Ranking All 49 Possible Super Bowl Uni Matchups

We assess all the potential uni pairings for the big game, from worst to first.

The NFL playoffs begin this weekend, with 14 teams competing — seven from the AFC (Bengals, Bills, Chargers, Dolphins, Jags, Kansas City, and Ravens) and seven from the NFC (Bucs, Cowboys, Eagles, 49ers, Giants, Seahawks, and Vikings). That means there are 49 possible Super Bowl matchups as we head to the postseason, which has led to the usual articles ranking all of the possible pairings.

But Uni Watch reader Marc Ziegler came to me earlier this week with a good idea: What if we ranked the 49 possible Super Bowl matchups based solely on their uniforms? An excellent idea!

Here’s the thing, though: There are way more than 49 possible Super Bowl uni matchups, because many of the teams wear lots of different uni combos. Some teams are fairly predictable (we can safely assume what the Cowboys will wear at home, for example), but others are constantly mixing and matching. So to keep this project manageable, here’s what I did:

1. The NFC is the designated home conference this year. So for the seven NFC playoff teams, I chose the uni combo that the team wore most frequently this season at home. For two of those teams — the Bucs and, of course, the Cowboys — that combo turned out to have a white jersey.

2. For the AFC teams, I chose the white-jersey combo that they wore most frequently on the road, and also the colored-jersey combo they wore most frequently throughout the season (for when they’re matched up against the Bucs and Cowboys).

3. If there was a tie for a team’s most-worn combo, I chose what I considered to be the best-looking combo.

That process yielded the following uni combos for the seven NFC teams:

Of course, we can’t be 100% certain that this is what the eventual NFC champion would choose to wear, but most of them seem like pretty safe bets.

For the AFC teams, I ended up with these white-jersey combos (which they would wear when facing the Eagles, 49ers, Giants, Seahawks, or Vikings):

I feel less confident about these choices, if only because most of these teams wore a bunch of different white-jersey combos this season. But still, these are the combos they wore most often (even if it was only for two or three games), so that’s what we’re going to go with.

Finally, these are the colored-jersey combos that the AFC teams would wear if they were facing the Bucs or Cowboys:

With the teams locked into these uni combos, at least for the purposes of this exercise, here are one observer’s rankings of all 49 possible matchups:

49. Jaguars vs. Buccaneers

Ugh. Ironic that two teams from the Sunshine State would give us so much black and pewter. Drab-o-rama.

48. Bills vs. Buccaneers

Pleasepleaseplease don’t let the Bills play in the Super Bowl against an NFC team that likes to wear white at home.