The wait is over.
The Detroit Lions have finally announced the debut of their new alternate uniform, which was unveiled back in April, this coming Monday Night on MNF versus the Seattle Seahawks.
It’s on. pic.twitter.com/m57fjxFHtJ
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 23, 2024
Does that Tweet definitely confirm the team will wear their alts this Monday? No, it doesn’t, but several major media outlets are confirming it as has the Gridiron Uniform Database (and they’re almost always spot on with such things). So while I’d normally be a little hesitant to give a Joe Namath to this, you can be pretty certain it will happen. Or as the team says, “It’s on.”
I’m honestly pretty excited to see the new alternate on the field. Back when these were first unveiled, Paul had this to say about the new look:
Ay yi yi — what a disaster. Worst helmet in the league — an instant anti-classic. Somewhere, Matt Millen is smiling, and that alone is reason enough to hate this design.
In addition to the requisite mono-black look, the Lions are threatening to wear this jersey with blue pants, which seems like it must violate some sort of international armistice or something:
Additional pics here, if you dare:
He added one final thought:
Wood, the CEO, said last night that the BFBS uni was a reward to head coach Dan Campbell for winning the division last season. That doesn’t make much sense, given what we know about how far in advance these types of decisions are made, but that’s their story. And now we know that Campbell has terrible taste.
You might think I’d share Paul’s rather dour assessment of the new uniform, but I don’t — at least not until I see it on the field.
I have a feeling I may like this — with a couple caveats I’ll get to in a second — as a uniform.
First off: it’s complete BFBS. Now, with so many teams doing a BFBS alternate, I almost think it’s time to stop complaining about BFBS. We will still call it for what it is (BFBS), but it’s time to stop dismissing BFBS alternates out of hand and just start judging them as uniforms. That’s not to say I like BFBS (it’s the one fad that just won’t seem to die), but I’m no longer going to dismiss a BFBS uniform simply because it’s BFBS.
Secondly: the team hasn’t hinted at which set of pants they’ll pair with the blue helmet and black jersey yet. And that’s crucially important. Whether they go with black pants/socks or blue pants and black socks will make a big difference, at least to me.
Now then.
I’m hoping, perhaps against hope, the team will debut this with the Honolulu blue pants. Seeing the studio shots of the guys wearing the stripeless black pants and black socks, combined with the blue helmet, don’t look promising. We’ve seen several teams do this look (different color helmet over all black uniform) and I don’t think I’ve ever liked any of those — even if a team has actual black as part of their color scheme. But seeing the shots of the players in the blue pants …
…now this, this I want to see on the field.
I particularly disagree with Paul about the helmet.
I actually like this helmet quite a bit. Yes, the logo and stripes and facemask are all BFBS — but I really like the color and I’m judging it on that. I think the black lion on the sides will be visible. You know that’s the Lions’ logo. I think it will pick up the blue in the pants nicely.
Now, I have my criticisms of this blue/black/blue/black combo too. I wish the pants had stripes (and I guess we know now why the team didn’t put stripes on their blue pants: if they’re wearing them with the blue or white jerseys, the stripes would need to be silver. But if the blue pants were to match the blue helmet, they’d need to be black). So, the stripeless blue pants, as disappointing as that is, will go with any of their three jerseys.
I’m also wondering if the blue numbers, outlined in white, will have enough visibility on the BFBS jersey. In the studio shots, it looked fine, but how will it look under the (notoriously bad) Ford Field lighting? That’s another concern.
Finally, as you may be aware, I think it’s often difficult to pair royal blue (which is not quite Honolulu blue, but pretty close) and black. Most teams who’ve tried it aren’t usually successful. I think the Mariners do it reasonably well, but most times the colors bleed together. From the studio shots I’ve seen though, I think the blue helmets and pants have enough differentiation from the black jerseys that it will look pretty good on the field. That remains to be seen, but I’m hopeful.
So that’s where I stand. I’m definitely excited to see the blue/black/blue/black combo. I get the sense the team will probably go with the black pants for the uniform’s debut, and then go with the blue pants the next time it’s worn. I have no knowledge of that, obviously, but it’s just a feeling I get. I hope I’m wrong.
But regardless, I won’t even dismiss the all black-below-the-neck until I see it — but I’m really excited to see this with the blue pants.
I want to hear your thoughts on this BFBS alternate — do you like it (or do you prefer one look but not the other)? What about the helmet? Any what are your thoughts about either combo strictly as a uniform? And finally, even if you’re not a fan from the studio shots — are you at least looking forward to seeing it in action?
Fire away!
Agreed. The “sandwiching” of Honolulu blue makes this uniform fantastic, in my opinion. I wish the Jets would do the same with green pants and helmets on their BFBS.
