HOUSTON – When the Houston Texans landed in New England, they were sporting some new threads.
To show their unity and some style, the team put a new twist on an old school tradition. Each player walked off the plane wearing their new letterman jackets.
"Shaun Cody came to me with the idea," said Outside Linebacker Connor Barwin. "I loved it! The idea was to wear them to New England."
The team boarded the bus and plane dressed alike, with khaki pants, crisp white shirts, ties, and of course their custom made jackets. Since the idea was brought to the team's director of equipment services two weeks before they played the patriots, finishing the jackets was a major accomplishment.
Joe Dotterweich, owner of BullShirts, has been in business for 30 years manufacturing mass volumes of sports paraphernalia.
"When Jay called me I told him it normally takes 6 weeks to get an order like that done and we only had a couple of weeks," said Dotterweich. "Then Jay said, if anyone can get them done, you can, so we got them done. I mean we pushed it, but we got it done!"
The jackets are reminiscent of high school football letterman jackets. They are Texans "steel blue," and each one has the Texans bull logo on the front with the number of the player and position on their side right arm.
"They didn't want their names on the back, because they wanted it to be about team unity. They were really specific about that. For the rest of the design they just wanted to have fun with it," said Dotterweich.
"I think this is really cool it shows a lot about our team and the chemistry we have. The guys in the locker room really care about each other and the jackets really signify that," said Defensive End J.J. Watt.
"The whole idea is cool," said Tight End of the Texans Owen Daniels. "It brings us back to our high school days," said Daniels.
The team looks forward to sewing more patches on their jackets.
Right now the jackets are for the players only. The manufacture is not allowed to sell them because of NFL licensing.