1994 NFL Season - Throwback Jerseys

Throwback Jerseys

The league also honored its 75th season by having each team wear throwback uniforms during selected games. The designs varied widely in their accuracy:

• While no attempt was made to simulate obsolete leather helmets (which were phased out in the 1950s), teams simulating uniforms from the era of leather headgear simply removed all decals and striping from their regular hard-shell helmets.
• All jerseys displayed the player's last name on the back side, though this practice did not become standard until 1970.
• Many of the uniforms worn were not completely accurate displays of previous team uniforms. For example, the Buffalo Bills throwback contained a red helmet with a white buffalo logo with white (instead of gray) facemasks. However, the actual historic uniform displayed a white helmet with a red buffalo logo with gray facemasks. The New York Jets did the same, with green helmets and white logos and a black facemask (instead of gray). The Dallas Cowboys wore their current helmets. Ironically, the Cowboys in 2004 and the Bills In 2005 would later adopt an accurate representation of their 1960s throwbacks as their alternate uniform, while the Jets would return to their "throwback" style (albeit with a darker shade of green and green facemasks) full-time in 1998.
• In some instances the fonts and typestyles used were only approximate matches at best, although the San Diego Chargers and Houston Oilers' throwbacks were completely accurate replications, including typefaces, of their first uniforms in 1960.

Some teams occasionally wore theirs in additional games during the season, and the San Francisco 49ers wore them through the Super Bowl. They proved to be so popular that the New York Giants followed the lead of their stadium tenants and eventually returned to wearing them full-time, with very slight modifications, in 2000. And after the NFL modified its rules to allow teams to wear alternate jerseys in 2002, the San Diego Chargers selected their throwbacks as their third uniforms.