Patriots, Cowboys, Helmet designs that didnt make the cut- prototype helmets

[ram29jackson]

http://www.helmethut.com/Features/Prototypes/Cowboyproto.html

The 1963 season was projected to be one of fruition for the Dallas Cowboys who began play in 1960. It would be more accurate to state that the Cowboys were rushed into play for the 1960 season as George Halas and his National Football League counterparts attempted to scuttle the inaugural appearance of the American Football League’s Dallas Texans. It was with a tired group of veterans chosen in a hurriedly assembled expansion draft and a dragnet that found few quality free agents available to them, that the Dallas Cowboys 1960 debut resulted in a 0-11-1 record. The coaching abilities of Tom Landry however, were immediate and impressive, so much so that despite limited success in their first three seasons, the ’63 squad had stimulated rather high hopes prior to the start of the season. Losing six of their first seven games quelled any enthusiasm and the team was constantly and significantly behind the attendance figures of Dallas based Southern Methodist University and the other Southwest Conference colleges. Attracting less than 19,000 fans to a November game versus the Redskins was not the vision that Landry, team owner Clint Murchinson, or Cowboys President and General Manager Tex Schramm envisioned for what was supposed to be their predicted success. The November 22nd assassination of President John F. Kennedy was the emotional blow that ruined not only the season for the Cowboys and residents of Dallas, but placed a black mark against the city and everything associated with it. Arriving for their game against the Browns in Cleveland that very weekend, baggage handlers refused to pick up the Cowboys’ luggage. The 4 – 10 season was a step back from the five-win affair of ’62 and a major disappointment to all. Dallas fans were calling for heads to roll.



It was against this backdrop that the Cowboys set out to make major improvements for 1964. As sportswriter Bill Rives of The Dallas Morning News noted, “…before every season, the spirit soars. Now, once again, there is cause for optimism. General Manager Tex Schramm did some shrewd trading in the off-season and this, coupled with the young team’s normal development, may mean an upward surge in the standings.” Owner Murchinson, fully believing in Landry’s genius and aptitude for the job, both shocked the football world and quelled the public outcry against his head coach by signing Landry to a ten-year contract extension, the longest such deal in pro football history. With the added bonus of having CBS agreeing to pay an unheard of sum of $14 million per year to broadcast NFL games, an interested party could surmise that there was perhaps but one more detail needing upgrade in order to make ’64 one of optimism and hopefully one to remember for the Cowboys organization.




An announcement of the February 5, 1964 contract extension signing and an accompanying photo appeared in the February 6th edition of the Dallas Morning News. The Cowboys uniform was attractive, featuring a white helmet with royal blue flanking stripes and a royal blue star depicting the Lone Star of Texas. Knowing Shramm’s excellent and keen-sensed marketing abilities, perhaps it was his idea to introduce a new uniform design in an attempt to erase the disappointment of the 1963 season or commemorate a new era in Cowboys football with the guarantee of Tom Landry at the helm. Perhaps it was both or just another one of Shramm’s marketing strategies that brought so much on-the-field and financial success to the Cowboys organization. In either case the photo showed the Cowboys brain trust examining what were obvious prototypes for a new helmet design. Though what appears to have been the only existing photo of the event or the proposed new helmets is black and white, it is quite clear that one of the two prototypes is the silver-blue shell that was in fact adopted, with the Cowboys Lone Star decal on each side. Close examination of the helmet also indicates that the Lone Star is outlined in white, thus predicting the exact decal representation that the new uniforms of ’64 would display. The other prototype, with a design that did not ever see the light of day, is that of a cowboy boot, one that appears to be textured as per high quality boots often worn both then and now by Texas businessmen and women. The Dallas Lone Star logo is displayed in a clever fashion at the end of the boot spur neck or shank. One might assume that like the Dallas Lone Star, the boot was blue in color, perhaps navy or of a lighter hue, and like the star that was adopted for the 1964 season, also outlined in white.



While this boot design nor others ever took the place of the Dallas Cowboys Lone Star on the sides of the team’s helmet, this “almost” uniform modification is an interesting and enlightening one.

 

[ram29jackson]

http://www.helmethut.com/Features/Prototypes/Patsproto.html

For many of the National and American Football League helmet prototypes that occasionally surface either in drawing or actual decal form, there is always a great deal of speculation surrounding the origin, creation, and ultimate fate of a design that never became part of a team’s actual uniform. In the case of the proposed change in the New England Patriot’s helmet and official team logo, there is a story, there is verifiable information, and there are individuals that have revealed the so-called back story.



