“C” Section: A Deep Dive on NFL Captaincy Patches

This simplest of uniform elements has a surprisingly complex history.

Football teams have always had captains. Until relatively recently, though, most NFL captains didn’t wear any sort of special designation on their uniforms. That changed in 2007, when the NFL gods decreed that team captains would be permitted, but not required, to wear a patch featuring the letter “C” (imaginative, right?) and some stars indicating how long the player had served as a captain. The league’s captaincy patch program has quietly proceeded apace since then.

Or so it might appear to the uniform neophyte. But for the serious student of athletics aesthetics who likes to look below the surface of a given uni element (and since you’re reading this, that probably means you), NFL captains’ patches have presented a surprisingly complex web of storylines since their introduction 16 seasons ago. We’re going to look at those storylines today.

With that in mind, I’ve compiled 11 uni-notable aspects of NFL captaincy designations (including a few that predate the current patch program). I learned some stuff along the way, and I think you will too! Ready? Here we go.

1. Patch Prehistory, Vol. I: “C” Is for Cowboys

Three teams dabbled with captaincy designations prior to the launch of the 2007 patch program. The first such team was the Cowboys, who in 1983 had at least four captains wearing the “C” (clockwise from top left in the photo montage shown above): Danny White, Bob Breunig, Ron Fellows, and Drew Pearson. The experiment lasted just one season, and it would be nearly a decade until another team tried something similar, which leads us to…

2. Patch Prehistory, Vol. II: “C” Is Also for Chargers

In 1992, the Chargers took a sort of “Captaincy for Dummies” approach, going with the full word “Captain” instead of the designatory “C.” At least six San Diego players wore the patch that season (clockwise from top left): Junior Seau, Gill Byrd, Marion Butts, Martin Bayless, Stan Humphries, and Harry Swayne. Like the Dallas initiative, this one lasted only one season. But another team soon got into the captaincy designation game, which leads us to…