4. Hermann Goering and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Nazi poster boy Hermann Goering joined the party in 1922, after a very successful aviation career in the first World War. As the years went by he gained momentum as a political force within the Third Reich. By the outbreak of the war he was appointed as the commander of the Luftwaffe. And despite being the most advanced air force on the planet, the Luftwaffe is now remembered as the Washington Generals of the History Channel. In 1945 he was relieved of command and charged with treason. He committed suicide while awaiting execution after the Nuremberg Trials.
The Buccaneers debuted in 1976 (and lost their first 26 games), wearing these uniforms as an AFC West team (because Tampa is in the western United States.) They were sent to the NFC Central the following season (because Tampa is in the center of the United States.), until 2002 when the NFL finally got out a map and sent them to the NFC South (Tampa is in the South, right?) and they won their first Super Bowl. These uniforms, however were long gone. They were ceremoniously discarded in 1996, after only making the playoffs 2 times in their 20 year history. They became a perrenial playoff team almost immediately after the change.
What's the connection?
After 20 years of autrocity and ineptitude, they were finally dismissed of their command.
3. Josef Mengele and the WFL's pants
Dr. Mengele was a "physician" at Auschwitz. The term "physician" here means demented madman with free roam to due horrible experiments on human test subjects in the name of "science." He had a penchant for experimenting on identical twin children, doing bizarre operations such as changing the eye color of his patients, and unnecessary amputations without the use of anesthetics. "Uncle" Mengele operated on approximately 3,000 twins, 26 pairs of which survived. After the war he fled to Argentina where he was hunted, yet not discovered until after his death in 1979.
The World Football League lasted for two glorious seasons, 1974 and 1975. The league was forward thinking, in that they had an "Action Point" which was a precursor to the two point conversion in the NFL. However another attempt at changing the sport as we know it, thankfully did not take off. In 1974 they experimented with position based pant color and design. Some of the examples include - blue for defensive linemen, purple for offensive linemen, white with three stars down the side for quarterbacks, and so on. Luckily the league folded soon after. Interestingly, because of the financial trouble the league was in, after World Bowl 1, the team's uniforms were confiscated by the local sherrif's department as collateral. This is so far as I know, the only time uniforms have been arrested.
What's the connection?
They were responsible for horrible experiments released upon human kind, only to disappear entirely shortly after.
What could be worse than those pants? The black in the middle make them look like 80's work out attire.
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