Up until very recently, the NFL had a leaguewide mandate against being swagged out. Drip was a banned substance. 

In 2018, things started changing: Rules were loosened to allow teams to wear more alternate jerseys. However, the rule that teams could use only one helmet remained in place, which slowed sartorial progress—the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, for example, weren’t going to bust out the creamsicles from the ’70s if they still had to complement them with pewter shells. Finally, though, for the 2022 season, the NFL got with the times and increased the permissible number of helmets to two. It took some time for teams to adjust, but by 2023, New England had broken out Pat Patriot, the New York Giants had gone back to the ’80s and ’90s look, the creamsicles came back to Tampa, and the Seattle Seahawks and Philadelphia Eagles had debuted the cleanest-looking throwbacks these eyes have ever seen. 

The NFL, a corporation addicted to more, perhaps noticed a thing that nearly every other sports league figured out a decade ago—that more options in team stores means more total sales—and then went, “Well, guys, how about three helmets instead of two?!” Now the league is as close to the NBA’s uniform chaos orgy as it’s ever been. This year, most teams have full-blown throwback uniforms and/or dedicated alternate jerseys, and—thanks to the new Nike “Rivalries” series—some even have a fit that dramatically departs from their traditional color schemes. 

This has resulted in a few things: jersey sales, for one. It has also simply led to a better visual product: The viewing experience of the Denver Broncos destroying the Dallas Cowboys in Week 8 was noticeably enhanced by Denver’s Orange Crush–era royal-blue-on-orange getup. But most importantly, the rapid expansion of alternates in the NFL means that there is finally enough data to test the long-held yet mostly unsubstantiated adage known as “look good, play good.” The phrase was coined by Deion Sanders in the ’90s—the full quote goes, “If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good”—and essentially posits that athletes, particularly football players, gain a boost of confidence and swagger from supreme fashion sense. When a player has on his lucky chain or wristbands or eye black, he’ll perform better. Now multiply that by 53: When an entire team is decked out in superior duds, the impact will be exponential. 

That’s the hypothesis, at least. It’s time to finally test it out.

The Method

The first step is to determine what defines an “alternate.” The very basic definition is a jersey that is different from a team’s home and away kits—but in this case, we need stricter guidelines. We’ll look exclusively at the more dramatic departures from teams’ week-in, week-out looks under the presumption that those are the ones that have an outsize effect on performance. As an example, the Ravens’ and Panthers’ black jerseys were not considered in our study for a combination of reasons: (a) They are well established enough by now to no longer have a material effect on play, (b) they’re close enough to the teams’ traditional looks, and (c) they are not demonstrably good or bad, aesthetically speaking. Under this strict definition, there have been 31 games through the first 10 weeks of the 2025 NFL season in which at least one team was wearing an alternate uniform. 

The second step is to determine what defines “good.” That’s … slightly trickier than the first step. Technically, style is subjective, unbound by definition. So not to be all “just trust me, bro,” but, uh, just trust me, bro. As a ’90s kid raised on the Buffalo Bills’ red helmets, the Mighty Ducks’ original logo, and Ken Griffey Jr. in a Mariners jersey, I consider myself a ball knower in the field of athletic aesthetics. Plus, at least in the realm of NFL jerseys, there seems to be real consensus on what looks good atop shoulder pads and what looks bad. Let’s cover some easy ones so that you can see what I mean. These …

… are good. And these …

… are absolutely foul. If you disagree, I regret to inform you that you are wrong.

With the parameters defined, we went through each of the 31 games and looked at the closing spreads and actual results. In the games in which a team was wearing an awesome alternate jersey, the difference between the spread and the final score is what we’ll call the Look Good Play Good (LGPG) factor. But the inverse of the “look good, play good” axiom might also be true—that if you look bad, you will play bad—so we also looked at the games in which a team was horrifically styled and calculated the difference between the spread and the final score to determine what we’ll call the Look Bad Play Bad (LBPB) factor. 

