Old Navy recently revealed their latest line of NFL t-shirts named “Team Champions”, featuring a distressed graphic for every NFL team as well as a notable championship from the teams history.
A slight problem with that idea rears its ugly head when you start assigning either championships a team never won, or even better championships for titles which never existed in the year they claim to have been won.
The Houston Texans, who were established in 2002, obviously never won the 1961 AFC Championship – nor was there even an AFC back in ’61. Presumably the folks creating the t-shirts got seven shades of confused when they saw the Houston OILERS won the AF*L* championship in 1961 (either that or the DALLAS Texans in 196*2*). No matter which way you slice it, this was a major bugger-up.
Does this count as a Phantom Champions t-shirt?
Cleveland Browns fans will be thrilled to know that their team has now won an NFC Championship, remarkable considering they’ve never been in the NFC. Even more remarkable was that they won it in 1964, a full six years before the NFC even existed. For those wondering, the Browns won the NF*L* title in ’64.
All other mix-ups centre around the store apparently unaware of the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, Joe Namath and the New York Jets won Super Bowl III in 1968 as a member of the underdog AFL but that great piece of AFL history has been washed away as the Jets are listed as the 1968 *NFL* Champions. Same for the Kansas City Chiefs of 1969.
Old Navy was made aware of the snafu and removed the items from their website, you can still see the teams that did not feature any errors on their site here.
Chris Creamer is the founder of SportsLogos.Net and has been maintaining it since June 1997. You can follow him on Twitter at @sportslogosnet or contact him via email at ccreamer@sportslogos.net
Edward Martin Curtis
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:31I clicked through to Old Navy's site ... and there's no shirt for the Lions (last championship in 1957).
John Aiken
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:38Didn't Nolan Ryan score a touchdown in the third inning of that game. FAIL !!!! Would rather see the Bills as AFL CHAMPS 1964 or 1965 (with the standing red Buffalo logo as well)
mnj
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:40Derp.
Craig Michaels
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:42This is what happens when your merchandising and marketing is run by 20-somethings who possess little to no knowledge of anything that happened before they were born.
Swiss
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:44Those guys from Old Navy... didn't they check a little Wikipedia about those NFL teams?! :D
Barbara J Bailey
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:49Fact checking is for lusers. Didn't you know that?
Liam Scanlan
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 12:5040 years actually.
Kristen Meyer
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 13:28Wow. Just, wow.
Bill Shannon
Tuesday, September 4, 2012 at 17:57That's what happens when you let Old Navy do their own research.
ingmar66
Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 09:31Hahaha, those old sailors at Old Navy are drunk! They should stick to making shirts with nautical themes. And that does not include team shirts of the Mariners or Clippers.
M
Thursday, September 6, 2012 at 14:10I think the designer is a Cowboys fan... The Cowboys shirt says "5x Super Bowl Champions", while all other Super Bowl winners say "NFL Champions" and only reference one year, even for teams with multiple SB wins. You'd figure they'd at least get the Niners 5x Super Bowls, being that Old Navy headquarters is in San Francisco.
Tim
Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 11:33Old Navy is a is a crappy store with horrible ads.
Jab
Sunday, September 9, 2012 at 01:09Wow beyond lazy and pathetic...I checked the site and the only thing that still bothers me is they only mention the Cowboys as having more than one super bowl( says "5X Champions"). Congrats on the research there guys, but aren't the 49ers 5X champs and steelers 6X champs as well? They just used 1 random year they won the super bowl and threw it on the shirt. Pretty random and strange if u ask me.