Ranking the NFL’s Color Rush uniforms, from No. 32 to No. 1

We're in the second year of the NFL's Color Rush uniforms and, by the end of the season, 26 of the league's 32 teams will have worn the monochromatic kits. They range from dull and plain to so bright they look like the sun and will cause the same eye damage if you stare at them too long. Here's the ranking of all 32 teams special (not at all for marketing purposes) uniforms.

Looks like: Plutonium that just left the stage at the Nickelodeon Awards.

Looks like: If the Browns were told to come up with an even uglier, less tasteful brown.

Looks like: An all-white Dallas Cowboys uniform that features blue shoulder pads for some reason or another.  

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Red and black is good for licorice and Les Miserables songs but not uniforms

Looks like: The main problem with some of these Color Rush uniforms. Since NFL players have to wear the same helmets there's only so much marketers can do with the headpieces, leading to a regular Bengals helmet when the thing probably would have looked real sweet with bengal lines over a white background. There's a white bengal, right? It exists? Siegfried? Roy? Planet Earth guys?

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Looks like: Somebody came up with the first 31 Color Rush schemes then got lazy on No. 32.

Looks like: They and the Panthers flipped a coin to see which team would wear all black and which team would get stuck wearing its shade of blue.

Looks like: Everybody lost that coin flip.

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Looks like: The all-black uniforms Philly has worn in the past. Why is it so hard for everybody to accept that kelly green is this team's true calling?

Looks like: A website from 1997 that incorrectly thought it'd look cool to put red text on a black background.

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Looks like: Paisley Park.

Looks like: The lamest Marvel superhero. Besides Hawkeye.

Looks like: The burning bush.

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Looks like: Those blue icy pops that always get left behind while everyone fights for red and green.

Looks like: One of only a few successful dark Color Rush kits, mainly because the Texans' helmet already conforms to the scheme.

Looks like: A reject. The Browns won't be wearing this in Thursday's game against the Ravens for fear of the dark brown clashing with Baltimore's purple. And here everybody was excited for that scintillating matchup.

Looks like: An M&M. There was a fantastic article in The New York Times Magazine about Mars' attempts to make a true blue M&M, as the color isn't naturally occurring in nature and otherwise has to be made with artificial ingredients. But as anyone who's looked closely at Andrew Luck's beard can attest, naturally occuring things are overrated.

Looks like: The Kool-Aid Man. I'm going to guess the black numbers are difficult to see, which is okay because the only two people anyone knows on the Falcons will either be throwing it (Matt Ryan) or catching it (Julio Jones).

Looks like: That year the AFC had the original AFL teams wear throwbacks. Do that more.

Looks like: White gold. Texas tea … sweetener.

Looks like: A team playing for the Division III national championship, which isn't an insult — those small schools usually have dope uniforms. No, I'm too old – can't get away with saying “dope.” Funky fresh then.

Looks like: These were much derided last year for both the Christmas clash (notice the all-red Bills player in the top left) and the fact that colo- blind people couldn't tell which team was which. But on their own, these have a funky fresh look.

Looks like: Yesteryear. The uniforms are meh. Nothing special. But any time you bring back the GIANTS helmet of the Phil Simms-Bill Parcells era, it's fine by me.

Looks like: A No. 2 pencil. You'd have thought the burgundy and gold Redskins would have gone with burgundy jerseys (which would have made fumble scrums look like pools of BBQ sauce). Instead they went with gold and it looks great, except for the fact that it'll be hard to see all the flags that'll be thrown when they're called for holding.

Looks like: Something Jim McMahon designed. The orange highlights make it all pop, though.

Looks like: Traffic cones. The orange uniforms look fine, but it's the helmet — the old Bronco bucking out of the Denver D — that makes this one of the top combos.

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Looks like: Patriotism. This is the biggest example of how the helmet rule hurts a team. These uniforms with the white Pat Patriot helmet would be sublime. As it is, they still look pretty good for a team that usually wears way too much silver. (The reason the Broncos and Giants can wear “different” helmets is because their current helmets have the same base color as the old ones they're changing to. In that case, all the equipment guys have to do is peel off a sticker and put on a new one. It's still the same helmet just with another decal. But if the helmet you want to switch to is a different color, you're out of luck.)

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Looks like: A highlighter. This is the definition of color rush. It's unapologetically in-your-face, burn-your-retina yellow and includes the far superior yellow ram's horns on the helmet. A rare Rams winner.

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Looks like: Santa. Except that the Bills rarely deliver in December.

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Looks like: The epitome of Pittsburgh sports. 

Looks like: Something 50 percent worse than if they'd used the team's old powder blues but still pretty great nonetheless. While other teams are stuck with blues of the sky, Carolina and teal-ish variety, the Chargers do it right even when they do it wrong. 

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Looks like: Proof that looking good doesn't always equal playing good. The orange is almost creamsicle, like the Bucs unis of old, and for the first time the team's new helmet, with the longer dolphins, combines perfectly with the mellow orange look with the white piping. 

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