NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Oilers left Houston after the 1996 season for Tennessee and after two seasons as the Tennessee Oilers, the franchise became the Titans in 1999. In the 2023 season, the Oilers are coming back – or at least their uniforms are.
On Sunday night, the Tennessee Titans unveiled their throwback uniforms for this season and -- as expected -- they were the Columbia Blue of the old Houston Oilers, complete with the oil derrick on the white helmet. The Titans posted a video with the uniform reveal to their social media accounts with three words – ‘Luv Ya Blue,' bringing bring back memories for longtime Houston football fans of the team’s glory days with greats like Earl Campbell, Dan Pastorini, Mike Renfro, Curley Culp, Bum Phillips and so many more.
The video posted by the Titans showed some of those legendary Oilers players from their Houston days.
According to Tennessee Titans writer Jim Wyatt, the jerseys will have ‘Luv Ya Blue’ on the back neckline.
At this point, it’s not clear which opponents will line up opposite Tennessee’s Columbia Blue unis, but Wyatt said the team will wear them for two games, both at home. They reportedly asked about wearing them for a road game in Miami, but that doesn’t appear to be happening.
Here are a few of the Titans players in their old Oilers throwbacks.
The Texans play in Tennessee on December 17. The Titans play at NRG on New Year's Eve.
The reveal wasn't too big of a surprise. Leading up to Sunday's announcement, the Titans threw out some pretty obvious hints about the throwbacks, including one tweet showing what appeared to be oil being poured on a Titans uniform and another showing a bunch of oil derrick helmets in a row. On Saturday night, the team changed its profile picture on social media to an oil derrick.