Mono black makes it a drab snooze fest.
THANK YOU! I have said for years since the last redesign that the jets in green/black/green would look pretty good. U of Hawaii did something similar years back. I agree with PH: blue/black/blue (with black socks) will likely look nice.
They would have to have two sets of green pants, because I think it would ugly with the thick white stripe they currently have.
With the blue pants this is ok. The wordmark, which is my bigger Pet Peeve, needs to go but otherwise I like the helmet and the pants. I kind of wish they kept the alternate logo on the helmet though.
I think you touched on a main issue with a lot of these Black is they go mono black. The problem with Mono black is they stop looking like the team you root for. Team colored pants solves this and frankly looks good in a lot of cases. I’d like to see the Jets when use green pants when they use their black look actually.
I’d like to see that too. Or, alternatively, white pants. I also think the black helmets are unnecessary; green helmet, black jersey, white pants, green socks, might not look half-bad. Or, green/black/green/black.
Yeah I don’t see the point of the black helmets either but here we are. and I don’t think Black/Black/Green/Black is awful. Make the jersey numbers green and we have something here.
My wild off the wall proposal for the Black jersey is to mirror Sauber in F1 and go electric green for the blacks only. It would look ridiculous but Black over Electric green would be interesting to see as the current Green doesn’t pop enough against the black.
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Jets look better with green/white and don’t need to mix black and green it’s not a good look.
I totally agree and would much prefer they leave it alone, but as Paul mentioned there is a sales/marketing reason they are keeping them. I figure if they’re giving a set I really like and a throwback I really like I can live with the black set as the price to get the rest of what I want.
I don’t think most Uni-Watchers dismiss BFBS out of hand. We’ve just seen enough of it to know it’s almost never a good look. Especially for teams that don’t have black as a stated color. There may be some that pull it off better than others, but most just fall flat. I don’t think the Lions’ attempt will be that much better, but as always, I’ll reserve full judgment until we see them in action.
As someone who has spent far too much time arguing about BFBS, many UW readers and staff absolutely do dismiss BFBS out of hand.
Yep–just take a look at many of the comments below.
I agree, I think it’s one of Paul’s opinions that many people take as a fixed rule. Imagine if they called white jerseys just a fad for tv lol. Black jerseys are here to stay, especially for teams that used to have them like the lions. It’s not a fad after 20 years.
It is absolutely a fad. It doesn’t mean it’s going away any time soon, but the only reason teams keep doing this is because _other teams are doing this_.
You’re right, it’s just a fad like video games and the forward pass
Dismissed out of hand.
How on earth is this the worst helmet in the league?
And why would blue pants be an issue?
Very refreshing to read the updated approach to BFBS, which is what I’ve been advocating for since I first started visiting the site.
I agree. The helmet is fine plus the lions have been using black for decades.
I think for me the issue is two-fold. First, a team that comes up with a black uniform (vs just adding black trim, etc.) when black is not one of their colors is BFBS. It would be like the Colts (blue and white) going all black, or having a black alt. Like, why, other than the trendiness factor? For other teams that have had black in their combos for some time (Lions, 49ers years back, etc.) it is less jarring to me, and less of a BFBS situation.
Second, when teams go BFBS and then also go the mono route, it’s even more jarring and off-putting to me. But, that’s a personal preference thing, as I strongly dislike any mono combo, other than all white, or the dreaded white helmet with dark/dark jersey, pants and socks. I know there are those that don’t like all white either and/or the leotard look. Any and all of this is worsened when the team’s pants have no stripes as well, IMO.
I think it has the potential to not look half-bad if they go with blue pants and black socks. All-black under a blue lid would not look good.
I don’t know why, but this shade of “Honolulu blue” bothers me and I still maintain that it’s too bright compared to Lions unis of the past. It just doesn’t look good, or right, as a helmet-shell color. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I see it on the field.
Look at old Barry Sanders photos and videos and you can easily spot the difference. The current version is definitely brighter, like the saturation knob has been turned up. It’s a little similar to the way the Browns changed their shade of orange.
The GUD doesn’t have the pants yet either but considering we all agree that blue-black-blue is actually a good look, it all but guarantees that both teams will go mono, so full white and full black =(
What will the SeaHawks wear?
We can hope for neon green!?!?
As a panthers fan (I know…) I feel like carolina is in no-mans land when it comes to their branding.
This lions uni is a great example – this basically is or should be the panthers!
The last couple of panthers games were interesting too:
– Chargers – the blue on TV was almost identical. From a distance looked like a intrasquad scrimmage.
– Raiders – very similar black and silver. If carolina de-emphasizes blue like they have been doing, they are basically become raiders.
Then there’s the jags. If the carolina blue skews too far aqua like it used to, it’s too similar to the jags (also a big cat!).
