Tino's Jersey Reviews: Los Angeles Rams
Hello everyone! Welcome back to Tino’s Jersey Reviews!
In the most recent review, we saw a record-breaking score of 9.7 for the Los Angeles Chargers. With their appreciation of the past alongside the evolution of the uniforms for a new home in L.A., it is going to be extremely hard for the last team who released new uniforms for the 2020 season to beat that score. Let’s review the Los Angeles Rams.
First thoughts: I have to bring up the fact that when the Los Angeles Rams unveiled their new logo, it was a nightmare. Many NFL fans were quick to share their distaste for the new look. Can you blame them? The Rams have a classic look, and although their colors and location have changed throughout their time in the NFL, the logo has always stayed the same. The bold move by the Rams really caught my attention. Keeping that in mind, I actually like these new uniforms.
Let’s start with the numbers. The faded gradient feature is something we saw with the Falcons’ new alternate jerseys. It’s new and it works nicely with the uniform itself, due to the pants having a stripe with the same design on the sides. The new number font and color on the away jersey looks sharp as well. It has horn outlines in a glossy shade of dark blue within the numbers themselves, which is a good touch for detail. The new Ram horn on the shoulders is clean, matches with the one on the helmet and most importantly adds some needed flavor to the blue jerseys.
The Rams have released three new uniforms: a home, an away and an alternate. This may be shocking, but my favorite option is by far the new away uniforms. Hear me out: for the Rams to go with an off-white bone color for their away is truly amazing. Why? No one else has done it. When it comes to these reviews, I always look for the details in a uniform that make a team stand out, or a risky change that they chose to go with anyway. This is a great example of that. I saw a lot of backlash from fans on the away uniform, but I think most people tend to hate on something that is different.
I did my research: Out of all 32 NFL teams, no team has an away jersey that isn’t white, excluding the Dallas Cowboys who wear white for home and away games. The closest thing I could find was the Seattle Seahawks’ gray alternate road jerseys. If you are a fan of football and of uniform matchups, then you should love these Rams jerseys. People want the color-on-color games: That’s why the “color rush” uniforms and games were invented! Not only will the off-white look nice on the field, I expect to see a lot of fans with this jersey on as well.
As for the other two options, the home and alternate uniforms, they are not bad. The blue is almost identical to the shade the Rams have been wearing for the past few years now as a throwback home jersey. The yellow is a bit lighter, but in all honesty, if it was any more gold, the Rams would be the Los Angeles Chargers’ ugly twin sister. The blue pants for the alternate are another option, but I don’t think it was necessary.
While not a part of the jersey itself, it should be noted that the new helmets have a metallic chrome blue finish, with a gradient yellow horn and a blue face mask. This looks significantly better than their previous helmets.
Now, taking a closer look at the new uniforms, there is a patch located on the upper left-hand side of the jersey. The patch says “LOS ANGELES RAMS” on it. Most people do not understand the meaning of this. For me, it could be one of two things: either the Rams keep forgetting that they left St. Louis and need to have a name tag on for every game to remember, or they are preparing to have branding on their jerseys. For multiple teams’ practice jerseys, we see patches in the same place, but instead of saying the team name or location, it says the name of a brand or company. For example, the Pittsburgh Steelers have a patch that says “Legendary” on it. Legendary is an American film production and mass media company based in California. So, maybe the Rams have a deal lined up in the future for a big-name brand to advertise on their jerseys. Just look at the NBA – the Minnesota Timberwolves have to wear a Fitbit, not on their wrists but on a patch across their chests. If this is indeed true, another point to me for predicting the future, but also to the Rams for being the first to start the process.
Another interesting thing about the Rams’ new uniforms is the fact that they are not done yet. I don’t think many people saw this picture above, and it deserves so much more attention. A team comes out with new uniforms, rebrands the logo, adds a jersey patch and then says, “Oh yeah, we have two more coming in two years?!” Great job, great marketing. Their hometown rival Chargers could have done this, but instead they gave everyone six new uniform combinations to look forward to for this upcoming season. Less is more here for the Rams. They can listen to the feedback, hear what the fans want and have a perfect opportunity to use that to their advantage and include it in the next set of uniforms. What do I think the 2021 and 2022 Rams uniforms will be? That’s easy. 2021 will be an all-white option for those people who do not like the bone color. Secondly, in 2022, you will see an all yellow look, bringing back a revamped edition or something close to their old color rush, which people called “the mustard uniforms.” I should note that those are just my predictions and I do not work for the Rams, but I should also note that I can predict the future of NFL jerseys.
Okay, enough of the future talk... it is time to the review the final jersey of Tino’s Jersey Reviews!
An amazing away look, gradient coloring in the numbers, not going too far with changes, respecting the history of the Ram horns and leaving us wanting more in the next seasons at a brand-new stadium ...
Tino’s Rating: 8.4
It looks like the two L.A. teams came out on top. The Rams deserved a high rating here: they kept the colors that go well together but added a twist, and those helmets are arguably the best in the league. They got bonus points for leaving me wanting more, with the other jerseys yet to come out. Out of seven reviews, the Rams are second-best, just like they finished second-best to the Patriots in the Super Bowl, thanks to Jared Goff.
