As the Rams welcome a new neighbor in the greater Los Angeles area less than a year after returning to SoCal themselves, their evolution as an organization continues.
Ground has been broken on their new Inglewood stadium, the team installed a new head coach in Sean McVay, and now a new lid with a familiar look will fill the team's lockers.
The Rams announced the team will wear a new helmet in 2017, replacing the team's metallic gold (creatively dubbed New Century Gold) horns with white horns.
The color change made its 21st Century debut on Thursday Night Football, when the visiting Rams played the neon-green-clad Seattle Seahawks in a Color Rush game on Dec. 15. That night, the Rams wore gray facemasks, evoking memories of the Fearsome Foursome and the Los Angeles Rams of 1964-72.
There was a problem with those shells, though. While it was a clean lid, it paired poorly with the rest of the Rams' road uniform, which still had a significant amount of gold trim throughout. Rams executives also have eyes and noticed the clash, adding to Wednesday's announcement the introduction of a new pair of white pants with either one or two blue stripes, a decision left up to a fan vote. Fans were also able to vote on whether the team would wear blue or white facemasks with the helmet (this writer approves of the white facemask for a look that pops, which ended up winning with 64 percent of the fan vote).
When the Rams announced their move to Los Angeles in early 2016, fans following from afar came out in droves, donning royal blue and gold gear that had likely been collecting dust. The team appeased the fans' desires to see the team's old colors return by twice wearing throwbacks to their time in Los Angeles, but made it clear almost from the outset with a change to a blue and white logo that the organization would move toward that color scheme in the future.
The Rams also added that "the team is continuing to explore a full rebrand, including new uniforms, that will be unveiled in 2019." This is about the closest you can get to a sure thing in the world of uniforms, with the organization eager to ditch the uniforms the team unveiled while in St. Louis for a more modern, cleaner look that will resonate with the L.A. fanbase, which spans generations, and will coincide with the Rams moving into their new stadium.
UPDATE: And we have pants!
The Rams unveiled their new white pants with a single blue stripe on Thursday to complete the uniform reveal for the 2017 season. Hanging onto the existing gold-trimmed jersey makes it feel a bit like Rams brass was choosing uniform elements on Madden NFL 17, but we'll live with it until they roll out the new look in 2019, which they conceded Thursday will coincide with the opening of the team's new stadium in Inglewood.
