The White Helmets of the Old AFL

The main professional league of American Football is the NFL, and within it are two conferences, the NFC and the AFC. The history behind these are kind of interesting. Originally there was the APFC, which turned into the NFL, which absorbed the AAFC (adding the Rams, Browns and Niners), which was challenged by the AFL, a rival league. Eventually they merged, and the conferences take their names from the merger.

Originally the Super Bowl was called the NFL-AFL Championship Game.

Something struck me about the helmets around today in the AFC. The Dolphins and Jets and Bills and Chargers, old school teams from the AFL, and with a throwback helmet from the Patriots, I realized there were many helmets that are white with a logo.

I went and collected some of the old designs. With teams like the Jets and Dolphins, you can see that their helmets from today haven't changed very much.

The first is for the original Boston Patriots, now the New England Patriots. Now they play in Foxboro, Mass. This design, with the payer in the three-point stance, was used until 1992, when they switched to the silver look. They still break it out every year for at least a game.

This is an early Buffalo Bills helmet. Now they use the white with the stylized buffalo, which will follow it.

In fact, the new helmets from the same teams will directly follow these old AFL helmets from here on out.

This is from the Houston Oilers, but isn't their original design (that was blue with a white derrick). This team moved to Memphis and became the Tennessee Titans. The Titans still use a white helmet with the powder blue:

Here's an old look from the San Diego Chargers, which is remarkably close to today's look, minus the player's numbers (like Alabama):

Here's the Dolphins, one of the least changed designs in the league:

And the Jets, another team that adopted an old school look, resembling this old school, after their 80s era solid green look:

It's remarkable how little some of these things change.

And, because I found it, here's an unused helmet for the new Houston team, the Texans: