A Curious Little Blog

College football helmets are much more varied than professional football helmets, and not just because there are four times as many of them (precisely, as of this writing:  32 NFL teams to 128 NCAA Division I Bowl Subdivision teams, although that is not really fair because there are many other college teams that aren't in division I).  College teams also seem to redesign their helmets more often, and more radically.  My theory would be that college teams are defined by their college, and the logo is secondary, whereas pro teams are defined by their nickname and logo, so changing it often or drastically reduces fan identification with the team more seriously. Whether that is true or not, it is certainly the case that college teams more often decorate their helmets with only letters, at least among the major ones.  Some of these can be rather stylish, and I am fond of the ones from Duke, UNC, Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech (but perhaps the fact that I gre...

An NFL helmet is the most important part of a uniform in any sport.  Not only does it protect a player's head, but the helmet is the most visible part of a player during the game.  You're watching 22 individuals, but what you really see are 22 helmets on bodies.  So getting them right is especially important. Everyone has an opinion about helmets, and I have no illusion that mine is better than anyone else's, so I'm not going to try to rank them.  Instead, I want to categorize them into four broad groups -- some of which I definitely think are better than others -- and comment on each group. Type I: Too Simple These helmets suffer from a lack of imagery.  Count me among those who will never understand why Cleveland insists on playing with plain orange helmets -- a "B" would be better.  Otherwise, these helmets consist chiefly of text, which is just not something that grabs the viewer. ...