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Revision as of 21:12, 21 April 2009

Logo

The day after the NFL awarded the expansion team to Jacksonville, a triumphant and surprised Wayne Weaver held up the Jaguars' proposed silver helmet and teal jersey at the NFL owners' meeting in Chicago. The team's colors were revealed to be teal, gold, and silver with black accents. However, this jersey and helmet design stirred controversy. Both included the team's logo with a gold leaping jaguar. This caught the attention of Ford Motor Company, parent of the automaker Jaguar, in that the Jaguars' logo bore what they considered to be too much resemblance to the automaker's logo, which was also used as a hood ornament. Though no lawsuit was brought to trial, an amicable agreement was ultimately reached where Jaguar would be named the official car of the Jaguars, and the Jaguars would redesign their uniforms.

The new logo became a prominent snarling Jaguars head with a teal tongue, which Weaver said was his wife's touch. He also claimed that the teal tongue came from "feeding Panthers to our Jaguars"—an obvious jab at their expansion brethren. During the Jaguars' first ever preseason game, teal-colored candies were handed out to all the fans who attended, turning their tongues a teal color just like on the logo.

Uniform

The redesigned uniforms (following the logo change) feature an all-black helmet, white pants, gold numbers and black trim on the numbers, over either teal or white jerseys. A prowling jaguar replaced the leaping jaguar on the sleeves. Minor modifications have been introduced since then, such as changing the font of the jersey numbers. Before 2004, the white jerseys had teal numbers, and from 2004-2008, the white jerseys had black numbers with teal and gold trim.

For most of its short history, the Jaguars did what many other NFL teams located in subtropical climates traditionally practice: wear their white jerseys at home during the first half of the season — forcing opponents to wear their dark ones under the sweltering autumns in Jacksonville. However in 2004, the Jaguars wore their colored uniforms at home for all home games. The Jaguars again wore their colored uniforms (all in teal) for all home games in 2008. In the preseason, the Jaguars wear teal at home since these games are played at night when there is very little advantage with the heat.

The team introduced an alternate black jersey in 2002. During that same year, the team also started to wear black pants, mostly with their white jerseys. With the introduction of the black pants, the team stopped wearing the white jersey/white pants combination on a full-time basis. The black pants originally including two teal stripes down each side, but were replaced in 2004 with solid black pants with the Jaguar logo on each hip. The stripes on the white pants were altered in 2008 so that the center, thickest stripe was black, and its accents were teal. The black jersey was not used in 2008.

The team will be getting new uniforms for the 2009 season. Team owner Wayne Weaver reportedly wanted to "clean up" the look, feeling that the team has too many uniform styles. The changes won't be a complete overhaul, but reportedly will be similar to the Atlanta Falcons & Minnesota Vikings recent overhauls. According to team officials, the new uniforms will be introduced in a press conference on April 22.

References

1. ^ http://bleacherreport.com/afc-south
2. ^ http://www.jaguars.com/news/article.aspx?id=7730
3. Ketchman, Vic (04-09-2009). "Another Fred Taylor?". Jaguars.com. Retrieved 04-09-2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)

• Jacksonville Jaguars
• NFL Logos and uniforms