My beleaguered Tennessee Titans pulled out a win last weekend on the strength of a fantastic performance by quarterback Will Levis in his first NFL game. Perhaps the Titans have discovered a franchise quarterback. Perhaps it was a complete fluke. I have a different explanation, though — the Titans won because they were wearing throwback Houston Oilers uniforms.
Crisp, vivid, and memorable, the Oilers uniform was among the best in NFL history. It’s too bad when moving to Tennessee the franchise didn’t retain the name Oilers, as they did the first couple of years. Sure, there aren’t Oilers in Tennessee, but there aren’t Lakers in Los Angeles, either.
The uniform looks good in any iteration, as the University of Houston proved when it wore Oilers-inspired uniforms (wrongly, the NFL has told the school to cease and desist).
There’s a debate whether the Oilers uniform truly belongs to Tennessee or Houston. I refuse to engage in such small-minded contention — the Oilers uniform belongs to all of us. In fact, it’d be great it both the Titans and Texans wore throwback Oilers uniforms in their two games this year, one the home jersey, the other the away jersey, depending.
Unfortunately, the league isn’t yet ready to embrace such innovative thinking. As for Levis, we’ll see how he performs in the two-toned blue tomorrow night in Pittsburgh, but it will be an inevitable come-down to have to swap the uniform of Dan Pastorini and Warren Moon for the current unremarkable duds.