The Lions — who, in case you haven’t been paying attention, are now 6-2 — debuted their new alternate helmet last night. Unfortunately, they’re only allowed to wear it with their mono-grey uniform, which is the worst uni in the league, so that’s not the best context in which to assess the new lid.
With that caveat in mind, here’s what I thought:
- I like the logo. However…
- The combination of the alternate shell color and the alternate logo was a lot to process all at once. It just didn’t feel very Lions-y. Maybe putting the primary logo on the blue shell would work, or the alternate logo on the primary silver shell. Or maybe I just need more time to get used to the new look.
- I think using silver/chrome facemasks would be a big improvement here.
Here are some additional game photos:
What did you folks think?
The Lions are scheduled to wear this helmet once more this season, on Jan. 7 against the Vikings.
They look like a high school team with a big enough budget to buy some new uniforms that they will abandon completely in 2-3 years.
Seems to be that the blue helmet + gray jersey + blue pants (and hopefully gray socks) would still be allowed under the rule, which would be a VAST improvement from what they wore last night. Might even work as a road uniform every so often. I like the helmet, and don’t even really dislike the gray jersey in a vacuum. But it’s more than a little weird that this was the solution they came up with on how to solve their ugliness of their Color Rush offering, since not only did it not solve the problem, but now it’s less of a Color Rush than it used to be.
THIS…..They should be able to pair with the blue pants per the rules and it would be a massive upgrade. Really hope they break them out with grey jerseys at some point.
THIS is exactly what I was hoping to see. I also think the retro logo would look better with a gray bar vertical bar instead of white. The white logo gets a bit washed out with how it is currently.
Completely agree…the gray jerseys are unnecessary, but if you can’t use the white jersey, replacing the gray pants with the blue pants would look 100 times better with the rest of the uniform. Would have provided some much-needed additional contrast to last night’s game in particular.
YES. Debuting them against a team who does silver infinitely better was a bad choice.
My biggest problem watching the game wasn’t the helmet, it was the fact that the Lions’ gray uniforms are almost exactly the same pitch of color as their field. It was very difficult to pick out the players.
Mina Kimes said it best: “Hate to say it but these Lions helmets look like Nespresso pods.”
Detroit Odacios with the win.
She’s also a Packers fan, so no surprise, she doesn’t like them
Mina Kimes is a huge Seahawks fan…
Wrong. Not even close lol
I must admit – I have no idea who that is…or what those are.
Against the grain here… gray is my favorite color.
Stop wearing the plain white pants that they wear with their white jerseys and pair them with last night’s look… si magnifique!
I would also love to see a road game pairing this helmet with these gray pants and the white jersey. Mmmmmm, good.
If they must go all white with the silver helmet from time time to time, please put some blue and silver stripes on the pants.
I have spoken, and I’m sure all would agree.
I’ll second that!
They can’t wear the blue helmet with the white jersey.
I was only speaking hypothetically.
And that rule will change someday.
I liked the blue helmets but not with the all grey unis. I’d like to see them with white jerseys and blue pants.
I also like the logo. I’m not sure how much I like it on the helmet, but it’s fine as an alternate. The mono gray is not fine as an alternate.
Helmet – 5 out of 10
Mono Grey – 0 out of 10. Agree that this is the worst uni in the league.
Should be paired with the white jersey and blue pants (with stripes please). I love the 1960s logo but it doesn’t work on a helmet. I get that the Ford family is trying to draw a connection to a vintage Mustang, whose original logo also had two vertical bars behind it. Both very cool mid-century modern logos, but it doesn’t work on a 2023 football helmet. Sorry Nike and Ford family, you messed this up.
Hard to evaluate the helmet when the jersey/pants it is paired with are so awful.
I’m also of the opinion that alternate uniforms should not stray too far from the team’s signature look (unless it is a throwback) such that you cannot automatically tell who you are watching (which happens too often in college).
So with that in mind, I like the blue helmet, but the Lions are just locked in with the silver helmet that it makes it makes this feel like one of those college alternates that completely changes up the look of the team.
I wish the logo was set so that blue and gray (silver? white?) stripes were locked in to right and left regardless of which direction the lion is facing.
Perhaps it would have looked better on a white helmet?
I think it definitely should have been paired with a white jersey, as the gray is brutal and blue over blue would be too much. Blue helmet, over white jersey and white pants, with blue socks, would look infinitely better. But again, that is in a vacuum.
I guess the gray and blue combo kept is visually close enough to make you realize it is the Lions on first glance, but if you ditch gray below the neck for something else, I think they stop looking like the Lions, and the uniform/helmet feels more like an alternate for alternate sake.
