Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Bruce Arians dropped a couple of bombs on us during an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show this morning.
“I think once the helmet rule changes next year, we might have some creamsicles and some throwbacks which I think are the best uniforms in the league”, Arians said after Patrick professed his love for the Bucs’ original 1970s uniform. “But I think the new ones are going to be really, really sharp. More classical.”
Hold up, “once the helmet rule changes next year”?
This is news to us.
For the past several seasons, in an attempt to reduce head injuries, NFL players have been required to wear just one helmet shell per season. This has resulted in many teams unable to wear an accurate throwback uniform, specifically those that have changed the colour of their shell throughout the course of their team’s history. The Buccaneers, who wore a white helmet from 1976 to 1996 before switching to a pewter/silver shell is one of these teams.
Changing this rule to allow multiple helmets per season would, in turn, allow the Bucs to wear their original uniform again. This is fantastic news for uniform lovers — assuming, of course, it doesn’t actually increase the risk in head injuries to players.
Arians’ comment also (essentially) confirms that when the Bucs unveil their new uniform for 2020 next month it will not come with a white helmet. This gives more credibility (not that it needed any) to Paul Lukas’ report two weeks ago about Tampa Bay switching back to uniforms resembling their Super Bowl-winning set from the early 2000s.
Finally… the Creamsicles are returning! Maybe! Next year! Eh, we’ll take it…
Tampa Bay wore the infamous orange uniforms at home, now commonly referred to as the “creamsicle uniform” due to their resemblance in colour to the popular frozen treat of the same name, from their inaugural season in 1976 right up until the end of the 1996 season. They brought them back annually from 2009 through 2012 as a throwback uniform, a practice that stopped with the implementation of the one-helmet rule.
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