1968 Minnesota Vikings

Just noticed something in the 1968 Saints highlight film: The Vikings in a purple jersey with no sleeve stripes, not unlike the jersey the Lions wore in their early-season game at Dallas.







I apologize for the quality of the screencaps. It's what you get when you point a smartphone at a TV screen, you know?

Nice find. It's going into the pipeline to be fixed/added.

Excellent! That was half the fun of making the discovery: The realization "I know some guys will want this information!"

Forgive the "Master of the Obvious" comment, but the stripeless jerseys are obviously their warm-weather jerseys. The Saints game in question was played on a warm (high of 82) day in New Orleans, and below is a sideline shot from the 12/7/69 Vikings game that was played in Los Angeles:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/minnesota-vikings-defensive-linemen-gary-larsen-hall-of-news-photo/84054049

this is from a 1971 preseason game:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/minnesota-vikings-hall-of-fame-defensive-end-alan-page-news-photo/80797975

from a 1971 late season game in San Diego:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/minnesota-vikings-circa-1970s-carl-eller-of-the-minnesota-news-photo/78179977

Now, the perusing of photos to see how far back this goes begins...

Yes, that's what I was thinking, too. The Lions' jersey to which I alluded was worn in the '68 season opener, in the Cotton Bowl. It suggests that this was the year the NFL realized that, on an 80-degree day, the players could do without the sleeves which went halfway down the forearm.

BD,

I thnk Bill will confirm this, but we sorta had this pegged for 1968, but we weren't sure if the Vikies did indeed go stripeless, I just couldn't get a good pic/film from that MIN-NO to fully confirm. Tommy F's screen shots did just that and we thank him for the assistance.

So, the Vikes went from 1968 thru 1973 where they wore both the mesh-stripeless purples and the striped-durenes.

The dual mesh/durene styles seemed to end in 1973 as I would guess most of the jersey makers were finally able to conquer the problem of properly stitching/screening issues by 1974. Only a couple of rare instances extend from 1974 with striping issues, notably the Eagles, but that had to do with them using the wire mesh and the standard mesh jerseys.

If the Vikes did stop wearing the stripeless jerseys after '73, the last time they wore them was in the NFC title game win over Dallas--as evidenced by this SI cover photo:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/featured/8364/index.htm

Just happened to notice in the second screenshot above...

Notice the Saints linemen wearing 2 different stripe patterns on the sides of their pants.