In the September 18, 1979 edition of the Boston Globe newspaper, an article appeared under the by line of sportswriter Michael Madden with the headline “Fans to choose Patriots’ logo.” The Steve Grogan and Sam “Bam” Cunningham led Patriots would be facing the Chargers at Foxboro Stadium on September 23rd and the fans were being invited to “tell the New England Patriots exactly the way you feel…and this time, we’re listening.” The article made it sound as if 61,000 art designers would be able to inject their opinion and input to a new team logo that would replace the iconic “Patriot Pat” or “Hiking Pat” as he was affectionately known throughout New England. The Patriots’ helmet design in their inaugural 1960 season had been a tri-cornered Patriots hat, a design submitted by a fan, Walter Pingree, who had brought it before team owner William Sullivan who liked it. Because fans and television commentators either were not certain what the design was supposed to represent and often referred to it as a “flying saucer” or worse, the team made this a one year helmet decal and changed to the beloved Pat.


Sullivan’ son-in-law Miceal Chamberlain who served as the team Director Of Marketing believed it was time for a new logo. He had noted that the Pat design, as popular as it might have been, was a “complicated” piece to reproduce which often caused problems during the reproduction process. Over the course of three or four years, he worked in concert with NFL Properties and his father-in-law to both develop a new, vibrant, and exciting team design with the former, and convince the latter, team owner Sullivan, that the team in fact needed something new. Chamberlain takes credit for “fine tuning” the final logo but the development was done by NFL Properties and depicted a Revolutionary War era soldier standing before a flag of the United States.

The Madden article preparing the fans for the vote and the expectation of a new logo, also showed the new design and explained that fans could literally voice their opinion and a decibel reading machine would determine the loudest cheers, and the ultimate fate of Patriot Pat.



What fans did not know was that Billy Sullivan and Pat’s General Manager Bucko Kilroy in truth, did not want to change the team logo that had been representative of the organization since 1961. Though Sullivan had agreed to the change, his heart wasn’t in it and as Chamberlain explained many years later, he knew that his father-in-law’s “test vote by the fans” would immediately shoot down his proposed change. At halftime of the Chargers game, and with approval of any new design necessary by an October 1st deadline in order to introduce it for the 1980 season, the fans had the opportunity to examine the old, standard Pat in one end zone, and the new Soldier And Flag design in the other. To further assist the voting, the Patriots’ cheerleaders “waltzed around the field” hoisting cardboard signs with each of the logos displayed upon them. The vote, predictably, was not close as Patriot Pat’s supporters “knocked the needle right off the meter” while the new proposed logo barely registered a peep.



Thus the New England Patriots prototype helmet design one that featured the attractive blue center stripe with white and red flanking stripes, and the proposed blue “soldier” in front of the billowing red stripes of the flag, never made it to production.

 

[killgod]

Pats one aint that bad. Cowboys one is fucking lol.

 

[ram29jackson]

http://www.helmethut.com/Features/Prototypes/Begnalproto.html

Anyone who knows the history of football, especially the modern era of professional football, knows the history of legendary coach Paul Brown. He is credited with introducing or developing numerous innovations that literally catapulted the game into the public consciousness and made the actual nuts and bolts of training and on-the-field execution exacting. The history of Paul Brown is rooted in his Massillon, Ohio boyhood where he learned to love football and see it as a metaphor for many of life’s challenges, allowing him to develop his trademark philosophies and principles. These principles incorporated a disciplined and conservative approach to almost every aspect of the game. The Massillon Washington High School football program became legendary, especially when Brown took over the coaching duties from 1932 through the 1940 seasons, and much of what he was and did can be traced to the influence of the Ohio city. Paul Brown’s success, as evidenced by his Massillon Washington record of 88 – 8 – 2 with thirty-five consecutive victories, put the black and orange clad Tigers on the national map.

Paul Brown’s 1940 Massillon Washington HS team was well dressed in black and orange

Those Tigers teams that he both played and coached with certainly made an impression and when Brown became the founder as well as an owner, head coach, and what would now be termed the Director of Football Operations for the fledging Cincinnati Bengals of the American Football League prior to the 1968 season, he chose a uniform style that reflected those Massillon Washington High School Tigers. The Bengals colors were orange and black and in keeping with Browns conservative bent, the uniform style was streamlined and muted.



