Patriots hint at return of silver pants for Dolphins game in Week 8

One week after wearing their silver pants in an upset win over the Buffalo Bills, it appears that the New England Patriots will roll out the garment again for their Week 8 matchup with the Miami Dolphins.

A post on social media titled “Wear silver pants again” included photos of the team’s bottoms in said color. If indeed going with their navy-silver combination, the Patriots would now have worn that style in back-to-back weeks for the first time since Week 16 and 17 of the 2019 season.

The Patriots originally wore that navy-silver look from 2000 to 2019, including in two of their six Super Bowl wins. Following the departure of long-time starting quarterback Tom Brady, however, the team made a change. While the jerseys were only slightly modified to include vertical red and white stripes on the shoulders, the silver pants were scratched altogether.

Instead, the Patriots opted to go for an all-navy look that they had already worn as part of the NFL’s Color Rush initiative. For the first three years since their re-styling, the Patriots went back to their silver pants just once: they wore them in a 33-14 loss to the Chicago Bears last fall.

They did return the look against Buffalo last Sunday, though, and it served them well. Whether that gave an impetus for more navy-silver in the future is not known.

The choice to use silver instead of navy on Sunday against the Dolphins might also have practical reasons, though: with darker colors absorbing heat faster than light ones, the team might try to get a tiny edge while playing in temperatures of 80-plus degrees in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.

The Patriots are 0-3 in their last three trips to South Beach, wearing all-navy each time.

Patriots-Dolphins is set for a 1 p.m. ET kickoff. The current forecast at kickoff is 84 degrees with a slight chance of precipitation and winds at around 15 mph.