ESPN AFC South Blog

It's a bit funny to hear a 15-year old organization talking about getting back to basics and re-establishing its identity in terms of its logos, uniforms and overall look.

But that was the theme Wednesday in Jacksonville where the Jaguars unveiled what they view as a sleeker, more straight-forward and consistently identifiable look. The main logo is untouched, but the secondary crawling Jaguar that used to be on uniform sleeves is gone, as are the gold stripes or accents on the uniforms. The wording used for the team's name when it's paired with the logo is now different.

You can scroll through a picture gallery here at the team's web site. And here's Matt Soergel's review of the new look.

Owner Wayne Weaver spoke at the unveiling about what the team tried to do.

"We've always said our primary mark was the cat head, and so we challenged the creative staff of the National Football League to say, come help us, really tweak our uniforms, our logos, and establish something that's timeless that's going to stand the test of time over the next 50 years. And I can tell you working with our local team, they've really done an outstanding job. One thing that's important to me is no longer will there be a question about who we are, what our identity is.

"So from this day forward, 2009 forward, you're going to see at all home games we'll be wearing teal jerseys and white pants, and our away games we'll be wearing white jerseys and black pants. There will be no longer mixtures of black and teal or all black. It'll be those two identities, so when people see the Jaguars on television, that's who we are. So I'm excited about that. I'm also excited about what we did with our logo. We think we've taken our logo and tweaked it in a way that it gives it a little bit of a modern flair but still a classic look, and one that we think will stand the test of time."

Coach Jack Del Rio said the shift fits with what his team is doing. Coming off a 5-11 season, the Jaguars draft at No. 8 in Saturday's first round.

"Re-establishing our identity that ties right into where we are as a football team on the field," he said.

The two most interesting elements of this:

The primary black on the helmets now includes flecks of silver.

"First time ever for any NFL helmet, bar none, we're adding an optical element to the helmet that is in the form of a chromatic pigment that gives it its light glitter and mirror-like effect," said Rick Salomone of JDSU, the company that made it work. "This is something that was born out of the automotive industry when designers and color engineers were working on it.

"And the challenge for us wasn't could we create that look but how do we shape these little micron-size flakes in such a way that it would stand the durability and the impact over and over again in a long grueling season? Through our partners at Riddell, Schutt Sports and Athletic Decals, we've been able to introduce this product called SpectroFlare, bright silver, into the helmet, the facemask and the ink in the decal. So it's a striking new effect."

And the non-white uniform jerseys and pants won't draw heat in the same way they have previously.

"With the cold black technology on the fabrication, the fabric will not retain heat so it'll be 10 to 15 degrees less in heat compared to the fabrication without it," said Chris Gallo of Reebok. "So on the black pants and anything dark, it basically evens out the playing field which is great, from lights to darks, so we're real excited about that."