The New Orleans Saints will be wearing black jerseys with black pants during Sunday’s game with the San Francisco 49ers, the team announced in an email shared with season-ticket holders detailing gameday festivities. The black-on-black uniform has been the Saints’ most-common look dating back to the 2017 season, and one of their most-winningest, logging a 15-5 record.
NFL rules stipulate that teams may only wear alternate jerseys (like the Saints’ “Color Rush” duds) three times per season, and they hit that limit last week against the Atlanta Falcons (having previously broken out the threads earlier this year in games with the Seattle Seahawks and Dallas Cowboys). So we’ll be rolling with the black home jerseys and white away jerseys the rest of the season.
For the superstitious: the all-black look ranks high in winning percentage among uniform combinations used often since Sean Payton was hired to coach the team, back in 2006. We’d be remiss to not mention the alternate gold jerseys used during a 2002 game against the Minnesota Vikings, which they lost 32-31. Those jerseys haven’t been seen since.
Here is every uniform permutation used by the Saints during Payton’s tenure, ranked by winning percentage:
- White jerseys, white pants: 3-0 (1.000)
- “Color Rush” alternates: 6-2 (.750)
- Black and gold throwbacks: 2-1 (.667)
- Black jerseys, gold pants: 23-13 (.639)
- Black jerseys, black pants: 40-26 (.606)
- White jerseys, black pants: 38-25 (.603)
- White jerseys, gold pants: 31-24 (.564)
