Can anyone explain this Bills jersey number oddity from the late 80's?

[gomper]

You got taken.  It happens.  

[thronethinker]

I have an authentic Kelly Jersey from 1990 and its a Champion with diagonal heat transfer #2. It also only has one stripe on the sleeve. It looks like possibly the 2 stripe jerseys have the box 2s and are likely not Champion heat transfer jerseys. 

Edited October 26, 2022 by thronethinker

[Whkfc]

I think they just turned 5s upside down when they ran out of 2s.

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

[BillsShredder83]

Pizza. Gate.

[holla83]

That jersey has always bothered me too. My Kelly throwback has the NFL 75 and Bills 35 patches on it. I like it but I agree on the Super Bowl XXV jersey. If you order a knockoff, maybe ask if they can leave the patches off. The other thing about the jerseys from that era that I always wondered about is why a small amount of players had 2 stripes on the sleeves rather than one?

[NoHuddleKelly12]

On 10/25/2022 at 6:04 AM, BLeonard said:

After buying jerseys every few years, only to see the player get traded, cut, etc, I decided that, if I ever bought another jersey, it'd be a throwback.  Most likely, a Jim Kelly jersey.  

 

But, I don't want the road Super Bowl XXV jersey, for obvious reasons.  I also don't want the 1994 version with the NFL 75th anniversary and Bills 35th anniversary patches (they had a losing season that year, so not really a fan).  Essentially, I just want a blue 90's Kelly jersey with no extra patches.

 

The problem is, pretty much every other throwback Kelly jersey is wrong.  Let me explain:

 

The first picture is the "Mitchell & Ness Legacy Replica."  This is the one on the Bills shop site.  The tag on the bottom reads "1990 Jim Kelly."  But, it always looked wrong to me.  After watching a clip of the 1990 AFC Championship, I figured out why.

 

The second picture is a screenshot of that game.  Look at the "2" on Kelly's jersey.  It's a straight diagonal line connecting the top of the number to the bottom, where the jersey in the first picture is more of a "box" #2, much like the Bills wear today.

 

So, I backtracked a bit and found that Kelly only wore the "box" 2 in 1986, his first season.  But, while watching a game from 1987 (Dolphins at Bills) I noticed that there were players simultaneously on the field, some with jerseys that had the "box" 2 and others that had the "diagonal" 2.  Pics 3 and 4 show #25 & #27 (Roland Mitchell & Ron Pitts) wearing the "box" 2 and #52 (John Kaiser) wearing the "diagonal" 2.

 

So, why was this?  I know this was before the NFL decided to start fining guys for wearing socks that were too high and/or the wrong color, but I'm trying to think of a reason why they'd not replace all of the jerseys at the same time.  Even if you're gonna phase them in, or didn't wanna buy all new jerseys at once, wouldn't you change all of the home jerseys one year and road the next or something like that?

Thanks for posting about this-the “wrong” number 2 on throwback jerseys for Kelly in particular are very irritating.