Rejoice, my fellow old-school football fans, for it’s finally time to welcome the newest thing.
As seen in the following picture, courtesy of Jets X-Factor’s Brandyn Pokrass, wide receiver Garrett Wilson and the New York Jets donned their throwback white helmets at Thursday’s practice:
Garrett Wilson rocking the 2000s-2010s logo helmet. Jets will be wearing their “The Classic” uniforms this week against the Bills. #Jets pic.twitter.com/vvOzMsJRGR
— Brandyn Pokrass (@BPok24) October 10, 2024
The Jets will unveil old-school throwbacks this Monday night when they take on the AFC East rival Buffalo Bills at MetLife Stadium.
Back to The Classic. pic.twitter.com/OicjQG5w7K
— New York Jets (@nyjets) October 10, 2024
Since 2019, fans have clamored for the white helmets to return—although annoyingly, it seemed to happen immediately after the same noisy group vocalized their support for a uniform update. Nonetheless, 2024 represents the first realistic chance the organization had to utilize the white-helmet look as the top throwback set.
In 2023, the current green-helmet look of the 1980s served as the throwbacks—as seen in Week 1 against the Bills and Week 4 against the Kansas City Chiefs. Now that Woody Johnson appropriately turned those into the main threads, the room was made for the white-helmet look as the alternates.
New York first adopted the white helmet in 1963, when Sonny Werblin purchased the team. He promptly renamed the then-New York Titans of the AFL the New York Jets, replacing navy blue and gold with Kelly green and white.
Interestingly, the 1963 version of the white helmet featured a green airplane, as opposed to the NYJ emblem we know and love today. However, a white emblem overlayed the white helmet.
Not until 1967 did the Jets finally settle on the green emblem.
After Joe Namath led the 1968 Jets to their stunning Super Bowl 3 victory over the Baltimore Colts, the franchise hung tough with the uniform. The next change didn’t come until 1978, during the early years of the Walt Michaels era, when they moved to the green helmets they wear today (modernized, of course).
Once Bill Parcells decided to move the team back to the white-helmet look in 1998, the Jets’ playful identity crisis narrative was born. Feeling as though the franchise needed to embrace its winning past of the AFL, Parcells brought the white helmets back with a Hunter green flavor.
Now, the Jets uniforms are currently in a pretty secure place. Thankfully, the 2019 uniforms are long gone, and the two sets the franchise is working with are the only two this team should ever consider wearing.
Catch the white-helmet look this Monday night when Jeff Ulbrich’s New York Jets welcome in the Buffalo Bills with AFC East’s first place on the line.