And worst of all is the lions (also a big cat!) – who already have a VERY similar blue and silver.
In a vacuum I love the panthers branding…but it’s not unique enough. I wish they had a different color palette altogether. Maybe like the michigan panthers?!
/rant
Gag.
Wow, that is a special kind of awful. As a design lover who enjoys wearing stylish, timeless clothing, I need to step away from this site. Uniform design is now an endless, repetitive, boring trainwreck. Awful across all sports (with the NHL a slight exception). Nothing fun about it anymore.
Getting there myself, particularly with NBA season just ahead of us (not to mention the NFL’s annual Pinktober and Camogeddon disasters ahead of us).
The Lions black jersey doesn’t look good with either blue pants or the mono black which is way overused in the NFL. So dump it and stick with blue/white and silver pants.
Black jerseys haven’t exactly had the greatest track record in Lions history.
They went 0-4 in black in 1948, when Bo McMillin changed the team’s colors to red and black (going 2-6 in red the rest of that season). McMillin dropped the black jerseys afterward and phased out the red in favor of returning to the team’s proper colors.
Then came the Matt Millen era, when black alternates were introduced in 2005 (somewhat similar to the current black jerseys, but paired with their regular silver helmets and pants, which both had black trim as the regular unis also had black trim at this time). They fared slightly better, going 2-4 over a three-season span before being shelved prior to their 0-16 2008 season.
Then there were the 2016 Color Rush unis that went unused, and got replaced with the gray jammies in the 2017 uni redesign. Quite frankly, I think I’d rather have seen the black unis, as those gray unis were God-awful.
Anyway, I’m curious to see how these will look on the field.
There are some teams where a black alt makes sense–it particularly works when the team uses a lighter shade of blue; the black makes the blue really pop (for lack of a better term). The Lions are one of those teams, IMO. I like the blue pants better than the all black, mostly because a football team doesn’t look good in all one color no matter the color.
Besides, it’s not like the Lions have a winning legacy in their standard uniforms. There’s nothing wrong with experimenting a bit. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In this case, I think it works.
This color scheme (black pants or blue) is exactly what the Carolina panthers should be wearing. Not the lions. I don’t hate the uniform by any means, but I look at it and don’t see “lions”.
To quote Groucho Marx- “That’s not a scheme, it’s a conspiracy”
Guess this means Seattle is probably going mono-white……………..
Should we start calling all of the White Out sets WFWS? I know every team technically has white as a default part of their uniforms, but this trend feels like it has replaced BFBS as the biggest gimmick.
At least “whiteout” uniforms have a historic context. White tops with white pants have been around since forever, although traditionally were at least paired with contrasting or striped socks. The absence of your team’s primary visual identity — its color — was considered a “lesser status” that road teams had to suffer outside their own stadium. BFBS unis have no similar utility or purpose.
That’s a nice uniform for the Carolina Panthers. Oh, it’s the Lions? Way to maintain a visual identity, sort of one the key parts of a uniform program.
“We will still call it for what it is (BFBS), but it’s time to stop dismissing BFBS alternates out of hand and just start judging them as uniforms.”
No, I don’t think I will. “Let’s stop complaining about corrupt politicians, cause it is just part of politics now…” Bad things don’t stop being bad just because they become commonplace.
“Bad things don’t stop being bad just because they become commonplace.”
Exactly.
Exactly, why should we act like they’re anything other than a cheap cash grab? They’re not interested in aesthetics, team history, tradition or colors, or anything actually related to franchise continuity. They’re just teams doing it because “everybody else is doing it”. Why should anyone reward this?
That’s an inaccurate comparison. Corruption is something that is factual and measurable and in and of itself makes a politician bad. Aesthetics is entirely subjective. The spurs wear all black unis as do the White Sox and you never hear complaints about the former and many people think the latter is one of the better CCs. Now, before you say “both of those teams use black as their primary color”, the argument is that an all black uniform is always bad, like a corrupt politician, and the truth is, as was stated above, that every uniform can be judged on its own merits, and even a BFBS or WFWS can be an attractive uniform. You couldn’t say a corrupt politician is a good politician because their corruption makes them a bad politician, but you could say a black uniform is a good uniform because being a black uniform doesn’t inherently make it an unattractive uniform.
I said BFBS uniforms are inherently bad, not that black uniforms are inherently bad (though in football mono anything but mono white is also bad).
And BFBS uniforms aren’t bad just because black uniforms (mono or no) are bad, but because uniforms are part of branding for a team. Team branding is largely tied to team colors. Those are objective considerations. Using a non-team color as the primary color in a uniform, simply because it is trendy, is in fact bad design given considerations above about team branding and uniforms. It is also lazy because it is simply following a trend. Laziness is objectively bad.
