I recently found an old PRO! magazine (the NFL’s old gameday program) from 1979. It had a fascinating photo feature on the officials (“The Third Team”) which shows how different the NFL officials of the late 1970s look compared to those of today. Actually, if you go back only a couple of years, that timeless black-and-white striped look was still pretty familiar, having undergone mere tweaks in some 40 years – that is, until the NFL overhauled its officials’ uniforms prior to the 2006 season.

Enjoy these photos (all by someone named Ross Lewis and used without permission) and see if you can spot how many differences there are between the stripes of yesterday and those of today.

I don’t know exactly when stirrups went out of favor.

A great shot, with a linesman putting his best foot forward.

Stalking the end line on a fall day in New Jersey.

Hats weren’t adorned with the NFL shield logo until Super Bowl XXXIX.

Even the “Chain Gang” followed the uniform conventions.

Tempus Fugit.

The stoic umpire amid the motion of players.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 9:00 am and is filed under Ref, uniforms. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.