Friday, April 24, 2020

Did ESPN Leak the New Rams Helmet?

LOOKING AHEAD
By John Turney
We've covered the Rams unis/logo situation and we apologize for that, but we have to add to those posts tonight. On ESPN's draft coverage a shot of what looks like a Rams helmet showed up on the screen.

Although the Rams uniform announcement is yet to be announced (the logo was announced on March 23rd) this seems more accurate that most leaks. There is no way it could be a playful prank directed by the Rams CEO Kevin Demoff because he would never participate in any kind of troll of Rams fans. No, not him.

Anyway. Here is a breakdown of a few points of interest in a screenshot of the helmet that appeared on ESPN—

Also, there was a second CGI helmet that was less detailed but did have the new primary logo on the front bumper. This helmet is Ram Royal but is not a gradient, but is the wider, less tight classic Rams horn—
Let's review:
Helmet = Rams Royal  ✔  (consistent with logo colors)
Horn = Sol  ✔  (consistent with logo colors)
Horn = Looks like it begins white  ✔  (consistent with logo horn)
Horn = looks like it may end in Sunset ✔  (consistent with logo horn)
Horn = Fibonacci Sequence  ✔  (consistent with logo horn)
Helmet = Has rear bumper with new wordmark  ✔ (consistent with new wordmark)
Helmet =  Has front bumper with new logo  ✔ (consistent with new primary logo)
Helmet = Odd finish, not easily faked  ✔  (rumors of a matte finish, but this kind of iridescence-looking
Helmet = Perhaps a Heritage Blue mask  ✔  (hard to tell, but may be darker shade of blue than shell)
This appeared on ESPN, not some blog  ✔  (had to be approved by NFL)

If you look, the back bumper has this wordmark
Here is the primary Ram logo announced a month ago—

Here are the official Rams colors—
And here are the similarities with what we see in the possible leak of the new helmet—

The Fibonacci sequence horn which the Rams made a big deal about is present in both. Both begin white and then it seems to gradually change to Sol then maybe to light orange or Sunset.

Again, we cannot be 100% sure, we are certainly willing to admit error if we are are not seeing things correctly or if this is simply a temporary stand-in helmet for television, but it does seem like a legit-type accidental leak of a Ram helmet that meets a lot of the criteria. And at first, we didn't notice the white in the front of the horn, then we looked closer and the gradient became a bit more noticeable.

However, with the graphic/peel filter or whatever is in front of the helmet it is impossible to tell with any certainly so there gradient may not be there, it may just be a Sol (yellow) horn on a royal helmet. Other views of a CGI helmet looked to NOT have a gradient horn, so there is that data point which suggests we may be seeing things that are not there in the above and below screenshots.

Try this, with the helmet reversed it is kind of a coincidence that the purported glare from some Twitter naysayers coincides with the logo. But it may just be a coincidence. Or the whole thing may be an ESPN mockup of a helmet based on limited information (they had to show something) and they did the best they could with limited data.

So, gradient horn or not we're not going to go "all in" on that. It's just too hard to tell and there is some sort of "peel filter" or graphic over the botton half of the helmet that obscures the design as well as a "Rams" graphic over that. But, it's clearly not the usual/traditionally shaped Rams horn, it's the new "Fibonacci" ratio horn, of that we're sure.

Time will tell if this is the real helmet or not, but this does seem like a fairly plausible leak with a plausible representation of the new Rams helmet.

Thoughts?

In the meantime, here are a couple more clear shots—

5 comments:

  1. Fred Gehrke would probably say they're overthinking the thing.....

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  2. Extreme overthinking and seeing what you want to see. I don't see true gradient. I know what you mean by white to begin but it has the yellow horn peeled off. This is ridiculous. Also don't see the Fibonacci or whatever, curvature looks pretty similar/same to helmets we've had for the last few decades, this is definitely not a "circle" like Fibonacci. Why don't you say the blue is gradient too? there are several spots where the blue is not the same blue (obviously it is the light and glare, just like it is on the yellow)

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    Replies
    1. The horn is different than the horn of the last few decades.

      It IS debateable about the gradient of the horn. And we said that. If if you think that horn is the same you are seeing what you want to see, I think. Just like you know the Chiefs every little detail we know this and every little detail of it. this is the new horn, it's more of a circle, rounded, not like the tradition ram horn.

      We don't say the glue is a gradient because it's clearly not.

      The white beginning then to yellow to darker yellow could be a trick of lighting but it is an odd coindicence that the lighting matches the logo gradient. So, while the horn gradient may be an illusion, the shape of the horn is not.

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  3. The curvature of the horn ends differ in the two new logos, with the one on the Ram’s head being more of circle and the one in the LA logo being more open like the letter “C”. Furthermore, neither depicts the horn end curving back up. That said, the traditional helmet horn and the one shown by ESPN both clearly have the horn curling with the end pointing “up”.

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