The good, the bad and the ugly of the new adidas CFL jerseys and apparel

After months of anticipation and hints, the CFL fully unveiled its new lines of adidas uniforms and other apparel Thursday, first online and then in person at a launch party in Montreal. There's plenty to analyze here, with new stuff out for every team. (And, as previously announced, proceeds from cflshop.ca sales Thursday were donated to Fort McMurray wildfire relief efforts.) Keep reading for analysis of some of the highs and lows of these new releases, but first, here's a video with 360-degree images of players from each team showing off their new uniforms:

What works and what doesn't work here? Let's break it down.

The Good:

Bombers' royal blue: One of the biggest change this times around comes from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who have returned to regular royal blue home jerseys for the first time in 21 years. The team has worn royal blue a couple of times recently, but only as a third jersey. These new uniforms look great; they have the colour of the old royal blue ones with some nicely updated design flourishes, and it's also cool to see the team going to gold pants for both home and road uniforms, which should improve both their uniform consistency and their association with "blue and gold." The launch didn't go smoothly for the Bombers on the manufacturing side (which we'll discuss later), but it went well on the design side, especially with those home uniforms. That's good to see, as one of the most recent Winnipeg uniform changes did not, the widely-panned blue camouflage "Signature Look" jerseys in 2014 that took particular flak for leaving out gold. This time around, things seem to have turned out much better for the Bombers. Here's defensive end Jamaal Westerman modelling the new look:

Riders' coordinated green and white: The Saskatchewan Roughriders are another team that didn't receive a great overall reception to their 2014 Signature Look jerseys, with the overall "50 Shades of Green" look and the neon "blitz green" shoulder highlights taking plenty of criticism (although there were also some who loved them). This time around, they've come up with something that seems much less divisive, dropping silver and moving to a full green-and-white look with just their normal shade of green. This is somewhat similar to what we've seen before when they combined their 2012 green home tops and green road pants, but the white side panels are now straight instead of curved, which seems to make the jerseys look cleaner. The addition of four green side stripes on the pants (for the Grey Cups they've won) is a nice touch.

Argos' blue accents and added name: The Toronto Argonauts have also been hit or miss on some of their uniform redesigns, with the mostly-white (with almost no navy) signature look ones in 2014 receiving our lowest grade in the league. This time around, they've gone for a couple of mostly-minor changes from the main design they've used since 2012, but ones that seem to have a significant positive impact. The light-blue highlighting of numbers is fantastic, both making the numbers easier to read and really emphasizing the team's double blue colour scheme in an impressive but still not-too-busy way. The white pants offset the jersey well, too. The addition of "Argonauts" above the number is also great, especially considering the cool font and how the A is the team's logo.

The Stampeders' outlaw numbering: Calgary's decision to bring the bold "outlaw" numbering from their third jerseys to their regular ones is a solid move. Those numbers are some of the most distinctive in the league, and they fit in well on these new jerseys, which are otherwise pretty close to what the team's been wearing. It's also good to see that the team's keeping their third black "outlaw" jerseys around as well, with just the tweak of adding in the new CFL logo, as those are some of the most interesting ones in the league. Here's a look at the Stampeders' unveiling video, with a closeup of the new numbers:

The new gloves: Each team's getting new glove designs, which show off the logos when put together. These are great, and close to some of the cool ones we've seen in the NCAA. Here are the Eskimos' new gloves:

The lifestyle gear: There have been plenty of team-specific t-shirts and so on before, but the coordinated approach to this new lifestyle gear is terrific, with each team getting a wide variety of slick new shirts, polos, sweats, hoodies and much more. A favourite here are the foil logo tees, with the Alouettes' (seen at left below) particularly standing out. There are also tons of different hoodies, team-specific "Hustle" and adidas logo tees, countless jacket options and more, and it's very cool to see each CFL team selling official sideline gear; this has long been a thing in other sports, but it hasn't always been around in this league. Some of B.C.'s sideline gear can be seen at right below.

The Bad: 

Where's the plaid? Sadly, it looks like the most interesting signature look may have been retired. The Ottawa Redblacks' famed red-and-plaid design for their third jerseys (complete with plaid-striped pants) is conspicuous by its absence from their new jersey announcement, and while the new ones are cool (and at least the home ones now use much more red than their old basic black ones did; it's weird to have a team called the Redblacks that's barely wearing red), the plaid ones will be sorely missed by #hoserism aficionados. Here's a side look at the new ones:

Why so white? Mostly-white road jerseys have been a thing in the CFL for a while, which can be a bit boring but has often been livened up with some significant splashes of colour (such as Edmonton's impressive ones from 2012, which brought in plenty of green and gold). Sadly, many of the new away uniforms have gone even more white than normal, with only B.C., Calgary and Montreal having even significant sleeve colour. (The Lions' ones are pretty cool, though, especially when combined with orange pants.) There's a reason the road uniforms aren't even featured in this CFL.ca recap of the new jerseys; they're exceptionally boring next to the new home ones. From this perspective, that's unfortunate. Here are two of the most basic, from Edmonton and Toronto:

Lions' helmets aren't the toughest: B.C. went with a very ambitious overall change here, integrating more black into their primarily-orange home uniforms and much more orange into their primarily-white road uniforms, and that generally worked very well (even if it's not as slick as their signature "gunmetal grey" uniforms, which they hopefully haven't completely abandoned). However, the team logo on the helmet looks a little odd, given its different size and orientation than normal. The five stripes (for their championships) are cool, but maybe they need to design a fiercer-looking lion if they're going to display it that way? Here's a home helmet closeup:

And a look at the (solid-overall) uniforms:

The Ugly:

Alouettes' lack of changes: Really, Montreal? When the rest of the league's working on a coordinated effort to come out with cool new uniforms, you're not going to change anything at all? The CFL.ca recap just says "The Montreal Alouettes' look remains the same from years previous." Sure, changes aren't always improvements, and sure, the Alouettes' existing uniform has plenty of good points, but this feels like a wasted opportunity to update their look, and their decision not to change anything makes it seem like they're not helping out the rest of the league too much. (This is particularly odd when you consider that Montreal was chosen to host the national unveiling party.)

Bombers' production issues: Taste is always individual, so some of the "good" things above may be negatives for some fans, and some of the "bad" may actually be positives for some. We can all agree that the production of the new Blue Bombers' jerseys didn't go as planned, though. An error during manufacturing meant that their new jerseys weren't available for sale Thursday, and that they could only be preordered and wouldn't be available for six weeks. That's not the team's fault, but it's not a good outcome. At least adidas offered free t-shirts to the first 1000 people to pre-order, and free hats to the first 500 to pre-order. And if this is the worst overall moment for these new uniforms, it's not really that bad.

By and large, it looks like the CFL, its teams and adidas have done a great job with this new apparel. There's a lot to like here, and between the jerseys and the wide variety of lifestyle products, there should be at least some stuff for everyone. Some may question the need for new jerseys just four years after the last league-wide revamp and two years after the Signature Look jerseys, but it makes sense to put out new stuff now that the CFL is working directly with adidas (rather than their previous deal with adidas-owned Reebok), and most teams have made some pretty significant changes, most of which seem pretty solid. The league also deserves plaudits for the way it rolled these out, building anticipation over months, then captializing in the wake of the interest around this week's draft and ahead of the upcoming training camps, and doing so with a coordinated one-day national rollout (and even a national launch party). It was a smoothly-run initative, and one that spurred a lot of talk about the CFL, which is always a good thing. In some respects, that may be even more important than the actual uniform changes.