Ok my friend who has been working for the team for many years told me back in '07 that the Saints were pushing for a uniform change coming off the heels of the '06 season. If the change would have been approved they would have been wearing those uniforms this year given the NFL's 2-year policy on changing your threads.
The push was for the team to switch to a black version of their current helmet as they did in '69 during the pre-season. Tag's rejected the switch stating that both the team and it's colors had a 're-newed' faith in the city after Hurricane Katrina and it would not be in the best intrest of the club to change after such a succesful season thus keeping the team in it's customary gold domes!
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Some of you might not know but I'm in the process of doing a uniform history guide for use by either this site or the official team site. I had some trouble pin-pointing the accuracy of dates and tweaks in the unis and so I got to the dome early for the game against Houston to see if I could find answers from the teams hall of fame.
I did!..........
The guy who was in charge of I guess crowd control had been with the team since it's inception and he was very knowledgeable (did I spell it right) about the teams uniform. I found out that the team actually uses 4 different golds between their home and away unis (why? we still want to know) The helmet, collar (home), numbers, pants (gold). He said the only accurate gold combination is when the team wears their away jersey paired with the gold pants because the gold trim around the black numerals is actually a lighter shade of gold closer to that of the pants and helmet than what they use for their numerals on their home jersey.
He said that they use a darker gold for the black jersey because it is easier to view against all the black which is why they ditched the gold numerals on the white jersey when Ditka brought them back. He said if they used the gold of the away jersey on the home jersey then the golds would come as close as possible to matching given that you are using them on 3 different textiles plastic, material (collar-elastic), tackle twill and polyester/lycra (pants).
Here comes the good stuff....
The team did try to use a black/white/black stripe pattern like their helmet once they ditched the black pants with the wide gold stripe during the Ditka era. The pants never made it to the field because management didn't like how the FDL looked inside the stripe and they insisted on keeping the FDL on the hip so they kept the solid '90's era pants til' this day.
The highlight of my hall of fame trip came to when the guy directed me to a small room dubbed "The Locker Room" which sits off to the corner in the area were the team keeps the busts' of former players. If you don't turn around you'd almost miss it like I did.
The first thing that stuck out to me was this peculiar looking jersey that
I know I've never seen before. Why was it amongst uni's of years past? On the wall next to the entrance I found my answer! It was pictures of a uni concept that was dated for Sept. 27, 2000. They didn't have any company information to who did the concept but It was authentic.
The team had a new font for both the numbers and script. A wordmark was to be added to both jerseys. They were bringing back the white pants to be worn at home, gold on the road and black as an option although the display had the black jersey prototype paired with the gold pants.
The thing that I didn't like the most was that the gold pants had a thin white stripe outside of the black stripe which wouldn't have gone with the stripe pattern of the helmet. The numbers on the home jersey were going back to white trimmed in gold with gold neck and sleeve cuff, gold FDL's on the shoulder and 'Saints' in gold as a wordmark. The socks would be as they are now.
I took pics and did a mock up of the jersey using my Reebok template as to what they would look like if the team did them now. The numbers are what I could draw as close to what I saw but I didn't change the script (didn't have the time) but you can get the point.
The other great find was that they acutally had a black prototype helmet made and sent to the league back then and it was because some owners wanted the option to use 2 helmets but the vote never passed and the black helmet once again never saw the light of the dome!
Sorry for the long post it's a lot of info. Enjoy the pics and IM me if you have any other questions that I can possibly answer.
Wid Shot of The Uniform Concept
Close up of the home uni concept, I have the away will post later
Close view of helmet prototype
Wide view of the helmet prototype, number and script font
Actual jersey prototype made for the team
My version of their concept
I wanted to steal this jersey. The 75th anniv. jersey from 1994
Various unis from years past (notice the ditka era gold number away jersey)
Also reminds me of the Ravens. I still like the old-school numbers and logo; the colors can vary but ditch the contemporary looking garbage....JMO.
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