Two final notes before we get to the findings:

1. There have been two instances this season when both teams were wearing resplendent alternate uniforms: Tampa (1976 white creamsicles) versus Seattle (’90s throwbacks) in Week 5 and Buffalo (Standing Buffalo throwbacks) versus Atlanta (’60s throwbacks) in Week 6. In such cases, the LGPG boost is canceled out, and thus neither was included in the data.
2. All Saints games have been removed from the LGPG data. Some teams are so bad that it doesn’t matter how good they look. 

The Findings

So, yeah: Deion was right. Across 18 games in 2025, teams have had a combined 146.5 points added to their scores by looking good (call it ELGPA: expected looking good points added). On average, the teams in bomb-ass alternates have outperformed the spread by 8.1 points, for a total record of 13-5 against the spread. And the inverse has also borne out: Across nine games, teams have lost 62 points when looking terrible, underperforming the spread by 6.9 points (2-7 against the spread). The data is clear: If you look awesome on the football field, the advantage is massive. If you look like dog shit, well, you’ll probably play like it.

The NFL is all about self-scouting. “Everybody individually has got to be accountable, gotta look at themselves in the mirror,” Dak Prescott told reporters after the Cowboys lost to the Bears in September. “We gotta look in the mirror,” Aaron Rodgers said after the Steelers win in Week 9. “When you look yourself in the mirror as a man and say, ‘I’m gonna control the things I can control,’ that’s how you get better,” Jalen Hurts told teammates in 2024. And they’re all right—it just turns out that the message was even more literal than they all thought.

Diving Deeper

The Most Beautiful Game of the Season

October 5, 2025, was the day when the NFL achieved the platonic ideal of athletic uniforming. As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers donned the all-white version of their 1976 throwbacks with creamsicle-orange numbers to battle the Seattle Seahawks in their ’90s fits, fans were treated to a game with no weird gray tones, no try-hard angles, no number fonts that resembled those on an analog alarm clock, absolutely nothing to make one think that they were watching the football scene from Starship Troopers. Just clean lines, classic numerals, and bold, beautiful colors. 

Simply spectacular.

Of course, because both teams looked sick as hell, neither one was the beneficiary of an LGPG bump. But anecdotally, it’s worth noting that this game absolutely ripped. In a contest defined by wild swings, Baker Mayfield and the Bucs scored 10 points in the last three minutes to win 38-35 (the over hit by 28.5 points) on a last-second Chase McLaughlin field goal. It was one of the best games of the year so far—and yes, it’s all because of the uniforms.

Stop Dressing Like World War II Hasn’t Happened Yet

Meanwhile, easily the funniest jersey-related sequences this year happened in Weeks 8 and 9. First, the Green Bay Packers visited the Pittsburgh Steelers to find their opponent dressed like this:

And now, look, I don’t know why dudes were wearing stripes like that in 1933, but I do know that there’s a reason why we left that shit in FDR’s first term. To make matters worse, these Steelers jerseys were topped off with VERY YELLOW, VERY MATTE helmets. Matte helmets are the kind of nonsense that should be contained to the Mountain West Conference. 

So obviously, the Steelers got beat up in these John-Krasinski-in-Leatherheads-ass outfits. (Pittsburgh went above and beyond in honoring the era of football before the forward pass was invented by allowing Chris Boswell to kick four field goals.) But that wasn’t the end of it: The Packers, even though they’d witnessed the negative impact of looking terrible firsthand, decided to do basically the same thing the next week.

These MF’ers put a drawing of a leather helmet on current-day helmets. 

The (now) undeniable law of Look Bad Play Bad kicked in with a vengeance: Jordan Love did not record a touchdown pass but did attempt the worst throw of the season, Micah Parsons registered zero pressures, and the Packers—favored by 12.5 points—lost to the Carolina Panthers. I repeat: THE CAROLINA PANTHERS.  

Just an incredibly funny run of unforced errors via dressing like it was the year women gained the right to vote. I implore teams to stop doing this. If you hit the first half of the 20th century in your search for throwbacks, you have gone way too far. 

