Seattle Seahawks to Go Gray: An April Hint Comes to Life

Nike calls it “wolf grey,” but admits the gray has as much to do with Seattle’s limitless bounty of clouds as anything else.

Ever since unveiling the new NFL uniform designs in Brooklyn in April, Seattle Seahawks fans have been waiting for the team to pull out its third jersey, this “wolf grey” alternate. Not that Seattle’s flick of neon on a deep blue weren’t already the most visually striking of the new batch of uniforms—okay, we all know that other than alternates, Seattle was the only team that did any significant freshening—but now we are approaching Week 15 and Seattle will pull out the all-gray for the first time when they travel to Toronto to face Buffalo.

This weekend will mark only the second time Seattle has worn an alternate look and you can expect the added color to only help with the 274% increase in jersey sales the team has already seen since April.

“We have received extremely positive feedback from players and fans about the new uniforms,” said Chuck Arnold, Seahawks vice president of sales and marketing, in a team press release.

Back in April, Nike’s global creative director, Todd Van Horne, said that teams attempt to tell stories with their uniform. Seattle, he said during Nike’s launch of the uniform, plays off Northwest themes with the Seahawks logo and Native American influences. But they use plenty of fresh colors too.

“The colors are rooted in hues of the Seattle environment,” Van Horne said in an interview with me while in Brooklyn. “The blue of the water, the green, white snow-capped mountains and the gray of the ever-changing clouds.”

With a cold and, you guessed it, gray, forecast in Toronto for Sunday, the Seahawks should feel right at home. At least they’ll look it.