When Nike and the NFL planned to have the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills wear their special “Color Rush” uniforms on Thursday night, there probably wasn’t a color blind person in the room. If there were, it’s unlikely the uniform combination would have been approved.
As part of a promotion of “Color Rush” uniforms, the Jets and Bills played in all color uniforms rather than the standard color for the home team and white for the road. It looked like a Christmas celebration at MetLife Stadium with the Jets decked out in all green and the Bills wearing scarlet red from head to toe. Both teams wore solid colors on their cleats, socks, pants, jerseys and undershirts.
Though the feedback was mixed among fans, there was one faction of fans who couldn’t stand it: the color blind ones.
Check out these facts from the National Eye Institute and you’ll get a sense of the problem:
As many as 8 percent of men and 0.5 percent of women with Northern European ancestry have the common form of red-green color blindness.
Men are much more likely to be colorblind than women because the genes responsible for the most common, inherited color blindness are on the X chromosome. Males only have one X chromosome, while females have two X chromosomes. In females, a functional gene on only one of the X chromosomes is enough to compensate for the loss on the other. This kind of inheritance pattern is called X-linked, and primarily affects males. Inherited color blindness can be present at birth, begin in childhood, or not appear until the adult years.
So what was it like watching the game for the faction of color blind fans?
Here's what tonight's NFL game looks like to people with red-green colorblindness: https://t.co/xjGrDXiXI5 pic.twitter.com/2IRSKpqCGf
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) November 13, 2015
How the colorblind see #BUFvsNYJ _ we see pants with white and blue trim vs. pants with white trim. pic.twitter.com/faxr8Wjssy
— Michael A. Giarrusso (@MichaelG1) November 13, 2015
Check out some of the other complaints:
On behalf of all who deal with a mild color blindness that makes reds and greens tough to differentiate… I say this is a cruel, cruel joke.
— Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) November 13, 2015
Hey, @NFL @nflnetwork I'm color blind!! This game is killing me
— Bill Motherway (@triabill) November 13, 2015
If you are colorblind like me this @NFL game is going to be hard to follow. @buffalobills vs @nyjets
— Lawrence Tynes (@lt4kicks) November 13, 2015
@JeffDarlington I'm literally going by the helmet decal when guys are downfield.
— Hutch (@jhutcher) November 13, 2015
Though the NFL will go with the full-color uniforms three more times this season, you can bet they’ll be a lot more careful about their color choice in the future after this disaster.
