Mug ya Blue

 In my mind this morning I'm out at Wayne High School, and I'm waiting for a phone call or a letter or an email. On the other end of the phone call or letter or email will be the NFL, ordering me to cease and desist.

This is because Wayne's school colors are powder blue and red.

Apparently that color combination is the sole property of the Nash-unal FOOT-ball League.

I say "apparently," because the league has threatened the University of Houston with a lawsuit if the Cougar football team again trots out powder-blue-and-red Houston Oiler tribute uniforms. The Cougars are to cut that shite out, because it seems the Houston Oilers and their colors belong to the NFL, even if the Houston Oilers haven't existed for more than a quarter century.

Owner Bud Adams moved them to Tennessee in 1997, where they were briefly the Tennessee Oilers before changing their name to the Titans. And so Luv Ya Blue was over in Houston, and now the NFL is engaging in Mug Ya Blue.

Threatening the University of Houston if they don powder-blue-and-red. Telling the Houston Texans, the Oilers ancestral descendants, they can't wear Oilers throwback unis, either, on account of the Titans are the actual Oilers -- even if they abandoned all that 26 years ago.

Me, I think a team that calls Houston home now has more right to the Oilers heritage than the Tennessee Titans do, seeing how the Oilers called Houston home for 36 years and were a charter member of the American Football League. If Bud Adams cared about any of that, why did he abandon Houston for Nashville, and then change the name of the team?

So only the franchise that decided it didn't want to be the Houston Oilers anymore gets to wear Oilers throwback gear. And the current franchise in the city where that franchise made most of its history is forbidden from doing so.

Makes perfect sense to me. How about you?

Listen, I get it. The NFL is all about protecting its brand, and the cash that flows from it thereof. This is true even if the brand, in this case, is about 99 percent cowflop. 

But what does the league get out of threatening the University of Houston, other than looking like a greedy over-lawyered bully? And if they're gonna go after a college, would they also go after, say, the Hog Wallow Junction Fightin' Oilers if the school colors were powder-blue and red and the school logo was an oil derrick?

You'd think they'd be smart enough to realize what a bad look that would be. On the other hand, it is the NFL.

Which in this case stands for "Never Forsake (the) Loot."