Or, What Not to Wear on the Football Field.

I’ve been doing plenty of ad hoc bitching about the Buffalo Bills’ uniforms lately, but let me spend a moment or two today getting this into the written record. In sum, these are the worst uniforms in football, and maybe in all of American pro sports.

The Bills org clearly wanted to update the unis and get all 21st Century on us, which is cool, but knowing what you want to do and knowing that you want to do something aren’t the same thing, and when push came to shove the design kick sailed wide right, if you hear where I’m going with this. The Fashion Fumble® the Bills wear on the field today looks like the result of a deadlocked uniform committee that decided the only way out of the room was to try and please everybody. So they brought in several design firms and instead of picking the best they identified the four worst, awarding the helmets to Firm A, the home jerseys to Firm B, the road jerseys to Firm C, and the pants to Firm D. All were given some general guidelines (which evidently included “we like it when you use incompatible shades of blue together” and “we think stripe patterns that don’t match each other are the wave of the future”). Apparently the club also instructed the design firms to let their children and interns do as much of the work as possible.

As a result of this gratuitous outburst of, ummm, ecumenism in the design process, what Buffalo wears onto the field of battle each Sunday seems intended not to impress or intimidate so much as to appall. Granted, if the opponent is the sort of team that regularly watches “What Not to Wear” and “Queer Eye” together, these manifestations of High Clash couture probably work to the Bills’ advantage. After all, how can you be expected to tackle somebody you can barely stand to look at? On the other hand, you might also risk provoking a righteous case of fashion rage, and trust me, your worst nightmare is a 300-pound Pro Bowler whose aesthetics have been offended.

It’s sad, but it’s true. The Buffalo Bills are wearing Dr. Frankenstein’s Uniforms, a tragic, mismatched pastiche that looks like it was cobbled together out of remnants, cast-offs and spare parts. It’s a great thing when opponents are scared witless of your team, but it’s just lame when the scariest thing about you is your fashion sense.

Stacy, Clinton – are you guys listening?