Style over substance: Ranking every USFL team based on their jerseys

When the USFL revealed their uniforms for the first time in 30 years, you were probably happy to see that they were related to football.

The XFL and AAF may not have worked out, but as long as there is live football happening that I can watch and root for, I'm happy. The people who absolutely love the game are happy to watch anything when the football seasons are over, even if they think the league has no chance.

We still need to wait more than a month for the USFL season to start, but at least it's something. It's an introduction to what's to come, to keep our palates alive and begging for more before the season starts. With coaches like Jeff Fisher and Kirby Wilson, it's hard not to be excited about the possibilities of a league like this.

The league won't release their player pool prior to the draft, so we don't know if players likeȆ will feature. I don't know if that is a good or bad sign, but at least it will add a little bit of mystery to draft night, and perhaps some shock should we see someone well-known opting to take their football talents. We don't know the level of talent that will be on every team's draft board yet, but there are some recognizable names that have been announced such as running back Kelvin Taylor and defensive tackle Toby Johnson.

In order for the draft to be more entertaining, we need a team to root for. If you have no affiliation, no bias toward a specific team or the players they pick, it's fun to see players get picked. The draft is three days away and fans need to pick a team. Unless you have a geographical or personal connection to any of the teams, game day fits are the best way to determine who to root for, obviously.

I want to make it clear that I have no nostalgia for any of the teams that were around in the 80s. I don't care how well these jerseys represent the teams' pasts or how close they are to the jerseys from 40 years ago. My personal rankings are unburdened by nostalgia.

Is it purple and orange? Really? When has that worked for the Phoenix Suns and the Clemson Tigers? Those don't count. You want to know why those don't count. Their purple and orange color scheme focuses on one color and leaves the other in the background. There is a reason that the primary uniform is orange. The purple alternates don't have any orange. The jerseys of the Suns are either orange or purple. I admit that neither of those looks good, but still, it's leaving one color out of the fold for most of the time. When put next to one another, the two colors don't look great.

When you're wearing those two colors, instead of thinking about the game at hand, I'm thinking about Otter. That is not intimidating. That is childish. You're not like Gene Wilder. It's time to stop trying to make this scheme work.

This feels like Arizona State. The side panels are striped. It was gross. Horrifying. The side panels should have a viewer advisory on them. That is horrendous. The star on the side of the helmet rubs me the wrong way.

Why would you put a star on a football team? The Cowboys and Eagles are bitter rivals, so creating a helmet that reminds Philadelphia fans of the Eagles' lack of success over the past 25 years is not the best way to get the City of Brotherly Love invested. The original team had a star on their helmet, but that was before the Cowboys ran through the league three times. The old design was different from the new design. Multiple stars were written on the helmets with the word "stars" written on them. The new helmet design still has the layers, but lacks the depth of the original design.

The team had to put a star on the left collarbone of all of its players. Why? It is so small and insignificant that no one would see it, so why put it in the first place? Sometimes simplicity is the best. A straight red line would be better than the red striped pattern and leaving the left collarbone blank would be a better decision. That is my opinion. Power to you if you dig it.

The home jersey is beautiful. I love everything about it. Everything about the home jersey is amazing, from the helmet to the minimal use of blue to the pants. The away jersey ruins the vibe. The bright idea was to put a hint of the Buccaneers into the away pants. It looks terrible. They don't have an orange hue in their logo, and that's what you decided to wear on the road. Terrible.

If they kept the pants the same for the home and away jerseys, this would have been my favorite of the bunch. My taste is ruined by that orange.

We are getting into the jerseys I like. The color scheme is nice, but the name and logo don't really do it for me because the nearest surf spot to New Orleans is an hour and 45 minutes away in Port Fourchon. Is it a rip-off of the Salt Lake Stallions? The colors worked there, and they work here as well.

Their secondary logo is the only reason this jersey is so low. They have a great primary logo, why not put it on the uniform? They went for a giant wave on the helmet and shoulders. The wave on the helmet looks fine, if not worse than the primary logo would have looked. The shoulders look terrible.

What is that? It looks like a cartoon glacier or some sort of snow on the home jerseys. It looks like a shark fin on the away jerseys, and I don't want to think about sharks while surfing.

All in all, great jerseys, but the logo choice was poor.

There is nothing wrong with these jerseys. They are just bland. Too dull. I would expect this kind of blandness from a collegiate program, but a professional football franchise. Get a little crazy with it. Take some risks.

If you like this jersey, you also like ice cream and The Godfather, which is your favorite movie of all time. Yes, those are both valid opinions, but they are very basic. There is nothing wrong with liking the classic color scheme and simplicity of these logos. Your logo is almost entirely gold, but there is no gold in the jersey design. I feel like more could have been done with these.

I almost put this one at No. 2 because of the black primary and red secondary, but I can't see the side panels. If you are going to have a different color drape down the players, keep that color running on the pants as well. The Gamblers didn't listen. They have a black side panel for their jerseys. Their away jerseys are black to black with a red stripe down the middle.

Don't get me wrong. I like these jerseys a lot, but I'm nitpicking at this point to justify my rankings. The original design of the Gamblers was definitely better, but that doesn't mean the new jerseys are any less good.

I like the jersey. They keep side panels consistent throughout the uniform. Everything from the helmet to the secondary logo to the drop shadow on the numbers is magnificent. There is a lot going on and this one doesn't place at the top of the list. When you have a great design, you want to plaster it all over, but in this case it is a little detrimental. There is so much good stuff to look at that you can never focus on and appreciate every little detail until a different feature catches your eye. That is not the case with my pick.

Everything that was great about the team's original uniforms was taken by the Stallions. They no longer look like a minor league team. They look like their own thing. They put their colors on their shoulders instead of showing off a secondary logo. The red, gold, and white work together.

Is I biased? I have family in Alabama, but you can't deny how solid these look. It is simple with a great color scheme and logo. It is fitting for the smallest market to have the greatest logo. When it comes to their professional sports teams, Alabama has a knack for creating ideas. They have a Minor League Baseball Team called the Biscuits, but it's nice to see them take a step back and create something so simple, stylish, and all-around great. They are the best. No one can tell me something different.

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