Jeff Richards, the Seahawks vice president of marketing and brand, was vacationing in Hawaii in June 2021 — typically the deadest time of year on the NFL calendar — when the call he’d been waiting years for finally arrived.
On the other line was Erik Kennedy, the team’s director of equipment.
“It’s on,” Kennedy told Richards.
What was “on” was the team’s ability to finally design and eventually play on a gameday with throwback uniforms.
Until that day — June 24, 2021 — Seattle had been restricted from using throwbacks by the league’s one-helmet rule.
The Seahawks switched to blue helmets in 2002 as part of a major uniform redesign upon moving into what is now Lumen Field, ditching the silver helmets the team used from its inception in 1976 until 2001.
The team couldn’t pair the new helmets with the old uniforms and couldn’t realistically repaint or otherwise reconfigure the helmets in-season back to silver.
But the rescinding of the one-helmet rule — which had been enacted by the league in 2013 in part for safety reasons, the thinking being players were safer wearing the same helmet all year — meant throwbacks could soon be a reality for the Seahawks and other teams who had changed the base color of their helmets through the years (some teams, such as the Packers, hadn’t changed helmet colors and could simply change or alter decals to pair with throwbacks).
“I did a lap around the parking lot where I was on vacation I was so excited,” said Richards, who grew up in the area and has been with the Seahawks since 2011.
And thus began a two-year odyssey for the Seahawks that took its next step Wednesday morning when the team unveiled its first throwback uniform.
While the basics of Seattle’s uniform remained the same from 1976-2001 there were a few subtle changes through the years, such as switching to a blue facemask in 1983. And the overall design of the new throwbacks is based to most closely resemble the look the team exhibited in the 1990s. It will be worn for the first time when Seattle hosts Cleveland on Oct. 29, with the Seahawks also expected to wear them for a road game at Dallas on Nov. 30 (the Cowboys typically wear white at home).
But with the team finally unveiling them to the public, the uniforms will go on sale Wednesday at 10 a.m. the team’s Pro Shop at Lumen Field and the Renton Landing, at which time they will also be available online.
The uniforms feature what the team calls “a classic look with an updated silhouette. The iconic royal blue and apple green return, honoring the Salish seas and forests of the Emerald City and Pacific Northwest. … The giant white numbers on the front and back mirror the jersey’s original simple, clean design. Smaller numbers also adorn the top of the shoulders. The original retro Seahawks logo rests on both sleeves atop thick blue and green stripes. The neck is accented with a thin green and white collar and the modern NFL crest. … The royal blue jersey is accompanied by contrasting matte gray pants with a bold blue stripe flanked by green down the side that complement the stripes on the jersey. Solid blue socks round out the look to tie it all together.”
They also feature a commemorative patch of the Kingdome embroidered into the inside neck where the current uniforms have a 12.
So why honor the 1990s, a decade in which the team didn’t technically play in a single postseason (Seattle’s appearance following the 1999 season actually came in the 2000 calendar year) and almost moved to Los Angeles?
As Richards notes, the Seahawks emerged from those early ‘90s travails to become more stable than ever, with Paul Allen buying the team in 1997, which led to the eventual construction of Lumen Field.
“Probably the most significant reason is we felt like the championship DNA of this organization was sort of solidified, the foundation was solidified, in the ‘90s with Paul Allen buying the team and with him then saying we are going to build a winner here,” Richards said.
Richards said another reason is to honor what was an era-defining decade in the city, with the emergence of businesses such as Amazon and Microsoft accompanied by a genre-defining music scene featuring the birth of grunge and bands such as Pearl Jam and Nirvana.
“It’s really like the ‘90s were Seattle’s moment in the sun kind of on a global stage,” Richards said. “So that was another piece for us.”
How far are the Seahawks taking this homage to the ‘90s? The reveal date of 8:32 a.m. is also the same time that the Kingdome was imploded on March 26, 2000.
“The Kingdome played such a huge role in that team, the identity of that team,” Richards said.
The homages to the ‘90s and the Kingdome also include an area of the Pro Shop devoted to the throwbacks featuring TVs playing games and news clips from the ‘90s. And the team’s website, which went live with the uniforms Wednesday morning, featured a video opening with an AOL dial-up sound straight out of that decade, with the entire site featuring other ’90s touches.
Some might wonder why, if the team got approval to use a second helmet in June 2021, the retro jerseys are only being introduced now. One factor is that the NFL set a date of the following month to submit a uniform to get approval for the 2022 season, which didn’t leave enough time for Seattle to get a design, overall theme and plan ready.
As Richards noted, “It took kind of until the spring of ’22 to get a design look” that the team was ready to present to the league and Nike, and until August to get everything — uniform and helmet — finalized. Also a factor is that Nike is going to 100% recyclable material in uniforms beginning this season, including numbers and letters.
With the design finally settled on and approved, the team held a surreptitious photo shoot with four players last year — receiver DK Metcalf, running back Kenneth Walker III, defensive end Darrell Taylor and quarterback Drew Lock — to illustrate to show how they would look when worn.
“You should have seen the look on their faces the first time they put it on,” Kennedy said. “Darrell was jumping around like it’s Christmas Day.”
The Seahawks made an official announcement that the retro uniforms were on the way during a November game against the Raiders.
The throwback jerseys will now be one of Seattle’s four official uniform combinations, with Seattle having to commit to using them for at least five years. Being limited to four uniforms means that for now, the Seahawks will be getting rid of the wolf grey look that has been a staple since 2012 but are keeping the Action Green the team often wears on Thursday games.
Kennedy, who has been with the Seahawks since 1989, said he’d been getting “300 to 400 calls a year” from former players asking when throwback uniforms were coming and is glad to finally be able to tell them they are now available.
“I have a list on my wall of (former players) who want me to order them for them already,” he said.
And to Kennedy, the throwback uniforms’ ability to provide a connection between the old and the new is what matters most.
“This is probably the most excited I’ve been just because of the length of time I’ve been here and the people you have seen come and go and how this is going to affect the older generations of people,” he said. “It brings it all together.”
The team ordered three uniforms for every player on the roster, so there’s enough if players want to engage in the increasingly popular practice of trading jerseys after games with opponents.
“But the players I don’t think are going to want to trade,” Kennedy said. “I think they are going to want to keep them all.”