The Nike Rivalry Jerseys, a.k.a. the “Take This L” Alternates

It’s possible that you’ve turned on a regular-season NBA game in the past few years and had zero idea who’s playing based on uniform alone. I haven’t spoken to every person on the planet, but I am confident in saying that the only people who like this are the dudes planning their outfits for Coachella. Having irrevocably muddied the brand identities of 30 basketball teams, Nike is now planning to systematically do the same to the NFL. This year, the teams in two divisions, the AFC East and NFC West, were given alternate “Rivalry” jerseys for a series of games; next year, two other divisions will be victimized by this marketing gimmick. Taking cues from the NBA’s “City” jerseys—another Nike invention—these jerseys are only tangentially related to the teams’ usual aesthetics, and they all have very ridiculous nicknames that seem like they were chosen by a McKinsey consultant. The batting average here is not good. A quick ranking:

8. New York Jets’ “Gotham City Football”: Matte helmets, shoulder detailing inspired by manholes, an insistence that anybody ever calls New York “Gotham.”

7. San Francisco 49ers’ “For the Faithful”: On the 49ers’ webpage for these uniforms, Fred Warner is quoted as saying, “I can’t even wrap my mind around wearing this.”

6. Buffalo Bills’ “Cold Front”: We need to prosecute whoever decided that the Bills needed to look more like the Lions.

5. Los Angeles Rams’ “Midnight Mode”: What’s funny is that it seems like everything in L.A. closes before midnight. Also, the pop of royal blue here is just a reminder of what Rams alternates should look like. Comparatively fine, though.

4. Miami Dolphins’ “Dark Waters”: I feel nothing.

3. Seattle Seahawks’ “12s”: These aren’t that bad. I’m mostly mad that they just drew a bunch of lines on the jerseys and were like, “Uhh, those are sound waves, get it?”

2. New England Patriots’ “Nor’easter”: These might be OK; it’s hard to say because we haven’t seen them in action yet. I did, however, see a guy in the stands wearing one of these on Sunday, and the “storm blue” made it look like someone had turned his jersey’s saturation settings down to zero while keeping everyone else’s normal. Also, is now really the best time to inscribe “We are all patriots” inside your collar?

1. Arizona Cardinals’ “Built to Last”: These are pretty good. Kinda like a tortilla. Nice work, everyone.

But because this is a study about results: So far, three teams have worn their Rivalry uniforms. Two of them have lost. Only one has covered the spread (and that was because the Dolphins were playing the Jets). The Bills’ season has been a disaster ever since they put those jerseys on, giving a completely different meaning to the phrase “cold front.”

These garish odes to capitalism are vehicles for loss and embarrassment, and I expect that to continue when the other five teams suit up.

Other ’90s Jerseys Teams Should Bring Back If They Want to Win Games

Now let’s talk about alternates that the NFL should be doing. Everyone should be following in the footsteps of teams like the Seahawks, Falcons, and Eagles and dipping into the 1990s for inspo. Here are the five teams that need to go back next:

New England Patriots (1996, Specifically)

Hell yes, brother. Gimme that huge-ass Patriot logo on the shoulder. Gimme a shade of blue that screams, “My mom bought me this Starter jacket.” 

Baltimore Ravens (1996, Specifically)

BRING BACK THE WINGS, YOU COWARDS.

Los Angeles Rams

Seriously, guys. Forget all of the midnight-blue nonsense. Ditch that off-white, excuse me, bone jersey that makes it look like the equipment manager forgot to do laundry this week. This throwback is all you need. 

Minnesota Vikings

I need to see Justin Jefferson score a touchdown in these. And then I need to see him pretend to moon an entire stadium. 

