Broncos Roll Out Some New and Some Old Looks With New Uniforms

 By John Turney

The Denver Broncos released their new uniforms and a classic uniform today. The Broncos, if you recall were the first to go with Nike designs and in 1997 began the "navy" blue era, changing the blue to a darker shade. 

Shots from the 1997 reveal 

There were mixed feelings at the time and today it's the same. Online there are some who say they are "fire", but seems like a lot of opposition as well "garbage"— so again, mixed results just like 1997.

First, the easy part. T

he throwbacks patterned after the 1977 Super Bowl uniforms are excellent. Could not have done it any better. Give them a "A" because they hit all the notes, clean classic.

Well done.

The throwbacks, the "classics"

The rest? Hard to say. They don't fail like many of the Nike concepts but they have all the silly components that Nike likes to say "inspired" then look so, it's a case of somethings are decent. Some things are over the top.

The colors are the same as before -- navy, orange and white, of course, but the names are tarted up. They are calling the the orange "sunset orange" for example. The white is "summit white". Okay fine. The the navy is "midnight navy" from the department of redundancy department.

The mountains on the sleeves and the "5280" all over everything (overdone) are pretty gimmicky but subtle enough that they won't show too much on television and photos. 

There are three jerseys, three pants and two helmets and creates a mile high pile of combinations—

The helmets were switched to a matte finish, away from the glossy one, and have an odd decal composed of tiny triangles that form an arrow in the back and have a "5280" on the front bumper.

The decals are supposed to represent a climb upward. 

The alternate "snowcap" helmet -- "summit white"

In a statement, Broncos president Damani Leech said,

"It was great to hear from the Nike folks, from a pure design standpoint, them talking about what it felt like in 1997 — or from the ones that weren’t there, how they study uniform history and how it felt like in 1997 was incredibly innovative. We still want to do that. We wanted to move the aesthetic forward, move the game forward. And we wanted expansion. We want this to be something that a new, young, diverse fanbase can say, wow, that’s amazing. I want to be a part of that from a fan standpoint and I want to wear that from an apparel standpoint."

Apparently, the team wanted the whole uniform set to reflect Colorado's mountains and it is all over the uniforms.  The "snowcapped" white helmets introduced last year foreshadowed it, we suppose.

The Broncos are in a mountain motif for at least the next five years. 

So, the throwbacks are an "A" and the rest is a "B-". The design is just Nike trying to show off but the whole thing is saved because navy, orange and white are a good color combination.

Here are some closeups of the uniform "narrative" if you are into that kind of thing—