Dear Matthew Alice: Various AFL teams this past season used “throwback” helmets that were reversed from their original colors. For example, the Buffalo Bills wore a “throwback” white bison on a red helmet, rather than the original 1960s red bison on a white helmet. Same was true for the Jets, Oilers, and Broncos. The Chargers’ helmets were okay, but the franchise made a point of saying that the blue in the jerseys was a slightly different color than the original. They came up with a lame excuse that the original blue was not available. At $120 a pop, a jersey in any color is available. Did someone get the trademarks when the leagues merged? Is this another case of the NFL sticking it to the AFL? Is Al Davis somehow involved? — Mark Holland, Chula Vista

I like a good corporate conspiracy as much as the next chump, but I don’t think we can find one here. The NFL’s 75th-anniversary “throwback” celebration did create some sartorial half-truths, but everyone involved seems to have a half-reasonable excuse.

The historical units would be worn for only a few games out of the season, and quite a few players didn’t want to break in two helmets. So some teams chose to go with one helmet for all games and just put some version of their throwback logos on them when they needed to. The Chargers weren’t such prima donnas; they switched between throwback helmets and regular helmets. Didn’t seem to hurt them a bit.

As for the Chargers’ not-quite-right $120 jerseys, according to one towel wrangler in equipment manager Sid Brooks’s office, the staff spent many weeks firing color swatches back and forth with the manufacturer, trying to match the old “Air Force blue.” “Columbia blue” was the closest shade available. (The maker of the old jerseys is out of business.) They tried, they really did.

Football jerseys these days are made of synthetics; in the Chargers’ throwback year, 1961, jerseys were mostly cotton. Chemically, the dyes for each type of fiber would be different. Since the replica jerseys were made of Orlon, the new dyes had to be used. But I guess you’re saying that when fans shell out more than a C-note for what amounts to just a badly fitting T-shirt, they deserve a computerized color analysis and custom dye mixing to get just the right shade. In some other lifetime, Mark.