The last time Bruce Allen was asked about the Redskins uniforms, he was unable to finish his answers to any of the questions. Yesterday, Allen was a guest on Redskins Nation with Larry Michael. The two talked about the snow ("Redskins weather," Allen called it), the value of the Scouting Combine, getting read for free agency, and more, and you can see all of that in the video here.



But Allen also got a second chance to talk about the rumors of an offseason uniform change, and Larry Michael -- unlike Steve Czaban -- actually let him answer. Here's how it went (italics and boldface added by me):

Last post on Bruce Allen's appearance on ESPN980 yesterday, following on his reminiscences about the past and discussion of the current offseason.

After all that serious talk was done, co-host Steve Czaban jumped in with one last question, one that is very important to the fanbase, at least based on my web traffic and the emails I get featuring helmet mock-ups (such as the one up top of this post): he asked about the possibility of a change to the Redskins uniforms.

Czaban tends to be very good about asking these kind of voice-of-the-fans questions, which is terrific. Unfortunately, as we'll see, this time he didn't actually feel like listening to the voice of the GM for the answer.

(Let me interject here as I always do, to clearly state: I am hearing that there will be NO change to the uniforms. The helmet above is a fan creation. All the rumors and speculation are just that. But it's been a subject of much discussion, online and off, and Czaban saw an opportunity and wisely went for it.)

"I've gotta add one last thing," Czaban said. "The uniform. A lot of people are really into the uniform--"

"Like you," co-host Andy Pollin interjected.

"-- and have very particular ideas about it," Czaban continued, "some more traditional than others. Is there anything going on with the Redskins uniform that we should know about? Redesigns? Tweaks?"

"Oh, no," Allen said. "No."

For the record, that seems pretty clear and unequivocal. And, just to be even more certain, Czaban asked the obvious follow-up: "No?"

All the credit in the world to commenter Terence, who kindly pointed out that there was much more to Gameplan Creative's proposed Redskins uniforms than I showed in my earlier post. (My fault; I was completely misunderstanding their site navigation.)

And, since the earlier post kind of caught on a little bit -- albeit not always in the most favorable way -- I figure I'd be remiss if I didn't share the rest of this stuff as well.

Apparently, according to the site, "Gameplan developed over 30 different uniform studies with the top 12 represented. The Redskins team helmet designs reflect the different uniform designs. In addition, Gameplan proposed an alternate Monday Night Special black uniform."

Including, apparently, a few suggested Monday Night Special black helmets (click image to enlarge):


And also including multiple treatments of the Monday Night Special black uniform:

There is still no news on any alterations to the Redskins jersey or helmets this season. That hasn't changed. But the topic is endlessly rewarding for blogging purposes, that's for sure.

As Dan Steinberg has pointed out, Chris Cooley was asked about a uniform switch in his NFL.com chat yesterday:

Q: Heard you guys may be getting new jerseys. You hear anything?

Chris Cooley, Washington Redskins: I've heard something about black. I know everyone likes the original whiote Redskins jersey. But it would be awesome to change it up every once in a while.

This black jersey rumor comes up again and again. Sometimes, the story is that it's something the team was exploring at some point in the past. Other times, it's something that's happening in the future, either as an alternate or a jersey revision. During the 2008 season, a reader was absolutely confident in a series of emails that the team would wear some sort of black alternate for the game commemorating the one-year anniversary of Sean Taylor's death. But it didn't happen then, and it doesn't appear to be coming up any time in the immediate future either.

Which is not to say that it wasn't explored at some point. Buried in the comments on yesterday's first post on this subject, a commenter by the name of mrbeef9 posted a link to a gallery on the website of Gameplan Creative, a "Chicago-based, award winning sports + entertainment branding and marketing agency."

The title of the gallery? NFL Redskins Rebranding.


Here's the accompanying blurb:

In collaboration with the Washington Redskins, Gameplan Creative researched and proposed an extensive rebranding initiative for the NFL franchise. Based on input from the team and Redskins fans and outfitters, we developed an enhanced identity which included a new home and road uniform, an alternate 3rd uniform, updated and new secondary marks and a comprehensive brand adherence program. The goal was to stay true to the iconic brand while evolving the marks to a more modern and merchandise-friendly look and to create a standardized style guide for a consistant Redskins brand experience.

As best as I can piece together, this was something that almost occurred almost half a decade ago, and -- thankfully, in my opinion -- did not become a reality.

Let me get the news-y bit of this out of the way up top: as of this moment, there's no news on any uniform changes for the upcoming season. I've asked around a little bit at Redskins Park, and no one has heard anything about any changes to the helmet, the jersey, the colors ... nothing.

The rumors are flying, though. There's a 15-plus page thread on ExtremeSkins about the possibility, which appears to be Larry Michael's fault. (Sort of. He's fun to blame, anyhow.) We've been receiving a lot of questions about uniform changes on the Redskins Nation TV show -- it's a fun, easy offseason topic -- and it's easy to push Michael's buttons about. It appears that someone heard him discussing the possibility, but assumed that meant it was a done deal.

It is not a done deal. Not by any means. Like I said above, it doesn't appear to actually be, you know, HAPPENING. But that doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who have come up with some suggestions of what a new uniform could look like.

(To avoid any of the confusion that plagued the last similar discussion, let me make this perfectly clear in bold text: All of the images in this post are fan creations that I've found online. These are NOT official, they do NOT come from the team, and -- for the third time -- at the moment nothing even remotely like this is happening.)

Anyhow, here are some of the things people have come up with. (Click on images to enlarge.)

Three from poster dgnmrwrw at Chris Creamer's Sports Logos Community, starting with the Home jersey: