Arizona Cardinals

One thing I like doing in football concepts is modifying traditional elements in some way, and few things scream "traditional football" like Northwestern stripes (the thin-thick-thin stripes worn by the Steelers, Lions, Iowa, BYU, and namesake Northwestern, among many others).  Back in the late 90s, ESPN started airing Arena league games live, and among the AFL's top teams were the Arizona Rattlers and San Jose Sabercats, both of whom utilized Northwestern stripes in what remain the most distinctive manners I've seen, SMU's use of them on their shoulders notwithstanding.  The middle stripe on the Rattlers' sleeves was a turquoise/copper diamondback pattern, much like the Diamondbacks would later utilize, while a sunburst graced the Sabercats' uniform.

Arizona Rattlers courtesy azcentral.com

San Jose Sabercats courtesy Arenafootball.com

The Cardinals used to wear what I can only call double NW stripes on their white jerseys, and at some point in the early to mid 80s, felt they had enough room to add a cardinal head above them.  After moving from St. Louis to Arizona, they added their new home state's distinctive flag, and the last changes before their overhaul saw the striping reduced to a thin NW stripe, the two outer stripes change from black to royal blue, and the cardinal head removed in favor of simply the flag.

courtesy 50states.com

The main impetus for this concept was CCSLC member ColorWerx, our resident color expert, a niche-within-a-niche guy if you will.  Anyway, he'd posted color schemes he'd thought up a few months ago, and I know one thing: when he does so, I generally interpret it as "have at it, boys" because as mentioned, he's the color man, and he doesn't often make any forays into concepts.  All that said, here goes the home and away...

The color scheme retains the Cards' dark red, with yellow for the beak, but replaces black with navy blue while adding copper.  My own addition is a modernized version of an old "running cardinal" from the St. Louis days, which is used on the AZ flag-patterned stripes in place of the star.  The pants use simpler striping, and the red pants are paired with white socks.  The facemask also changes from gray to red.

And now for the third...

The jersey's design is largely the same as the home/away, the most notable difference being the numbers use a two-color outline (red-blue)...the helmet and pants are a different story, however, using a distinct flag-based stripe that is partially blue, the other part composed of alternating thin red and yellow stripes, the two parts separated by a copper star.