The 49ers want the NFL's permission to wear the road version of their 1994 throwback uniforms for Super Bowl 54. The correct response from the league to their request is, "Sure. Why not?"
Well, the NFL has rules about these things, which is why "Sure" won't be the immediate answer. Teams can only wear throwbacks once during a season, and the Niners have already pushed their luck by getting dispensation to wear theirs a second time, in their Week 17 NFC West showdown in Seattle.
Niners cornerback Richard Sherman told The Athletic after the team's victory in the NFC championship game Sunday that the league is "thinking about" changing its policy. There should be no thinking about this, now or in the future. Do it, and don't think twice.
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San Francisco is the designated road team for the Feb. 2 game in Miami vs. the Chiefs. The league will incur zero harm — and score a nice victory over its stifling corporate culture — by allowing the 49ers to switch out their white-scarlet-gold outfits for white on white with scarlet and black trim.
There are two excellent reasons why the league should make this call for at least the Super Bowl. The first one is money, of course (you can fight corporate culture only so hard): The '94 jersey would look really good on folks who will need something to wear as they ride the Niners' bandwagon.
The second is history, which is the point of throwbacks (along with money). The Niners' current throwbacks honor a team from a past generation, but that '94 squad, playing in the NFL's 75th season, was paying homage to the early days of San Francisco's franchise in the 1950s.
(Forget that the '94 Niners wore their scarlet jerseys 25 years ago when they routed the Chargers in Super Bowl 29. It's the thought that counts.)
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The NFL, we've been told, goes back a century. It would be great for the league to close its 100th season by recognizing multiple generations through a uniform that was designed for that purpose.
As weird as it may sound, baseball has become far more progressive than football in the area of uniforms. Clubs that have multiple jersey-pants combinations (and most do) can choose what to wear from game to game. If they wind up playing in, say, a World Series Game 7, then they can wear, say, their blue alternate tops or orange alternate tops that night.
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People who remember last year's World Series already know where this is going: Blue vs. orange alts was the uniform-top matchup for Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, the final game of the baseball season. They weren't throwbacks, but they weren't the traditional white vs. gray, either.
You want baseball to stay cooler about unis, NFL? That would be a bad look for you.
