Getty Jimmy Garoppolo of the San Francisco 49ers in a huddle.
The San Francisco 49ers are making significant changes to their look ahead of the 2022 NFL season.
Few teams in the NFL boast the history and success of the 49ers organization. The team’s five Super Bowl wins from 1982 through 1995 solidified them as one of the league’s biggest franchises, and the iconic red and gold look is one fans can find in all four corners of the country.
Now, San Francisco is honoring those glory days with new uniforms for the upcoming season. The 49ers officially announced the “gold standard” changes on social media on April 25.
The gold standard. #FTTB
San Francisco has always had an iconic look, but it has evolved over the years. With the “classic updates,” the look changes again while also incorporating some retro details that 49ers fans love.
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Breaking Down 49ers’ Uniform Changes
Essentially, there’s two major changes in three spots across the uniform, all of them focused around reverting back to older jersey designs. San Francisco offered a press release for the announcement, which goes into more detail of how things are shifting.
First and foremost, welcome back to the old saloon logo. The 49ers utilized the classic design as its “primary wordmark” from 1972 to 2004. The team then simplified the script, but the saloon font was never hard to find on fans or in stores.
“[The 49ers constructed] a dominant reputation for the logo throughout professional sports,” the press release reads. “Placed below the neckline on standard 49ers jerseys and on rear helmet bumpers, the wordmark recalls the team’s history and tradition for all to see.”
#49ers make some modifications to their uniforms in 2022:
– Adding saloon font on the helmet and jersey.
– Adding 3 stripes instead of 2 on the sleeves.
So, the saloon font makes it return in not just one, but two places on the uniform. Meanwhile, the other primary change is the addition of one stripe on the jersey shoulder. This one is slightly less noticeable, just because San Francisco still incorporated two stripes on the shoulder previously.
“After a five-year absence, 49ers standard home and away jersey sleeves will once again don three white stripes. Reminiscent of Super Bowl victories and NFL legends, the three-stripe design dates back to the beginning of the Bay Area’s oldest professional sports team,” the 49ers’ press release explains.
San Francisco Juggling Deebo Samuel, Jimmy Garoppolo
While the team unveils updates to uniforms, fans are paying close attention to what the team will do with wide receiver Deebo Samuel and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Garoppolo was expected to be traded since the start of the offseason, but Samuel shook the league by handing in a trade request recently.
Deebo is coming off a first-team All-Pro season and was in the midst of contract negotiations that apparently went sour. The Athletic reporter Connor Hughes has stated that the 49ers have no interest in trading the “wide back,” but, either way, the situation is clearly rocky.
With the 2022 NFL draft just days away, the 49ers find themselves in an unenviable position. Garoppolo is a massive salary cap hit but the team has failed to offload him, while Deebo is the franchise’s No. 1 offensive talent and doesn’t want to be in San Francisco anymore.