The NFL's "Color Rush" campaign hit a snag on Thursday night when hundreds of color-blind fans across the country complained that they couldn't tell who was who during the Bills' 22-17 win over the Jets.
According to the National Eye Institute, about 8 percent of men are red/green color blind and that was a huge issue for Thursday's game because the Bills were wearing all-red and the Jets were wearing all-green.
The NFL admitted on Friday that when the league was putting the "Color Rush" uniforms through the testing phases, it forgot to account for color-blind fans.
"The Color Rush jerseys are a test for four games this season, the first of which was last night," the league said in a statement. "We did test the jerseys this summer on field and on television. The standard television test did not account for color blindness for fans at home that became apparent last night. We will enhance our testing to include a color blindness analysis to better address this issue in the future."
Here's what Thursday night's game looked like to color-blind people who were watching at home.
Here's what tonight's NFL game looks like to people with red-green colorblindness: https://t.co/xjGrDXiXI5 pic.twitter.com/2IRSKpqCGf
— Deadspin (@Deadspin) November 13, 2015
The league could also run into a problem with color-blind people on Nov. 19, when the Jaguars are scheduled to wear all-gold against the Titans, who will be wearing all-blue. It shouldn't be a huge problem though because only 1-in-10,000 people suffer from blue-yellow color blindness. Things were a lot worse for Thursday's game because an estimated 1-in-12 people suffer from red-green color blindness.
The NFL will probably do a lot more testing before next year when all 32 teams are expected to get "Color Rush" jerseys from Nike. The "Color Rush" campaign will completely take over the NFL in 2016. Every team that plays on Thursday night will have a new uniform combo for their game.
As for this year, eight teams offered to participate in the 2015 campaign, which started with Bills-Jets and runs thru Dec. 17. Besides the Bills, there will be at least two other teams that will be undergoing dramatic jersey changes this year.
The Jaguars will be wearing those aforementioned all-gold jerseys next week. The Rams will also wear a gold jersey this season. That jersey is expected to be worn on Dec. 17 vs. the Buccaneers.
