Tennessee Titans jersey lands on list of worst NFL ensembles ever

There are ugly football jerseys, and then, there are some of the worst that we as fans have ever seen. There are also things that didn’t make any sense. For some of you younger Tennessee Titans fans, here’s a history lesson. Once upon a time, the Titans weren’t the Titans at all. They were actually the Houston Oilers.

The Oilers never got to a Super Bowl, but at times, they were pretty good. Unfortunately, the last memories most NFL fans have of them include three crushing playoff defeats with Warren Moon at the helm.

On January 4th of 1992, they lost to John Elway and the Denver Broncos in dramatic come-from-behind fashion. That led, one season later, to the largest collapse in NFL Playoff history on January 3rd of 1993 (a record that still stands), a 41-38 loss to the Buffalo Bills. Houston led by 32 points in the third quarter of that one.

Fans had barely gotten over that one when Houston again was embarrassed in the postseason on January 16th of 1994. This time, it was a Joe Montana and Marcus Allen-led Kansas City Chiefs team. A 7-9 campaign in 1995 led to an 8-8 mark in 1996. The next thing you know, the Oilers were moving to Tennessee, but they kept the Oilers nickname in 1997 and 1998.

Thankfully, the organization had the wherewithal to change the name to the Titans in 1999, a name that has stuck until the present day, but up until 2018, those Titans jerseys looked a lot like the old Oilers ensembles, something that Nike decided to take care of with some rebranding.

The new Tennessee Titans jersey lands on a list of the worst ever.

Now, as fans of the two-tone blue, maybe we’re all partial. You’ve never really heard the Tennessee Titans jerseys described as ‘ugly’ before. Actually, they’ve been pretty well accepted. A winning record over the last three seasons (29-19) and two playoff appearances over that span might have something to do with that, but everyone won’t drink the kool-aid. We all get it.

Recently, USA TODAY released their list of the NFL’s worst-ever uniforms, and Tennessee’s new color scheme found its way into the 13th position on a ranking of 15 teams. Here’s what Jim Reineking, the writer of this one had to say on the subject.

"For the 2018 season, the Titans, after 19 seasons since going away from the Houston Oilers’ stylish look, finally changed their uniforms. The shift was underwhelming. The “flaming thumbtack” helmet logo remains. A blue helmet replaced the white lid, but a multitude of jersey-pant combos remain, the worst of which is the all-blue jersey-pants combo."

Respectfully, we as Titans fans demand a recount. Then again, does it really matter? These guys are football players, not fashion models (although some of them try their hand at the latter from time to time).

What’s most important in this great game that we all love is total team wins and losses, so with that being said, you could trot the Titans out in some of those Buccaneers creamsicle jerseys that we’ve given Tampa so much flack for over the years, and no one would care as long as they kept hanging Ls on their opponents.

No, wait. There’s no need to go that far. Until there’s a rebranding or something, as fans, we’ll just stick with the two-tone blue. That’s fine with us.