Why did the Broncos wear their white jerseys against the Steelers at home?

DENVER — There has been an unusual sight at Denver Broncos home games this year.

The Broncos have worn their road white uniforms in both home preseason games and last Sunday’s home opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So much for Orange Crush.

According to head coach Sean Payton, the reason for the change is weather.

“If there’s heat, we’re in a white jersey,” Payton said.

“I don’t know if there’s anything out there that specifically says in research that wearing a lighter garment helps eliminate heat, but there’s certainly some information on wearing a darker garment causing more heat storage,” said Tony Nuñez, MSU Denver Exercise Science Associate Professor.

With the help of a FLIR thermal imaging camera, Nuñez took the temperature of a white road Broncos jersey, an orange home jersey and a blue home jersey, all sitting in the sun on a table, without a player in pads wearing them.

“I’m getting a reading here of 72.5 degrees Fahrenheit on the white jersey,” Nuñez said.

The orange jersey was a little bit hotter.

“Now, I’m up to 86, 86.5,” Nuñez said.

The blue jersey showed the hottest temperature.

“We’re looking at 94.5,” Nuñez said.

“With garments, darker colors tend to absorb heat, lighter colors tend to reflect heat,” Nuñez said. “It’s not going to be that substantial with football because they’re wearing pads, so a lot of the heat storage that comes along with the exercising component is going to come from the pads, retaining the heat in their body.”

Look at the crowd of any Broncos game and you will see more orange and blue than white.

When the Broncos played the Pittsburgh Steelers last Sunday on an 88-degree day, the Broncos wore white, leaving the Steelers in their iconic black uniforms.

“The Broncos aren’t necessarily going to benefit from not being in black, but the Steelers may have a detriment from being in black, in terms of retaining the heat to the jersey,” Nuñez said.

The Steelers won 13-6.

“The jersey may play a small role, but it’s not likely that it’s going to have a substantial role on their ability to perform,” Nuñez said. “It’s more so going to be their ability to dissipate that heat through sweating or some other means.” 

He pointed out that the teams have large fans and spritzers on the sidelines that help cool the players.

He also said a strategic move is when the home team puts the away sidelines on the side of the stadium that sees the sun the most.

“A darker jersey can retain anywhere from 10-to-15 more degrees of heat just from being in the sun. That doesn’t necessarily mean that heat is being transferred to your body,” Nuñez said.

The Broncos will wear their orange jerseys for the first time this Sunday against the Buccaneers. But that is because Tampa Bay is the home team and had chosen to wear white, even before it was known that the game would be near 90 degrees with a heat index near 100 degrees.

“The humidity is going to have a larger effect because the humidity, even though you sweat more, the sweat doesn’t evaporate and the whole evaporation of the sweat is what cools you. Your core temperature goes up and then your ability to perform at 100% goes down,” Nuñez said. “The pads that the players are wearing are going to cause the heat to be stored more so than the jersey that they’re wearing.”

When Dan Reeves became the coach of the Denver Broncos, he had the team wear road white jerseys briefly before being overruled. Reeves had ties to the Dallas Cowboys, which traditionally wear white at home. Payton also has ties to the Cowboys, and when he was coach of the New Orleans Saints, often had that team wear white at home.

The Broncos already have their jersey tops picked for each game this year.

They wear white on the road at the New York Jets in Week 4, and finally wear orange at home in Week 5 on Oct. 6.

“It just depends on how hot it is, how much sun exposure and how much that jersey is retaining heat,” Nuñez said. “The best way is just to try to get rid of that heat through sweating and evaporation, things like that.”