I’m in the same boat as many of the critics. I hated the way the throwback uniform socks looked, but not because of the color scheme or that they were vertical. I hated the look because they were striped, regardless of direction. I look at football uniforms in the same light as baseball, and anything below the knee being multi-colored is just annoying.

Vertical stripes create a problem of appearance. Either you try to keep them looking perfectly straight, or make sure they’re twisted like a cyclone. If either fails, you look like a crooked idiot. If you succeed, you look like you care about your looks and deserve to walk the catwalk instead. Horizontal stripes on the other hand are just too damn busy. The uniform designers try to make it appear as if they’re wearing regular socks pulled up really high on top of tights. It’s a stupid look entirely, and they should just be solid. I don’t care if the color’s powder blue like the Chargers of old. They’ll indeed look like smurfs, but at least they’ll look like cool smurfs and be less off an eyesore to Gargamel.

Just imagine if you’re tripping on some acid and you get all these annoying stripes flying past you on screen. It’ll be an awesome event to watch as you’re trying to figure out which leg belongs to which team, and which color belongs on the ground. I think this is what all those uniform designers do when they’re dreaming up what the look should be. Whoever dreamed up those vertical yellow and brown socks way back when probably looked at the other designers and laughed. They realized they could make their socks look worse without needing a drop some acid, and here they are today, still as trippy as ever. Kudos to the jackass who dreamed up those socks and beat everyone at the game.