uniforms as a nod to the white tiger.
The Packers and Giants non-participation contrasted with another tradition-rich team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who fully embraced the Color Rush program and received a positive response from their fans over the all-black look. The Steelers plan to make their Color Rush uniform their official alternate uniform for 2017. Other teams such as the Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, and Tennessee Titans went with their existing alternate uniforms for the Color Rush program, as opposed to creating a unique uniform for the games, while the Kansas City Chiefs simply matched their red jerseys up with their red pants--a look that the team had been sporting at times in recent seasons. The Chicago Bears simply wore their blue pants normally worn with their white jerseys with their blue jerseys, a look the team experimented with in the early 2000s.