The biggest news coming out of the annual league meeting in Phoenix this week has been the vote to move the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas. The Green Bay Packers, however, created some news of their own on the final day of the week-long meeting.
Team President and CEO Mark Murphy petitioned team owners to approve a change in the Packers’ logo and team uniform.
Murphy presented artist renderings and samplers of the proposed new helmet, which features the standard Packers logo, but with a different color scheme. Unlike the current look, which features a white “G” on a green oval background, the new look features a black “G” in a yellow oval, and on a black helmet. Other than the team logo, the helmet is solid black, and without the green and white striping that goes from front to back across the crest of the current helmet.
Murphy indicated to the other NFL executives that the black helmet and its black “G” logo would become part of the team’s away uniform, whereas the current yellow helmet and logo would remain the home uniform.
The idea originated among several Green Bay board members who felt the league was becoming too style-oriented, and resorting to trendy, rather than traditional, color schemes.
The breaking point for a majority of the board was when the NFL last year introduced “color rush” uniforms for Thursday night games. “It’s just a marketing idea that takes away from the fundamental appeal of the sport,” Murphy told the group.
Murphy indicated the Packers want to move back toward an image the NFL has projected for most of its nearly 100-year history: the sport as a no-frills full-out physical confrontation among the best athletes in the world.
Board members pointed to a study that has been done showing that college football teams that wear predominantly black helmets win over 53 percent of their games, while teams that wore predominantly white or light-colored helmets had winning percentages of only 45 percent. The research covered over 300 Division 1 NCAA teams over the 10-year period from 2006-15.
Board member Andrew B. Turnbull argued that the team could benefit from having a little extra motivation to perform well when playing away from Lambeau Field. The black helmets would make the players look more “menacing,” claimed Turnbull, and that attitude might carry over into the players playing a more physical and intense brand of football.
If three-fourths of other NFL teams agree, the proposal could be approved as early as the annual league meeting next spring.
Rob Born wrote: