The Uniform Thread

Personally, I like it. I'd prefer three stripes instead of two, but the point is to simplify. Someone mentioned Ohio State, and funny enough, Ohio State had a similar change take place back in the early 2000s, where they got rid of the silver pattern they had for years on the sleeves, and went instead with the exact same stripe that they have on their helmet.

And that's what this is. The helmet stripe, the sleeve stripe, the pant stripe... All identical to one another:


And hey, I'll also give a shout out to Reuben Foster, who has been rocking white cleats. Solid look. More players should go do this. If Reuben can split the difference on how high he pulls up the white portion of his socks, we'll have the perfect way to wear this uniform.

Yep I love it. All the players should go with the white shoes. #notracist

Originally posted by Still_too_soon:

Personally, I like it. I'd prefer three stripes instead of two, but the point is to simplify. Someone mentioned Ohio State, and funny enough, Ohio State had a similar change take place back in the early 2000s, where they got rid of the silver pattern they had for years on the sleeves, and went instead with the exact same stripe that they have on their helmet.

And that's what this is. The helmet stripe, the sleeve stripe, the pant stripe... All identical to one another:


And hey, I'll also give a shout out to Reuben Foster, who has been rocking white cleats. Solid look. More players should go do this. If Reuben can split the difference on how high he pulls up the white portion of his socks, we'll have the perfect way to wear this uniform.

If we were creating a jersey from scratch, matching the helmet, sleeve, and pants stripes would make sense. But we have a traditional look to our sleeves. Its the only thing that differentiates our plain 2 color jerseys from any random college team, like Nebraska. You have to keep that look intact.

Looking at the size of the two stripes on the jersey, I still don't see how they can't squeeze a third stripe in.

Originally posted by Niners99:
If we were creating a jersey from scratch, matching the helmet, sleeve, and pants stripes would make sense. But we have a traditional look to our sleeves. Its the only thing that differentiates our plain 2 color jerseys from any random college team, like Nebraska. You have to keep that look intact.

Yeah, I totally understand where you are coming from on this one. Like I said, Ohio State changed their sleeve stripes in a similar way back in 2001 or 2002, and there are a lot of fans that still complain about it. There's a fine line you have to walk on these things. All the design teams at Nike and Under Armor have put a lot of pressure on teams to change styles over time. Some teams are better at dealing with it than other teams. The Steelers fight any changes at all. Meanwhile, teams that have no history, or a bad history (Jags), don't fight it at all, and are willing to scrap what they have every five years in search of something that will make their fans forget how crappy the teams are.

With the sleeve stripe thing gone, the 49ers really only have the color scheme to lean on. And that does kind of suck. I agree. But the garbage stripes they had been using the past several years was truly awful. I just hated it. For me, whatever it took to get rid of that was good for me.

Originally posted by mayo49:
Looking at the size of the two stripes on the jersey, I still don't see how they can't squeeze a third stripe in.

So, please do take this with an enormous grain of salt. But I talked with a guy on Reddit who says his wife works for Nike. We had a pretty long back and forth on it, and I actually kind of believe him on that (as much as you can believe a stranger on the internet). He says that the stripe change happened because Nike is putting pressure on teams with three stripes to go with two stripes now. reason being that Addidas is the three-stripe company. I can't say that it's Addidas threatening Nike with copyright, or if it's Nike just not wanting to use anything that reminds people of Addidas, but it's just one of those deals where the brands are telling the teams what they want to do.

Because those stripes all line up and make the jersey "clean", for lack of a better word, it's probably a change we are going to have to live with for forever.

Originally posted by Still_too_soon:

Originally posted by mayo49:

Looking at the size of the two stripes on the jersey, I still don't see how they can't squeeze a third stripe in.

So, please do take this with an enormous grain of salt. But I talked with a guy on Reddit who says his wife works for Nike. We had a pretty long back and forth on it, and I actually kind of believe him on that (as much as you can believe a stranger on the internet). He says that the stripe change happened because Nike is putting pressure on teams with three stripes to go with two stripes now. reason being that Addidas is the three-stripe company. I can't say that it's Addidas threatening Nike with copyright, or if it's Nike just not wanting to use anything that reminds people of Addidas, but it's just one of those deals where the brands are telling the teams what they want to do.

Because those stripes all line up and make the jersey "clean", for lack of a better word, it's probably a change we are going to have to live with for forever.

If true, thats an insanely retarded reason for Nike to have done this. Do they seriously believe that ANYTHING with 3 stripes represents Adidas? They got the NFL contract. How petty and scared do you have to be to push teams away from 3 sleeve stripes? Thats pathetic.

