twoeightnine's "Franchise Quarterbacks - Buffalo Bills" shirt. (Photo: TwoEIghtNine)

Featured several times on Yahoo Sports’ Puck Daddy (the pantheon of hockey blogs, if you will), twoeightnine Design’s t-shirts have become a hot commodity for hockey fans all over. With shirts featuring those always present allegations of diving towards Sidney Crosby, and an Shepard Fairey-esque salute to the single man who turned around Washington (hockey, that is), the online shirt shop struck a chord with fans that wanted witty and intelligent fan t-shirts.

Of course, once I found out Matt Johnson, the founder of twoeightnine, was running his business out of Western New York, and that he features the following “Franchise Quarterbacks – Buffalo Bills” shirt in his store, I had to feature him on the blog. Besides talking t-shirts, I of course had to ask Matt’s thoughts on the always depressing state of the Buffalo Bills.

Kat: How long have you been designing shirts? How did you get start up twoeightnine?

Matt: I think I’m at 2.5 years now? Maybe three? The last few years have been a strange trip for me and I really have no sense of time anymore. I got my start designing a t-shirt for Deadspin. It was back when the site was still “underground” but starting to make a name for itself. There was a small loyal group of commenters who joked about the start of a revolution. I took a sketch I did of Will Leitch as Che Guevera down to my neighbor in Philly who was a screen printer and twoeightnine was born.

Kat: Your designs run the gamut of sports, teams, and regions. Do you come up with all of the design ideas, or are some ideas submitted by fans of that particular sports or team?

Matt: They’re all mine. I tend to gravitate towards the Sabres and Bills because those are my teams and I prefer to work on ideas that I’ll enjoy working on. I’m in the process of expanding from that while killing some older designs at the same time. Right now I know I have limited periods where I do most of my sales. Mainly NFL training camp and Christmas. Plus most of my sales come from the Upstate NY region. It’s something that I want to break away from.

I’m always open to anyone’s ideas but the fact of the matter is that 99% of the time they suck. It’s a very inside joke or something that has no staying power past a week or two. As much as I love designing shirts at the end of the day I have to sell them too in order to make it worth my time. Something that only sells a handful of shirts isn’t going to do that.

Kat: What has been your best selling design?

Matt: The Beast Mode shirt for Marshawn Lynch, hands down. It’s not even close. Even with the suspension and the down year people were still buying it. Unfortunately I still haven’t sold enough to make a dent in those “lovely” I ♥ Buffalo sports shirt. If you’re a guy and you wear one of those please check your balls at the door.

Kat: As a Bills fan, I thought the Bills Franchise Quarterbacks design was depressing…until I saw the new Browns Franchise Quarterbacks one. Then I felt just a twinge better. Personally, which franchise do you think has a better chance of escaping their QB woes sooner?

Matt: Can I vote for neither? I guess if I had to choose I’d pick the Browns. I trust Holmgren and Co. more than I trust Ralphy and his crew. I’m not sure what happened this season in particular as opposed to the last ten but the switch finally flipped for me. My diet is now koolaid free. I need results before I get any sense of hope up. Unfortunately those results this year look like they’ll be even more losses.

twoeightnine's "Beast Mode" homage to Marshawn Lynch

Kat: Marshawn Lynch (subject of your Beast Mode shirt): lost cause or a risk to continue taking by the Bills organization?

Matt: The second one, by far. I don’t understand the “cut or trade him now before he screws up again people” at all. Nothing he’d bring back in a trade is worth it; he’s still a talent on a team seriously lacking it. And frankly anyone who says cut him is an idiot. I’m not sure what the real risk is. If you cut him now you don’t have him, if he gets suspended you don’t have him. But if he doesn’t get suspended you have a pretty good one two punch with Jackson and Lynch. It’s not like if he gets his third strike the Bills are going to have to forfeit the rest of the season or people are going to think that they’re a poorly run franchise that only has a future in Toronto and is one of the laughingstocks of the league.

twoeightnine’s shirts are available for sale on their website, and Matt is also active on Twitter.