preseason question

[gobills123]

Hello guys,

I've searched the site looking for some info but didnt really see anything on the subject. For me personally, it is a bit of a two fold question but both pertain to the same time period. Other than googling it (which at times brings up old new paper articles etc all well as pics labelled similar to the search) and Getty Image- is there a source anyone has had any luck with for preseason NFL games as well as training camp? The Bills just made a donation to a local Savers a few weeks back. They must have cleaned something out and came across quite a few jerseys. Many of which were once game jerseys and had since become practice jerseys going into the late 80s when they used sand knit before Champion supplied actual practice jerseys. The others were obviously of the same ilk, but didnt have TV numbers and were just practice jerseys - but were the same sand knit style. I've checked cards, slides, team pics (they always seemed to wear their gamers for pics and practice that day though) and the like and when they were from practice/camp - it seems to always be the day they 'dressed up' in their gamers so its of no use.

The 2nd part of this is although there prob wouldnt be video or pics HD enough for a definitive photo match it would be very helpful to see late 80s early preseason games. These dont seem to be documented very well either. are there any tips or obvious things im missing? it seems more and more has come onto youtube, but not much in the way of preseason - which might not have even always been televised?

Thanks for the help and suggestions!

[Phil316]

I would love to help you out. Do you have pics of the said jerseys for reference ? Thanks

[gobills123]

sure do, andrew.hasseler@gmail.com
way too many to upload here, but the years are all over the place.
most helpful would be
1987 Bills @ Atlanta preseason
08/12/1994 (Fri) @ Atlanta
08/20/1994 (Sat) @ Houston
August 8, 1996 at Minnesota Vikings
August 17, 1996 at Carolina Panthers
As the goal is to see specifics jerseys that ideally would have come from these games.... which is why I was trying to locate pics or video but came up short.
The others I'm not as worried about, and would be from early 80s camps/preseason.
Again, just didnt know if anyone here had any ideas or success finding preseason stuff i didnt think of or missed.

thanks for the time!

[Phil316]

Here is some video of 1994 Training Camp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp6IAogXqN0

[gobills123]

Thank you very much Phil
I should have been more specific in that the camp pics I'm looking for is anything in the early 80s to mid 80s as they would have been wearing old 'retired' Sand Knits and I'm curious to see for the players who didnt get these recycled gamers, what their 'practice' jerseys looked like. Specifically to try and match a Haslett #55 that came from the dump. Its two fold in I suspect many of the non practice jerseys would have been utilized at this time as well.

The preseason games are for shirts that I KNOW are gamers due to hemming, tagging, wear/repair but have low game # designations and dont appear to be regular season shirts. IF the internal #'s match, they would correlate with the games mentioned. Sorry I wasnt this specific in the beginning, but I just figured if there WAS a source to what would be helpful then it would be up to me to just dig through it all.

Again, thank you for taking the time to help me out. That was very kind of you!!

[Preston]

Going along with this, I think another thing that would be VERY helpful for a lot of us is somewhere to find training camp rosters for teams. A lot of those seem to only be available in yearbooks/media guides.

[AKSaint]

Indeed, that is why I have every media guide for the Saints since 1967:) They do come in very handy for those random players who never quite caught on with the team. I have been able to find some other players on old "transaction wires" published in the newspapers of the time when searching Google.


Going along with this, I think another thing that would be VERY helpful for a lot of us is somewhere to find training camp rosters for teams. A lot of those seem to only be available in yearbooks/media guides.

[G1X]

Going along with this, I think another thing that would be VERY helpful for a lot of us is somewhere to find training camp rosters for teams. A lot of those seem to only be available in yearbooks/media guides.

It's pretty much old-school when it comes to preseason rosters as there is very little available via electronic media. Back in the days when Pro Football Weekly was in business and issuing a weekly publication, it would sometimes print training camp rosters of every team that included each player's uniform number. I kept a few from the late 1990s that have been helpful to me on a few occasions.

The only other reliable source that I can think of off the top of my head are preseason programs, but that could be a difficult undertaking. Annuals such as Street & Smith can be fairly helpful as they would provide rosters at the time of publication. Going back many years, some of the rosters in Street & Smith would even include assigned uniform numbers of rookies and first-year players. Another source is the NFL Record & Fact Book as it would list first-year players separately for each team (but no uniform numbers).

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR WORLD FOOTBALL LEAGUE UNIFORMS

[gobills123]

Thanks for the help Mark!!! Sounds like tough sledding to be sure!!!

[G1X]

Glad to assist. Fortunately, I kept all of my Street & Smith annuals over the years (dating back to the mid-1960s) along with the NFL Record and Fact Books dating back to the mid-1980s. They have come in handy numerous times over the years in identifying camp players.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange

ALWAYS LOOKING FOR WORLD FOOTBALL LEAGUE UNIFORMS