Originally posted by Still_too_soon:

Originally posted by mayo49:
Looking at the size of the two stripes on the jersey, I still don't see how they can't squeeze a third stripe in.

So, please do take this with an enormous grain of salt. But I talked with a guy on Reddit who says his wife works for Nike. We had a pretty long back and forth on it, and I actually kind of believe him on that (as much as you can believe a stranger on the internet). He says that the stripe change happened because Nike is putting pressure on teams with three stripes to go with two stripes now. reason being that Addidas is the three-stripe company. I can't say that it's Addidas threatening Nike with copyright, or if it's Nike just not wanting to use anything that reminds people of Addidas, but it's just one of those deals where the brands are telling the teams what they want to do.

Because those stripes all line up and make the jersey "clean", for lack of a better word, it's probably a change we are going to have to live with for forever.

That's f**ked up if that is the reason why it's only two stripes. Nike is just plain paranoid if they think it will look like an Adidas logo.

I still think we have the dopest uniforms in the league

Originally posted by ninerfan4life:
I still think we have the dopest uniforms in the league

Yeah, I love our uni's. The only beef I got is the lack of a third stripe and the gold outline around the SF on the logo. It should just be the the logo with the black outline.

Originally posted by mayo49:

Originally posted by Still_too_soon:

Originally posted by mayo49:
Looking at the size of the two stripes on the jersey, I still don't see how they can't squeeze a third stripe in.

So, please do take this with an enormous grain of salt. But I talked with a guy on Reddit who says his wife works for Nike. We had a pretty long back and forth on it, and I actually kind of believe him on that (as much as you can believe a stranger on the internet). He says that the stripe change happened because Nike is putting pressure on teams with three stripes to go with two stripes now. reason being that Addidas is the three-stripe company. I can't say that it's Addidas threatening Nike with copyright, or if it's Nike just not wanting to use anything that reminds people of Addidas, but it's just one of those deals where the brands are telling the teams what they want to do.

Because those stripes all line up and make the jersey "clean", for lack of a better word, it's probably a change we are going to have to live with for forever.

That's f**ked up if that is the reason why it's only two stripes. Nike is just plain paranoid if they think it will look like an Adidas logo.

makes NO sense..the bears still wear 3 stripes on their throwback jerseys and socks

Originally posted by Dr_Bill_Walsh:

Originally posted by mayo49:

Originally posted by Still_too_soon:

Originally posted by mayo49:

Looking at the size of the two stripes on the jersey, I still don't see how they can't squeeze a third stripe in.

+ Show all quotes
So, please do take this with an enormous grain of salt. But I talked with a guy on Reddit who says his wife works for Nike. We had a pretty long back and forth on it, and I actually kind of believe him on that (as much as you can believe a stranger on the internet). He says that the stripe change happened because Nike is putting pressure on teams with three stripes to go with two stripes now. reason being that Addidas is the three-stripe company. I can't say that it's Addidas threatening Nike with copyright, or if it's Nike just not wanting to use anything that reminds people of Addidas, but it's just one of those deals where the brands are telling the teams what they want to do.

Because those stripes all line up and make the jersey "clean", for lack of a better word, it's probably a change we are going to have to live with for forever.

That's f**ked up if that is the reason why it's only two stripes. Nike is just plain paranoid if they think it will look like an Adidas logo.

makes NO sense..the bears still wear 3 stripes on their throwback jerseys and socks

Looks like a Nikidas jersey

Im so tempted to make a custom #56 jersey that reads "FROSTER" lol.

Originally posted by Dr_Bill_Walsh:
makes NO sense..the bears still wear 3 stripes on their throwback jerseys and socks

I agree, and I brought that up. I didn't really get a great response. Basically he said that his wife loves her job, and is not in the NFL division right now, so she isn't 100% sure, but is pretty sure how it went down. The other point he made was that the end sign off on these changes are with the team owner. That's typically why so many uniforms are terrible. Some owners are easier to work with, some harder. Some don't want any changes, some are open to a ton of changes. The thought is that the Bears just told Nike to BTFO on any changes, and the 49ers were more open, having already ditched the sock stripes. Nike pushed it because they don't want the three stripes, but probably SOLD it as something that cleans up the jersey, which frankly, is totally true. It's a cleaner look. I say that as a uni-nazi.

Originally posted by SmokeCrabtrees:

Im so tempted to make a custom #56 jersey that reads "FROSTER" lol.

People are going way too far with that joke. It was funny for a couple days, but that's about it.