Houston Oilers

This one’s a bit of a touchy subject. After threatening to leave Houston for more than a decade, owner Bud Adams actually did it in 1996, bringing the Oilers to Nashville and turning them into the Tennessee Titans. The Titans franchise retained the rights to the Oilers’ trademarks, though, and in the intervening years, the Adams family have been total dicks regarding the city of Houston’s many attempts to reclaim the Oilers colors. In 2023, the franchise filed a cease and desist against the University of Houston for wearing Oilers-inspired uniforms; the Titans have also blocked multiple moves by the Texans to use the shade of light blue, forcing them to settle for using it as an accent color in their H-Town alternates. Then, the Titans started wearing the Oilers throwbacks—a real “have your cake and eat it, too” situation—and even donned them during a game against the Texans last year. 

But that brings us to the solution of this standoff: The Texans, even though they had to start Davis Mills, beat the Titans in that game, 23-14. Even beyond all of the moral and ethical arguments, this to me means that the Texans deserve these uniforms. Just give them back, Adams family. It’s the right thing to do. And it’d also mean that we’d no longer have to see the H-Town alternates.

The Future LGPG and LBPB Betting Guide

Now that we know that good alternates translate to an 8.1-point edge and bad ones translate to a 6.9-point deficit, let’s put it to use. Here are the 10 most notable alternate-involved games through the rest of the 2025 season. Bet accordingly:

Week 11: New York Jets at New England Patriots (on Thursday Night Football)

• Jersey: New England’s Nor’easter Nike Rivalry alternate.
• Good or bad: I think good? 
• Bet: The line opened at Patriots –5.5. You can take them to win by two scores.

Week 11: Seattle Seahawks at Los Angeles Rams

• Jersey: L.A.’s “Midnight Mode” Nike Rivalry alternate.
• Good or bad: Bad!
• Bet: The Rams are absolutely rolling right now. The only thing that can stop them is this stupid uniform. 

Week 12: Buffalo Bills at Houston Texans

• Jersey: Houston’s “Battle Red” alternate.
• Good or bad: Bad.
• Bet: Shout-out to the Texans for wearing these on a Thursday night and reminding us all of the horrors of the Color Rush era. Enjoy the loss. 

Week 12: Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys

• Jersey: Philadelphia’s “Kelly Green” throwback.
• Good or bad: So friggin’ good.
• Bet: I really fear for the Cowboys on this one. 

Week 13: Minnesota Vikings at Seattle Seahawks

• Jersey: Seattle’s ’90s throwback.
• Good or bad: Sublime.
• Bet: A Sam Darnold revenge game and these unis? Good luck, Vikings.

Week 15: Atlanta Falcons at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

• Jerseys: Atlanta’s ’60s throwback and Tampa’s creamsicle
• Good or bad: Your eyes will thank you.
• Bet: Can’t really bet this one based on looks. I just wanted to flag this because it might threaten Bucs-Seahawks in Week 5 for the best-looking game of the season.

Week 16: San Francisco 49ers at Indianapolis Colts

• Jersey: Indianapolis’s “Indiana Nights” all blue/black helmet alternate.
• Good or bad: Well, they’re not good!
• Bet: I can’t believe the Colts are gonna miss out on a playoff bye because they wore these nasty uniforms.

Week 18: Los Angeles Chargers at Denver Broncos

• Jersey: Denver’s “Orange Crush” throwback.
• Good or bad: The best, in fact.
• Bet: I suspect that, by putting these on in Week 18, the Broncos are trying to recapture the magic of last year’s final week of the season, when they housed the Carson Wentz–led Chiefs and clinched a spot in the playoffs. I also suspect that this gimmick will work again!

Week 18: New York Jets at Buffalo Bills

• Jersey: Buffalo’s “Ode to the ’90s.”
• Good or bad: Throw-you-through-a-table good.
• Bet: Praise Jim Kelly, the red helmets are back. Put one down in the win column for the Bills, and not just because the Jets are going to be desperately angling for the first overall pick.

An earlier version of this article stated that the Patriots' alternate was called the Patriot Sam. It is the Pat Patriot alternate, not Patriot Sam.

Andrew Gruttadaro

Andrew Gruttadaro