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Colorblind Fans Had Trouble Watching Jets-Bills Game

A sports editor at the Associated Press called watching the game “torture.”

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The game was the first in which teams will wear one-color uniforms. The Bills were dressed in scarlet red jerseys, sleeves, pants, socks and shoes. Then I realized all 22 players just looked like they played for the same team.

After many took to social media Thursday night to criticize the bright red and green Color Rush uniforms that debuted in Jets-Bills, the league responded, claiming it will take colorblindness into account for future Color Rush games. As countless observers quickly noted, this color pairing would have made a lot more sense on Christmas than two weeks before Thanksgiving.

Roughly six percent of men suffer from a few degree of red-green colorblindness, and those with the worst of it saw the game like this-largely unable to differentiate the two uniforms from each other. On November 19, it’ll be Tennessee (Titans blue) at Jacksonville (bold gold); Carolina (Panthers blue) at Dallas (white) on November 26; and Tampa Bay (red) at St. Louis (yellow gold) on December 17.

The concerns of colorblind fans are real and should be taken seriously.

Missouri will wear white for Saturday’s game against BYU, the San Francisco 49ers have gone with all black before, and there are many more you can find out there.

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In fact, while the Jets and Bills were wearing their bodysuits last night, another color-on-color game was taking place. It was at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, where Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech both wore colored jerseys. The game looked great.

Ryan Fitzpatrick