I think the 85 Bears started it. No way Hampton..Singletary...The Fridge..were going to wear long sleeves.
Ha! The Refer! I had not thought of that guy in a long time. What a great personality he had, how could ya not love him!
Da Bearse!!! (remember the SNL skit?)
In the AFC championship game played in January 1982 the wind chill was something like -55. There were icle floes in the Ohio. The Bengals offensive linemen did not wear shirt sleeves. They said it was so the Chargers defenders could not grab the sleeves and control them.
The Chargers lost.
Or wear Pink crap on the field.
Imagine telling mean Joe Green to put on pink shoes, your proctologist would need a week to extractate that illconsidered suggestion from ones backside...
Nope. Steelers offensive line started it in the 70's. The original intention was that it prevented defensive players from grabbing their sleeves and pulling them out of the way.
But yeah, it did have an intimidating characteristic.
The short sleeves go way back. It had to do with the old baggy type shirts and the linemen could get hold of them and swing the other lineman out of the way. Thus, they quit wearing them so they could not get a grip. That is also why the jersies of the linemen are two or three sizes smaller than them and look so tight. To keep the other linemen from grabbing on and throwing them aside.