The Line for Week 10, Military / Veteran’s / USA Appreciation Week:
The Line isn’t going to lie here: we always get nervous when theme weeks roll around and redesigns descend from the heavens (or rise from the depths of Satan’s rotisserie). We understand the importance of honoring our military and our veterans for the essential and intrinsic importance in defending the nation and our Constitution, and the sacrifices made to keep us all free. However, we don’t exactly see how dressing up in camouflage playing a children’s game does that. The Line also doesn’t exactly see how coming up with a uniform concept around the Bill of Rights wouldn’t just be about the same level of ridiculousness, but that’s just our opinion, and we thank all that is divine that we live in a country that allows us to voice that opinion.
Addressing the UWFFL, however, theme weeks always throw precedence, predictability, and convention out the door, window, and any other opening in the house that appears to be handy. After the 9/11 week, designs overall did indeed improve with the cancer awareness week, but some top performing franchises fell horribly flat, (Minnesota comes immediately to mind) and some of the under-performing ones struck gold (Miami).
The betting lines this week will be uncharacteristically closer than in other weeks, as The Line can see where it will simply be a coin flip as to how the designs will play with voters. That being said, here now is this week’s action:
Chicago versus San Diego
San Diego goes with a very simple all blue jersey with an unknown number typeface over unadorned light gray pants with a plain light gray helmet, which is a complete departure from their team colors, and if there is another reference for it, The Line has not seen it posted.
The Line will admit to a certain amount of confusion.
Chicago has not posted yet.
Current line is home San Diego minus 9.
Detroit versus San Francisco
San Francisco goes with a rarely seen black jersey with red trim, a tribute patch and ‘COURAGE’ replacing the NOB, over white pants with the flame striping.. Also notable is that they are going with a white version of the Trogdor helmet. Detroit rolls out the road version that ran against Atlanta last week, modifying the collar and sleeves with red, white and blue striping, the addition of American flags on the sleeving, and the additions of a red, white and blue stripe on the helmet, and a blue stripe on the pants.
This looks like a competition as to who could have done the least, and/or see who loses the least amount of voters. We’ll see if San Francisco can rally at home with the trimmed color palette, but The Line hasn’t seen much love for the overall template from the local faithful.
Take road Detroit minus 7
Miami versus New York
Well, both teams went full bore, and The Line dearly appreciates commitment to a concept. New York does a red, white and blue palette swap and Miami goes full, unadulterated camo. The Line is unashamedly not a fan of the camo look, but of the ones we’ve seen that we absolutely despised, the Miami concept is one of the better executed ones we’ve seen. That being said,The Line does not know how this will play with voters, but our general feeling is that in comparison to a non-camo uniform, it will not fare as well, nor will it fare that well against the New York template to boot.
Which is a shame, because the head-to-head new Miami template versus the old Shark template would have made for a far more interesting match-up, and this game would’ve gone a long way to deciding whether Miami makes the playoffs, which if it goes down as we expect, will seal the season for the Cougars.
Go with home New York minus 6, although we would not be surprised by it being far closer.
Minnesota versus Texas
Oh dear.
The Mustangs roll out their monochrome white look, replacing their normal striping with a blue with white reverse stars. Understated, Subtle. Maybe too subtle, and if this was rolled out in a regular week, we’d say that Minnesota might be in trouble again for a second time on the road. But then we cast our eyes at Texas.
First, the disclaimers. The entire staff of The Line has always been big fans of the Timberwolves, and we categorically state for the record that Texas has been woefully underappreciated the entire season. We were gratified to see Texas win last weekend. Truly.
But if we’re to be honest, and we must, this is such a decidedly minor league look for them. The palette swap is one thing, but the result is loud and busy. Between stripes only on the jersey and stars only on the pants, undersized TV numbers, the two-toned shoes, and the worst socks we here at The Line have seen anywhere in captivity, the result lends us to believe that there is a county or state fair somewhere nearby, not our usual beloved underdogs. (Not to be entirely cruel, we do like the crossed Texan/American flags above the NOB. )
But The Line expects the Mustangs to stampede back into the win column to our unbiased chagrin.
Go with road Minnesota minus the 9 against Texas, and we fully expect that the actual number to be as high as 16….
St. Louis versus Seattle
St.Louis is in a monochrome white with light camouflage, and a split color treatment with all blue typography in the front and all red typography in the front. Also, the split color treatment goes to the socks as well, as they show blue in the front and red in the rear as well. Their helmets are also split a la Maryland with white stars on a blue field on the right hemisphere, and red and white stripes on the left, with the helmet logo reversed out of both in white. The Line knows that historically voters do not particularly care for monochrome looks, whether white or not and despite our general personal approval, but we’re concerned the design isn’t a cohesive enough of one to meet with much approval.
Seattle goes back to their black home jersey that The Line thinks works the best for them, with the addition of an American flag patch, and a sand camouflage texture in their striping and jersey number knockout inserts. Words cannot describe how good an improvement this is from their effort from last week.
The starting line was ‘pick’em’, but The Line thinks the Superbeasts go back into beast mode and roll big time.
Take home Seattle straight up.
Tampa versus Atlanta
No uniforms posted as of press time, check back soon.
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