So yes, much like corruption is objectively bad, BFBS is objectively bad because it counters the purpose of uniform design and is lazy.
You may like the way BFBS designs look, I am not discounting that, but they are bad uniform designs because they fail in one of the objectives of uniform design. Unless we are now saying uniform design is all about selling merch?
As a Lions fan, it’s not a bad jersey on its own, but it just reeks of mid 2000s nostalgia. And respectfully, why the fuck are people nostalgic for the Matt Millen era Lions? I wish they would have reworked the grey alternate to make it more silver (ala what the Golden Knights did with their gold jerseys) than capitalize on 20 year old nostalgia.
“Why the fuck are people nostalgic for the Matt Millen era Lions?” I laughed out loud at this. Actually, I thought the same kind of thing when the Jets reverted to the prior “Sack Exchange” uniforms. I agree they are much better than what they wore previously, but I am not at all nostalgic for the Walt Michaels/Joe Walton/Bruce Coslet/Pete Carroll/Rich Kotite eras of, primarily, disappointment and losing (11 out of 20 years, with a few 8-8 seasons and only 5 playoff appearances).
I gasped at the awfulness of this.
I’m usually not a fan of BFBS, but I think this looks pretty good.
Blue pants with black socks would be fine. Black pants with blue socks would work, but be “less fine”. At least have some sort of blue element, besides the helmet and numbers and it could work.
I love this and I’m not ashamed to! Doesn’t mess with the stripes on the helmet and sleeves, plus Honolulu blue really pops against the black. I’d give it a solid 9/10 (still not loving the perforated numbers and NOB’s need to be in blue with white outline).
If they go with the blue pants then this is a great look. Love Paul but I think he sometimes just judged things by how close or far from tradition they strayed. Gotta get beyond that, IMO.
I’m excited to see this on the field with hopefully the blue pants!
Calendar marked…will NOT watch
This is an interesting case because it’s so divisive.
The Lions are one of my teams (although not my primary team), and I really dislike this whole new revamp. Many people really like it.
I don’t have a philosophical issue with black jerseys, although I do think they tend to turn out cheesy and unnecessary for many teams. With these, I just don’t like the way they look, but whatever. To me, it looks like someone took a Sharpie to it and went overboard.
It’ll be interesting to see them on the field.
I’m not a huge fan of any Lions costumes. Dollar Store Cowboys uniforms. This set at least breaks that mold. But yes, every team in the league having a black uniform is absurd. The teams that look best in black don’t even go mono (Steelers, Raiders).
Steelers, Raiders, Panthers, Ravens, and Saints should all get a pass on mono-black unis if they choose to do that,
Paul has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about. There are definitely some teams who should never wear black but the lions are not one of them. These uniforms are absolutely gorgeous. Those helmets? One of the best in the league and the undisputed best in Detroit Lions history. These alternates ABSOLUTELY RULE.
No accounting for bad taste
This looks like Carolina alts to me
What throws me about this is the overwhelming use of black in the details. If the helmet had a silver logo, stripes, and face mask it would feel significantly more like the lions to me. Similarly, if they used their standard silver helmet. The black uniform base doesn’t necessarily feel off to me as much as the lack of silver.
I don’t dislike black and non-navy blue together, and I don’t mind the addition of non-team black as a contrasting color, like on the 49ers’ logo. But to go all-in on black like the Cardinals and Eagles and Lions seems as passe as going with seafoam green and salmon, which was at every wedding I played in the 80’s. And I detest the Seahawks in their neon greens but would love to see the color on color for jumping the shark’s sake.
I’m with you on all accounts. I love the helmet, and LOVE the uniform paired with the blue pants, despite the lack of much needed pants striping. I was a bit miffed at Paul’s negative take on the uni, particularly the helmet, but I think his reflex was just to be anti-anything BFBS, and often rightfully so.
Is the BFBS necessary? No.
But if they’re going to insist on having one, pairing it with the blue helmet AND pants is definitely the way to go….with that particular shade of blue, it’s actually pretty sharp. Black pants would ruin it…but of course, that doesn’t stop the Saints from doing the same thing.
As a few other commenters have noted, wouldn’t it be awesome if the Seahawks wore neon green? Sort of stealing a bit of thunder from Detroit.
Seriously, I do hope the Lions wear the blue pants with this. Otherwise it’s just a silly looking mess.
This has an extreme potential to be the And 1 this week.
It may indeed. But the 5 & 1 is only for the Thursday->Sunday games (which are covered by MMUW) … so it won’t be eligible. Fear not, however. I’m sure the Lions will make an & 1 once or twice before the season is over.
Well, according the the GUD, they will be solid black. So I’m pretty sure the Seahawks will make this a Spy vs Spy game……
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