The NFL will likely never be like college football when it comes to uniform craziness. While a handful of college programs remain fiercely conservative with their on-field attire, the vast majority of uniform fun has started at the sport and trickled out to other levels. In recent years, the normally stuffy NFL has made an effort to move with the times and loosen up its uniform rules beginning with the Color Rush uniform idea from Nike back in 2015, unofficially ending in 2018, but still living on in the alternate uniforms and color combinations of several franchises today.

Things have been progressing slowly each off-season with new updates to the league rules and recently the NFL announced brand new uniform rules ahead of the 2025 season:

  • Officially named a “Closet” for each team with 1) Primary 2) Alternate and 3) Throwback combinations.
  • Alternates can be worn 4x per year (up from 3x last year).
  • Alternate helmets are now allowed with primary jerseys (teams were getting around this by having their “Color Rush” uniform be their primary jersey anyway).
  • Alternate pants are allowed in the playoffs, primary jerseys/helmets are still required for the post-season.

While these changes might not seem like a big deal, at least for a handful of franchises, it opens the door to more interesting looks from some of the more traditional-laden teams. For example, the Chicago Bears have worn orange jerseys with their traditional blue helmets for an especially alternate look while also pairing the orange jersey with an orange helmet.

Yet, being able to wear an alternate white helmet with a traditional jersey begins to have a different feeling. In fact, if you look at the vast majority of uniform concepts created on the internet it’s almost always a combination of new helmet and jersey/pants. Very rarely do you see alternate concept helmets with primary jerseys, something that should be more common now in the NFL with this rule change.

Alternate helmets with traditional primary uniforms will be more common thanks to a rule change.

I was expecting these subtle rule changes to eventually make some waves, good and bad, for the 2025 season. However, it looks like the NFL and Nike are prepared to take things to the next level with the introduction of “Rivalries” uniforms. Do you know how the NBA (through their City Edition) and MLB (through their City Connect) have introduced new, sometimes wild, and sometimes wildly new uniforms for their respective sports?

It sounds like the NFL wants in on that action.

Gathering information from the press release:

  • The NFL will introduce new uniforms for the 2025 season that are “inspired by the local communities” and combined with limited-edition fan gear.
  • For the 2025 season, the AFC East and NFC West will be participating.
  • Ahead of a game against a division rival, a new “rivalries” uniform will be unveiled. Additionally, the team will be required to wear this uniform for one home against a division rival for each of the next 3 seasons from its rollout.
  • In 2026, the AFC South and NFC North will get their new uniforms and will be followed by the AFC West/NFC  East (2027) and AFC North/NFC South (2028).

The team’s to roll out new Rivalries uniforms for 2025.

Now this will be a big change!

The NFL was very smart to do this with a staggered start. The downfall with the rollout of the NBA and MLB uniforms is those leagues dropping dozens of new uniforms every year and the product and uniqueness getting diluted very quickly. If Notre Dame had been doing a City Connect for as long as the NBA, the Fighting Irish would be coming out with their 9th(!) new uniform this season. I mean, I’d love it for the uniform talk but that’s just so, so many uniforms.

The “inspired by local communities” aspect to this is a giant red flag, though. One might argue this will make the local fan base more likely to buy the jersey and associated gear. I would say in general trying to create sports uniforms with this type of inspiration doesn’t often lend itself to being aesthetically pleasing to a wider audience. Instead of asking questions like, “do these colors work well together?” or “does the striping on the pants match the striping on the jersey” you’re exposed to questions like, “how can we incorporate a chicken wing into this for the locals?”

We’ll see how this goes and if the reaction from fans is positive or negative. The 2027 and 2028 seasons will see the most overlap with 24 teams each year wearing these “Rivalries” uniforms once per season. For this upcoming 2025 season I want to see something positive from the Arizona Cardinals. They are heading into their 3rd year with new uniforms and I hate them. Give us something good!