Thought the helmet looked great. Unfortunately for the uniforms……. ehhhhhhhhh. Especially playing another predominantly gray team. The biggest issue I have with this whole current uniform set is lack of contrast. There endzones are pretty blah as well. Make the endzone letters white and maybe they would look better on TV?
Helmets were great, uniforms were shit…
Lifelong Lions fan here: how could the designer of this helmet not put those Mustang stripes down the center of the helmet as well? Seems like a huge swing/miss to me. I hate helmets (and pants) that don’t have stripes. Now get off my G.D. lawn.
And the best unis are the ones that have the center helmet stripe match the pants stripe. Wish I knew why so many teams have gotten away from that.
Bring back the Barry Sanders era uniforms.
The gray Color Rash pants have no stripes. Their white pants have no stripes. Both pants would be vastly improved with the blue stripes featured on their “silver” pants. Though I’m also agreed that these gray jerseys would be better with the blue pants. The mono gray is just pig shit.
The blue helmets looked nice, though.
“I also agree” – what even is that “I’m also agreed” that I typed? Then again, I’m pretty much going through today with zero energy…
It’s not the best combo, but it looked better on the field than in the press photos. I think wearing this combo against a team like the Raiders doesn’t help anything either.
I’d wear that.
It’s a serviceable alternate, made better with the addition of the new helmet. I didn’t like the gray uni with the regular helmet, but with this one I do.
Wear this once or twice a year (not against another silver team like the Raiders, though), and the rest of the season wear the striped silver pants with blue or white jerseys.
The Lions should never wear white pants, striped or un-striped.
My thoughts exactly on the blue helmet bringing out the best of what used to be a dreary uni. Best the Lions have looked in a long time IMO.
I’m halfway on board. I’d agree that it’s a serviceable alternate. My beef with the lions unis is the word mark and number don’t are both very poorly executed which makes them, and anything they adorn, awful to look at. The sleeve stripes should be uniform across all three sets. The number font can remain italic if they really want but please change it to something a little simpler. Even if it’s just standard athletic number block typeface in italic, that would be fine. And space out the numbers a tiny bit more. Now simplify. Silver or white numbers on blue jersey with silver pants. Blue numbers on white jersey with blue pants. White numbers (yes white) on grey jersey with grey pants. Silver helmet all around and please let us never have to look at the “creeping lion” aka the “I don’t know how to draw a lion” aka the “just sneaking downstairs for some milk and cookies lion” ever again.
They really need to get the wordmarks off the sleeves. Especially the permamemorial.
The alt helmet looks good – probably even better in a display case or as wall-mounted bar decor…a mini version would make a wonderful paper weight.
Sing it with me:
Silver shells…silver shells…wear all the time, Motor City!
PS: No white pants, no blue pants, no sweat pants – silver with blue striping should be the only option.
The blue stripe gets lost in the blue helmet. Make either that stripe or the shell silver, and I love it. Also, it’s getting annoying how the vents, creases, facemasks, and chinstraps have intruded so much into the side of the helmet that there’s barely any room for the logo.
What is the league wide fascination with the mono-look (same color top and bottom) & the plain football pants (no stripes) that look to be from Dick’s Sports? Awful.
The 2 teams that this look works almost perfectly for (depending on how “stripes” are defined?):
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I still don’t like the mono look Chris but admittedly it’s a matter of taste & I respect an informed opinion. To me the mono look reminds me of 1970s onesie pajamas regardless of color. Onesie all-whites remind me of “milkman” and “ice cream man” uniforms. I guess if you worked in the dairy industry you had to rep milk by wearing an all white uni.
I don’t get everyone doing the “mono” look either. See how much better the Patriots uniforms have looked the past two weeks. The younger generation must like all this “mono” stuff.
Totally agree Jeff. The Patriots all blue uniform looks like a onesie pajama to me. The gray pants (with stripes!) put the spotlight on the jersey and the contrasting helmet – and at least for me – makes the uniform nearly perfect. Whereas when they wear all blues, I think they need to blow up the uniform and start all over again. If they’re going to suck they may as well look good doing so.
I always thought the jersey was horrible. Turns out, it was the pairing with the navy pants that made it look so bad. I actually like it now that it is paired with the silver pants. To me, it now looks like a mash up of the old Pat Patriot jersey/Brady era uniforms. I can live with it as long as they stick with the silver pants. I would also like to see the silver pants paired with the white jersey. Something we haven’t seen since the Bledsoe era.
Helmet – Fine
Uni – Garbage
By my count, the Lions have five pants in their rotation:
White
Silver (with stripes)
Gray (color rash)
Blue
Silver (throwback, no stripes)
This has to be a record, or at least tie the record, right?
