1994 Bills Throwback Question

[G1X]

ya, seriously great stuff guys - both of you!

The very last thing I'd like to ask you guys (and i assume it just got lost in my barrage of questions)....


Were numbers done in house for your respective teams? I know the bears used champion and I think the Falcons did too (91ish?)
Bears were sewn so it might be different. But I'd think to keep the 'champion font' correct and consistent the jerseys would come already numbered.

I don't know if the Falcons did the numbers in-house. They used Russell from 1975 through 1996 with the exception of the 1991 season when they used Champion and the 1990 pre-season when they wore black Champion jerseys before going back to Russell for the regular season. The #81 jersey below is from the 1990 pre-season, and the #85 jersey is from the 1991 regular season (tail was hemmed, so the tags are missing).

To confuse matters a bit, in the 1990 pre-season, several players wore the same number in the early preseason due to the size of the roster. Where players wore the same number, it appears that one wore Champion and the other wore Russell. I stumbled onto this when I wound up with a Russell jersey of #73-Oliver Barnett that showed game use. He and offensive lineman Reggie Redding both wore #73 in the preseason. Barnett ended up wearing #72 in the regular season while #73 was assigned to Redding who ended up not dressing for a regular season game until the following season. Ironically, at one point I also had a white jersey assigned to Redding for the 1990 regular season.

On a side note, the Falcons names were always sewn onto the plate dating back to 1970 (when names were first placed on the back of their jerseys) except for the above mentioned Champion jerseys.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange
gixc@verizon.net

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