The 2023 Uni Watch NFL Season Preview

Everything you need to know about this season’s new uniforms, helmets, logos, patches, throwbacks, field designs, and more.

Greetings, football fans! The NFL season is about to start, and that in turn means it’s time for the annual Uni Watch NFL Season Preview, your definitive guide to all of this season’s new uniforms, helmets, logos, patches, throwbacks, field designs, and more.

We have a lot of ground to cover this year, for two reasons. First, the repeal of the one-shell rule continues to result in a bumper crop of new uni designs. A whopping 10 teams have unveiled new alternate or throwback looks for 2023 — not quite as many as last year, but still a lot.

In a more subtle development that will affect nearly every game played this season, most teams have upgraded from Nike’s “Vapor Untouchable” tailoring template to the new “F.U.S.E.” template. The new pattern has a different arrangement of seams and, like most new uni templates these days, a distinctive collar design.

A tale of two templates: Vapor Untouchable (left) and F.U.S.E. (Diagrams by Andrew Lind)

This time in real life: Vapor Untouchable (left) and F.U.S.E.

One of the supposed benefits of the old template was that Nike had eliminated most of the seams, so it’s surprising (as well as unsightly) that they’ve gone back to such a seam-centric approach.

Another unfortunate aspect of the new template is that the V-shaped seam running from the shoulders to the sternum ends up pushing all of the jersey graphics downward, creating a low-rider effect that often feels a bit off.

How low can you go?

But wait, there’s more! A few teams, most of which feature shoulder striping on their jerseys, are wearing an alternate version of the new template that replaces the V-shaped seam with a straight horizontal seam (which has the side benefit of slightly mitigating the low-rider problem):

Most teams wearing the new template have the V-shaped chest seam (left). But several teams, including the Colts, are using a different pattern with a horizontal seam.

And then there are the Jets. Because of the unique striping on their jersey, they have a V-shaped seam, but it runs into the collar instead of going below the collar — sort of a hybrid of the standard and alternate versions.

The Jets are using the new F.U.S.E. collar and fabric, but with a unique chest seam. It’s V-shaped (like the standard version of the template) but intersects with the collar (like the horizontal seam on the alternate version of the template).

Twenty-eight of the league’s 32 teams have switched at least one of their primary jerseys to some version of the new template. The handful of holdouts, along with the alternate-clad teams, are noted in the team-by-team rundown that forms the core of this article.

So let’s get to it! With the season set to open this Thursday night in Kansas City and then kick into high gear across the nation on Sunday, here’s what you can expect to see on the field in 2023.

AFC East

Buffalo Bills