NFL uniforms didn’t always look like the yoga pants and spandex body suits players wear today.

No, they were their own category of uniform. A leather, wool, or cotton ensemble.

Keep reading for a deeper look at when jerseys were actually made of jersey. For more rousing historical content, look at other articles here.

The NFL Uniform of Yesteryear

The Jersey Jersey

Jersey, a cotton fabric, was often the preferred fabric for the jersey, hence the name. If you’ve ever slept on those cheap Walmart dorm sheets, you know that the material is very warm and as breathable as a broken oxygen mask. Even if it’s lightweight, it’s suffocating. So, of course, it should be the material of choice—that or wool. Like the itchy socks and scarves, your grandmother made you for Christmas that year.

Of course, players were often competing in the dead of winter, and they didn’t have the luxury of heated benches and giant, fluffy overcoats for every individual on the roster. Avoiding hypothermia was everyone’s first preference.

 

In the beginning, there was nothing but the material. However, with time, the advent of leather patches sewn directly onto the uniform became the go-to look.

The NFL did have the advantage of college football creating and learning from many mistakes when it came to the ideal football uniform in the 19th century, that were no longer an issue in the 1920s, such as padding.

Underneath the jersey, leather pads were also worn on the shoulders, fitted to the body with elastic straps that resembled a harness.

When was leather put away for good? Plastic and fiberglass became a thing in the padding world in the 1950s and 1960s. They even put padding inside the plastic and fiberglass eventually. Imagine a good kick to the leg, and all you have between you and the opponent is fiberglass with no padding. Ouch!

Pants

Fritz Pollard is seen modeling the 1920s NFL uniform. The outfit consisted of leather or canvas pants. If you’re wondering how comfortable wearing canvas would be, it’s a material known for its stiffness, structure, and rigidity. All things that sound terribly uncomfortable when considering an athletic pant.

NFL Uniform

Fritz Pollard – John Hay Library, Brown University

Another fun component of the canvas pant is that it absorbs water like a sponge. The material will sit on your skin and feel heavy and stiff. The moisture will clear out with varying levels of success, meaning you might just get moldy, mildewed pants depending on how you dry them.

It’s not immediately clear why canvas was the material of choice, but football players were intelligent enough to pick the best available fabrics to make athletic wear out of, so the options were likely limited.

Football pants did have leather patches sewn into the knees pretty early on in the evolution of the NFL uniform. Hip pads were added later.

The NFL Uniform coup de gras:

The shoes. The shoes are the coup de gras of the early NFL uniform trifecta that was the woolen shirts, canvas pants, and footwear.

NFL Uniforms

A popular 1920’s NFL shoe – GalleryOldham/Twitter

The shoes looked like laced-up boots with a bit of an arch or a heel. Varying levels of tread were on these boots, ranging from regular to resembling the bottom of a cleat.

These shoes were often an everyday shoe, or very similar to one, back in the day. It likely most closely resembles the modern work boot, minus the steel toes. Although it probably felt like there was steel in the toes, trying to lug those heavy, unsupportive shoes around the field all day.

The Greatest Drawback of the NFL Uniform?

The greatest drawback of the traditional NFL uniform would be the smell. The complete lack of breathability, cleanability, and frequent use of these jerseys would mean they would be riper than tomatoes falling off the vine.

Not all games would be cold, and lugging those boots around all day could make anyone sweat in any weather. Wool, leather, and canvas are not known for their breathability. The moisture and smell would be trapped along with the dirt in the fabric.

 

The automatic washing machine would not be invented for over ten years, so someone had to handwash the NFL uniforms. Men were even less gifted in the laundry world in the 1920s, and when a team of them traveled together, little thought was given to the more detailed tasks.

It wasn’t all negligence, either. Players traveled long distances quickly. There was no Monday night, Thursday night, or Sunday night schedule. They played where they fit in, meaning they might have little time to clean up when they weren’t traveling or playing.

NFL players at this time also almost exclusively worked full-time jobs, and football was a low-paying part-time job on the side. Even if the players were home, work-life balance was limited, and players were not scrubbing their stinky woolen jerseys on the washboards on the weekends.

There are no words for what could be considered a walking public health hazard. This spells a literal nightmare for anyone with OCD. Bless those players’ hearts.