Why do some teams only wear white jerseys at home?

[pw_1016]

I have noticed that almost every other team, except the Dallas Cowboys, wear their dark colored jerseys when they play home games, white/light colored to away games. Why is that? I thought the league rules were that you wear light colored jerseys for away games, dark for home games.

[Double C]

I read a while ago that the cowboys wanted to play white at home to "offer" their spectators various colors to watch. To be less monotonous.
Instead of being always dark/cowboys v. white/opponents, it is white/cowboys v. red, blue, black, green, etc./opponents

[coogrfan]

NFL rules state that the home team may choose to wear light or dark jerseys and that the vistor must wear the opposite (note that in cfb the home team must can only wear white jerseys if they get written approval from the visiting team in advance). A number of teams (mostly in the South) have started wearing whites at home early in the season due to the heat.

[Burns11]

I believe it's up to the home team to decide what jerseys they want to wear. The Dolphins wear white at home for day games and I think it's the Chargers and Redskins that wear white for the first few home games.

[sb24]

The Redskins almost never wear their dark at all anymore. When they are home team they get the choice. Like another poster said it has to do with the heat even though they still wear whites at home in the winter.

[nanasinkam]

A lot of the teams in the NFC East will wear white at home against the Cowboys, dating back to even when the Cardinals were in St. Louis. This was due to the perceived "blue jersey" curse on the Cowboys during the 70s and 80s. The Eagles still do this in some cases today, as well as the aforementioned Skins.

More specifically on the Skins, they'd been wearing white at home since I can remember (the Gibbs era). In fact, one of the knocks on Marty Schottenheimer in the one year that he was coach was that he completely ignored that tradition and sent the Skins out for a home game in their burgundy. He was probably the first coach to do that since Jack Pardee!

Zorn decided to do four games in white, and four in burgundy. We'll see what Shanahan decides...

[Chrisksaint]

Saints like to wear their whites at home a lot recently cause of superstition, kinda like how LSU only will wear white at home.

[SPTO]

Quote: Originally Posted by Double C

I read a while ago that the cowboys wanted to play white at home to "offer" their spectators various colors to watch. To be less monotonous. Instead of being always dark/cowboys v. white/opponents, it is white/cowboys v. red, blue, black, green, etc./opponents

You got the gist of it right. This was in the mid '60s, I believe '65 or so and Tex Schramm decided to wear white for the reasons you stated.

The Dolphins also wear white at home early in the season so that the away team has to wear dark and feel the heat more of the Florida sunshine. This has been a practice of the team since the early '70s when Don Shula first came there. The other southern teams tend to do this as well.