An Associated Press photograph from January 03, 1968 showed Brown examining a number of proposed helmet styles for the new Bengals team. The white helmet in the foreground of the photo showed a tiger logo placed on the side of a white shell with white and orange flanking stripes and what appeared to be a wider black center stripe, a look similar to Massillon teams through the 1950’s and ‘60’s. Former Kent State University and Massillon Washington head coach Leo Strang has been credited with creating and using the first plastic decals applied to helmets and his initial display at Massillon was of course, that of a tiger.

Thus Paul Brown’s former high school team had enhanced their reputation with this uniform innovation that Strang introduced after taking over the Massillon program in 1957.



The Bengals appeared of course in the orange shell that Brown had chosen, with the word “Bengals” on each side and they wore this through the 1980 season. The relatively unadorned helmet and uniform jersey that eschewed sleeve or shoulder numerals was another reflection of Brown’s understated and all-business style. Many football fans and especially Bengals fans were no doubt shocked by the radical departure demonstrated by the new Bengals uniforms, unveiled for the 1981 season. Perhaps Paul Brown or others in the organization became tired of hearing that “the Bengals still look too much like the Browns,” a comment made since the franchise had been formed. The answer to “Who was responsible for the great helmet design?” is rather easy to answer. Graphic designer Bruce Claypool, in a revealing 2010 interview with Uni Watch guru Paul Lukas, indicated that he was very much responsible for the change to the Bengals striped helmet design. The more important question for many may be “What was the stimulus that brought Brown to NFL Properties with a request to make a change?” We may never know with certainty but as Claypool described it, “The team came to (NFL) Properties…Dave Boss (of NFL Properties) came to me and asked if I’d like to work this and I said ‘Great.’” While the stripes were to most, an obvious design choice for a tiger-related helmet, Claypool wanted to mimic the concept displayed by the Rams helmets that also worked the design in conjunction with the helmet shape. After approximately six months and a number of possible production models, the striking striped helmet was completed and of course, an immediate hit when revealed for the 1981 season.


However, another glance at the January 1968 press photo of Coach Brown that displayed a number of helmet prototypes shows him holding…yes, a tiger striped helmet! It’s obvious that the stripe design does not demonstrate an attempt to “work with the shape of the helmet” as Claypool did, but it is clearly a similarly striped helmet, comparable in concept, to the finished 1981 model. Lukas made everyone’s most blatantly “this needs to be asked” inquiry of Mr. Claypool: “Were you aware of that photo, and did it help inspire your design?” Claypool stated upon viewing the photo, “Oh! Interesting. I’ve never seen-I don’t recall seeing this photo.” Thus the original 1968 Bengals tiger-striped prototype helmet was one of a number of designs requested by Paul Brown, by Brown in concert with the advertising and marketing department of the National Football League, or one of a number of submitted designs from artists or helmet company designers that were asked to present their ideas. Bruce Claypool is the individual “officially” credited with designing the beautiful Bengals striped helmet still in use today, but the original striped prototype, one of many, has origins that will for the moment, remain a bit of a mystery.

 

[Argath]

Cowboys one looks like it belongs in a hooters restaurant

 

[ram29jackson]

 

[Derrville]

Lol interesting. I have "The Dallas Cowboys: Our Story The Authorized Pictorial History" and Ive read it and looked at it a billion times and this wasn't in it. Pretty cool but I can see why it was forgotten about, lol.

 

[ram29jackson]

Lol interesting. I have "The Dallas Cowboys: Our Story The Authorized Pictorial History" and Ive read it and looked at it a billion times and this wasn't in it. Pretty cool but I can see why it was forgotten about, lol.

this site is cool to look at once in a while for a little history and lots of pictures.

for some of the colleges, they have almost every helmet the team ever used. For others they just pick some obscure example of something

http://www.helmethut.com/

 

[ram29jackson]

http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/6810815/uni-watch-traces-lineage-patriots-flying-elvis-logo

 

[Atom1]

http://www.helmethut.com/Features/Prototypes/Patsproto.html

Very interesting considering the current "Flying Elvis" logo is definitly based of this old prototype..

 

[ram29jackson]

Very interesting considering the current "Flying Elvis" logo is definitly based of this old prototype..

it appears to be true.

just shows that mostly everything old is new again. Mostly they just try to rehash what is familiar to the fans and the region.

There was once a basketball team called the Chicago Packers...there was once the Chicago Cardinals too.

the Bengals borrowed an idea from a high school team in the same State.

 

[ram29jackson]

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[Bear Pand]

Pretty interesting, I also did some googling and found a bunch of Browns helmet prototypes that were never used.

 

[ram29jackson]

LOL what the hell is that supposed to be ?