Patriots will wear throwback red uniforms twice next season
The Patriots went 1-1 in their throwbacks last year.
The Patriots announced on Thursday that their red throwback uniforms featuring Pat the Patriot on the helmet will be back once again in 2023.
The Patriots will use their throwbacks twice, once in Week 2 against the Dolphins for Sunday Night Football, and once in Week 13 against the Chargers.
Last year, the Patriots brought back the white helmets to go along with their silver ones. The Patriots wore their red uniforms regularly from 1960 to 1992.
Pat the Patriot has been a fan favorite for decades. In 1979, the Patriots planned to change their logo. At the last minute, however, former team owner Billy Sullivan opted to let fans vote on whether or not to switch things up. Fans overwhelmingly voted to keep Pat the Patriot, which might not have been an enormous surprise — Sullivan’s son-in-law told ESPN that Sullivan didn’t want the logo changed and knew how the vote would go.
Still, the Pat the Patriot illustration had a lot of detail, which made printing marketing materials difficult at times, so the Patriots switched their logo in 1992. They brought back their throwback uniforms a handful of times until the NFL mandated the one-shell rule in 2013, which only allowed one helmet color in an attempt to boost player safety.
Pat the Patriot was retired briefly, but in 2021, the league changed its rule — allowing teams to have an alternate color, although they had to be the same make, model, and size as the player’s primary helmet. That allowed the Patriots to bring Pat back, and they wore the throwback uniforms twice in 2022. They went 1-1 while wearing red with a Week 5 loss to the Lions and a Week 13 loss to the Bills.
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