Football fans are often superstitious. If you don’t have your own personal idiosyncrasies, you know someone who does. Maybe they wear the same socks every time the New Orleans Saints kick off, or keep a lucky jersey ready for big games. Maybe they have a particular fast food spot to drive through for game days (Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is a fan-favorite), or a specific dish they prepare ahead of time (almost everyone has an uncle who gets up early on Sunday mornings to start the gumbo).
Uniform combinations are something near and dear to the hearts of many Saints fans. The white-on-white Color Rush alternates have been a lightning rod lately, and for good reason — the Saints have won all five of their last games in those threads. The black-on-black look is also a popular choice for night games.
Despite all the hours of preparation coaches and players put into getting ready for each game, there isn’t a dive bar in New Orleans where you can’t find someone who swears the Saints would’ve won (or lost) if not for their choice of jersey-pants combo. But which looks are really the most-effective?
To find out, we surveyed all 227 games the Saints have played since Sean Payton was hired to coach the team back in 2006, including regular season and playoff games. We’ve singled out the 2017 season as a hinge-point for recent history because it was the year that introduced cornerstones like Alvin Kamara, Marshon Lattimore, Ryan Ramczyk, and Larry Warford, and truly ended the streak of 7-9 mediocrity that nearly defined the 2010’s for Saints fans.
Here’s every uniform variant the Saints have worn over the last 14 seasons, ranked by frequency.
Black jerseys and black pants, 63 games
The all-black look has developed a reputation for being reserved for prime time games, but that’s not completely true. It’s become the Saints’ preferred choice for home games, especially in recent years — they’ve broken out the black-on-black threads in 17 of their last 41 games (dating back to the 2017 season), more often than any other uniform combination.
And the results speak for themselves. This kit has a respectable winning percentage of .603 (with the Saints going 38-25 in them since 2006), and a 13-4 record since 2017. Now that the Saints have swapped the mismatched white socks with complimentary black socks, it’s a tough look to beat.
White jerseys and black pants, 63 games
They’ve taken a back seat to the all-black uniforms in recent years (being worn in 18 of 41 games), but the white road jerseys have been a mainstay throughout Payton’s tenure. The team has preferred their white jerseys in 125 of 227 games since 2006, which may be surprising considering the reputation the black home jerseys have developed.
In the 63 games their white jerseys have been paired with black pants, the Saints have gone 38-25 (a winning percentage of .603), identical to the black-on-black jerseys. As much as it may hype up the fan base to see the all-blook look on the Superdome turf, there hasn’t been a tangible uptick in performance — in the longer view, anyway. Since 2017, the white-on-black combination has seen the Saints win 9 of 11 games.
White jerseys and gold pants, 55 games
This variant was a go-to for the earlier Saints teams, featuring prominently in the first decade of Payton’s time on the job. It’s still the third most-common look for New Orleans since 2006, with an unspectacular win-loss record (31-24, or .564).
What’s interesting is that the Saints appear to have phased out the gold pants in recent years, because this particular look has been used just once since the 2017 season-opener: in the 2017 regular season finale, a road loss against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. New Orleans dusted off the white-on-gold look, saw something wasn’t right, and put them back on the shelf.
The Saints have gone back to this combination in a handful of preseason games, but the black pants have definitely overtaken the gold pants when paired with white jerseys.
Black jerseys and gold pants, 36 games
Like the white jersey and gold pants combination, this variant has been worked out of the rotation in recent years despite featuring often in past years. The Saints paired their black home jerseys with gold pants 30 times from 2006 to 2016, but have worn them just six times since 2017. It’s not like it wasn’t a productive look — the Saints have gone 23-13 in this look since 2006, an impressive win percentage of .639. But the mixed results they’ve logged in recent years (3-3, exactly .500) is less than encouraging.
White jerseys and white pants, 7 games
How great are these Color Rush jerseys? How lucky are Saints fans to have gotten such an iconic look out of a fad that largely flopped across the league? Despite their resemblance to “Power Rangers,” the clean white fabric cut through with old gold lettering framed in black is tailor-made for prime time games. And the Saints have embraced it despite early struggles, losing both of their first two games in the Color Rush alternates.
They’ve rebounded very, very well, winning five straight in appearances ranging from road games against the Seattle Seahawks, Minnesota Vikings, and New York Giants, to pivotal home stands versus the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles. The all-white combination carries a 5-2 record since they were introduced, and 5-1 since 2017 (.833). Color Rush forever.
Black throwback jerseys and gold pants, 3 games
It’s been a minute since these unique throwbacks were brought out for a day in the spotlight (their last appearance came in 2016 versus the Detroit Lions, ending a five-year drought from their previous outing in 2011 against the Houston Texans), but they’re a nice tribute to the early days of Saints history. Despite showing up sporadically under Payton’s management of the team, the throwbacks carry a record of 2-1 (.667). Clearly if the Saints want to win more games, they should just rotate between the throwbacks and Color Rush combo, thanks to their high winning percentages despite small sample sizes. The math checks out on that, right?
