They got a new coach with a pretty good winning pedigree -- Jim Schwartz. They also have two first-round picks in the draft this weekend, numbers 1 (obviously) and 20 (from Dallas for the Roy Williams trade). They fired Matt Millen, the worst GM in the NFL during his tenure. They jettisoned all of the negative Nancies from the locker room.
Now, for the piece de resistance -- they updated their uniforms, logo, and font. The unis and the font are negligible, but the change to the logo is a nice one.
The original logo looked like this:
A nice logo. Gives a good feeling of a lion, but doesn't have much depth or detail to it.The new logo, while not a huge transition, has some subtle changes to make it look more fierce and give it some dimension:
With the black outlining, the white accents giving the lion depth and detail, and adding a mouth with teeth and eyes, the new logo looks energetic, fierce, and ready to roar.The big question is, of course, if such a cosmetic change can help the city, players, and staff feel differently about a team that has been a doorstop in the NFL for many years (since Barry Sanders retired, and even before). This is a team, after all, that has not been to the Super Bowl since it was created, last winning a league championship in 1957. For that matter, they have only made it past the first round of the playoffs once since then (in 1991, beating Dallas in the first round and losing badly to the eventual SB winning Redskins in the NFC championship game)!
On the other hand, maybe this change expresses all of the intangibles the team has seen with the new coach, the new staff, and the stronger locker room personality? Help those who remain to move past the "0-fer" season and look forward to making a new start this season?
Either way, I like it. It is a good change, and I hope it is well-received by the fans and the rest of the NFL.
Now, if we can just get some victories this season to go with the new look....
In the lingo of the business world, this team needs a paradigm shift from being a losing team to being a winning team. Attitude is a huge factor in winning, but isn't worth much if it isn't back with solid talent and commitment to winning. Teams that don't accept a loss often can turn around a losing team.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'll join you in believing that changing the uniform logo can have an impact, too, as a new visual image can often spark a new sense of success.