Helmet – undecided
Uni – complete disaster
Combination – brutal
The helmets just don’t work. That logo really doesn’t fit a football helmet. It’s a great patch, field logo or print logo but it just looks too blocky for a helmet. Add to that the grey uniforms and it was just bad. Add even more that the Raiders should have worn black jerseys for better contrast. Ugly looking game.
The helmet looks nice, the drab grey unis need to go back to the dumpster. Pair that new helmet with their white tops and blue pants.
The helmet is awful, the helmet logo is awful, and the mono-gray look is beyond awful. When I saw the MNF matchup was Raiders-Lions I thought “Good looking game.” It wasn’t.
If the Ford Mustang was actually the Ford Lion, that helmet logo would be that car’s logo.
Few things.
Blue helmet when Vegas has silver a helmet and pants was a great idea. But a blue jersey and white pants would have gone a long way to have more of a contrasting look. If you want to even go blue-grey-blue when paying a team like GB or MIN not a silver team like the raiders I’m okay w that.
Feels like Broncos w that white helmet w the retro logo was great. Just needed white pants and then all white for the road.
Dolphins looked great but that throwback should have been used for game vs Eagles the week before.
Seahawks chose a good game vs CLE do to so. Just orange pants from the Browns would have been pretty awesome. Such a good look.
The biggest problem here is that the Raiders wore white. It’s like the Lions have an all gray alternate and looked at their schedule and thought “Who also has a ton of silver in their uniforms?”
If the NFL considered the Oilers throwbacks as a light color, and forced the Falcons to wear black, why didn’t they do the same thing here?
Amen to that. I actually think this uniform would look pretty decent if used against a team wearing a dark uni.
It would be a good question for Paul to ask his buddy, Jonathan Wright, the NFL’s Senior Director for Uniforms and On-Field Products.
“Jonathan, how the hell did you let this happen?”
The helmet looks great. The team looked pretty great from a football perspective, too.
The sooner the rest of the uniform can be consigned to the incinerator, the better.
I wouldn’t want the primary logo on the blue helmet because the logo is also blue. Kind of like how the Panthers logo doesn’t look great on their black helmet. I think if this helmet was paired with a more traditional below the neck combo (like white over blue or blue over white, for instance) it would’ve looked better and made the secondary logo with the new color be ok.
The logo would look better on the silver helmet for sure.
Just seems very University of Kentucky to me. Meh.
Teams should be allowed to have unlimited use of three uniforms — home, road and alternate — in which case the Lions in Blue/White/Blue would look just as good as either uniform from the Barry Sanders era. That would do away with all the forced mashups, and prevent an Oregon-izing of the NFL.
You have to really try to make a game involving the Raiders look bad, but the Lions managed to do it spectacularly here.
Detroit looked like a mid-major directional school last night.
I think the blue helmet would look good with a silver version of their regular lion logo. I don’t mind how the blue helmet looks with the gray uniforms.
Is there such a thing as BFBS, blue for blues sake? Not a fan of the helmet and hate the grey unis
Here’s a recent example ; )
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down with MFMS!
Lions would be so easy to fix:
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Retire the grey uniform, it is awfule. The Rams “Bone” uniform is the only thing worse in the league. Also, the primary Lions logo in whit outlined in silver would look light years better than whatever that logo is. Lions, go back to the Barry Sanders era unis…it’s your best look by far.
I like the helmet & the color of it. I think the gray mask works best with gray uniform over using silver or chrome. The gray ties the helmet to the gray jersey. My one beef is the vertical rectangles on the left side of helmet don’t match the ones on the left sleeve with the WCF. The helmet has white rectangle facing the front of the helmet & blue towards the back. The ones with the WCF on the sleeve is in reverse order.
Michigander here. Love the helmet, but hate mono-anything. Pair it with blue pants.
Especially dislike mono-white with colored helmets. Ever since I was a kid. Not sure why mono-white gets a pass. Don’t care if its tradition. You’re not a poor high school, you’re a billion-dollar company or state university, you can afford colored pants. I’m looking at you ‘Bama.
The helmet is allright but I would have made the logo a little smaller. The uniform is a disaster but that has been stated many times by many above. In a better world this helmet should be worn with a blue jersey and silver pants or a white jersey and silver pants.
The Lions didn’t look like “The Lions” in the greys. I think the helmet is good, I even like the Nespresso blue pop it had. But the Lions are a blue team, you gotta have more blue. I’m being the old man yelling at the clouds, but the mono color is tiresome. Especially when it makes the team unrecognizable at a glance.
I have never stopped watching a game with at least one interesting team, due to their uniforms