Much of the San Francisco 49ers' formation can be read about in this article about the team's co-founder and original majority owner Tony Morabito. Perhaps the most relevant portion of that article for this thread is: I'd been asked before why the San Francisco 49ers chose the team colors that they did. From what I'd heard, the main reason the 49ers went with red from the outset was that, for whatever reason, red seemed to be the most popular shirt color (followed closely by blue) among the original California gold miners. As for their helmet and pants colors: from 1946 to 1963, the team would vacillate between white, silver and gold until they finally settled on gold colored helmets and pants in 1964. Ultimately, the reason for the gold color should be obvious considering the aforementioned gold miners. That also explains the team's gold miner themed mascot Sourdough Sam (and as it turns out, San Francisco sourdough bread does have a history with the gold miners). Do at least some of the other NFL teams have backstories for their team names, colors and mascots, or were they simply chosen because they looked cool (or both?)? GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Bumping this thread up as a new NFL season has finally arrived (snuck up on us?) and there are still more teams' names & colors origins still unaccounted for. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G