NFL 2023 Changes

[WSU151]

2 minutes ago, Eszcz21 said:

The Lions already stated the helmet is going to be worn with the gray color rush uniforms. It is for sure going to be a blue helmet with silver stripes to match the car in the picture.

 

Yeah the blue car with silver stripes wasn’t just by chance. 

[CS85]

Hopefully it's a shiny chrome helmet so that way it doesn't match the gray uniform they wear it with whatsoever, because duh

[Old School Fool]

Lions with a blue helmet is as dumb as the Bears with an orange helmet however it may actually look good. The Bears one is awful but this has potential. I guess we will see.

[TBGKon]

2 hours ago, WSU151 said:

 

The alternate helmet can’t be worn with regular home and road unis. 

The Panthers designated their all black uniform as the alternate last year to use the black helmet, so its possible.

[oldschoolvikings]

1 hour ago, TBGKon said:

The Panthers designated their all black uniform as the alternate last year to use the black helmet, so its possible.

 

Right.  They have those stupid stripeless white pants which are technically alternates. They could just pull a Panthers and call the all white their Color Rush.

 

The point is, the NFL's "rules" about alternates jerseys, throwbacks, Color Rush, and alternate helmets are so vaguely written and poorly enforced that a team can just play around with the language a bit and do whatever they want.  Once these floodgates were opened this was always what was going to happen.

[Cujo]

5 hours ago, dont care said:

I’m thinking white helmet to match that license plate

 

Um. City Connect is a MLB thing.

[Brave-Bird 08]

What bugs me about this helmet rule is the slippery slope. What have we learned from college football over the years? Multiple helmets is not a good thing. 

 

Go to The Helmet Project and look at college. Notice something? The majority of CFB teams don't even have a declared primary helmet anymore. Alabama, Michigan, Georgia, Notre Dame -- those do. But dozens of historical programs don't. 

 

Like it or not, the NFL has since the 50s not only built a one-helmet standard, but helmets kind of inadvertently became a second logo for teams, mostly in part to how popular things like mini helmets became, how helmet graphics on pennants and shirts became a thing, etc. The helmet in some cases is even more iconic than the logo (Rams, Browns, Steelers, Eagles).

 

Let's not kid ourselves -- the orange Bears helmet from last season was atrocious. It just never looked right. The Lions alternate will certainly fit into that same mold. We're also probably getting a lame "icy white" for Denver? Give me a break. 

 

The more teams that participate in this, the more the NFL is going to dilute its brand, but I guess they're more interested in the attention and fire emojis they're going to get from teenagers on Twitter than they are having a visual identity. 

 

It's all a slippery slope and I am afraid of where it could lead. The NBA is all the way down that slope, no team has a visual identity anymore. It's a disaster, but they don't care because $. 

 

EDIT: wow, for a 33 year old, I feel so old re-reading what I just typed. 

[dont care]

1 hour ago, Cujo said:

 

Um. City Connect is a MLB thing.

What? The license plate is white, with blue letters im just saying I think they may be using it to indicate the color of the helmet. Anyways it’s a custom plate and not the official plate for Michigan.

[oldschoolvikings]

The helmet being discussed on local Detroit radio just now.  Supposedly it’s being talked about in conjunction with a “complete overhaul”  coming next year.  It sounds like making guesses about what it might look like based on the current uniform are kind of useless. Instead, once we see it, it might carry some clues as to what next year’s changes will look like.  

[SportsFan12]

10 minutes ago, oldschoolvikings said:

The helmet being discussed on local Detroit radio just now.  Supposedly it’s being talked about in conjunction with a “complete overhaul”  coming next year.  It sounds like making guesses about what it might look like based on the current uniform are kind of useless. Instead, once we see it, it might carry some clues as to what next year’s changes will look like.  

What is there to overhaul? They have a good uniform. They just have some terrible combos they wear sometimes.

[oldschoolvikings]

6 minutes ago, Pigskin12 said:

What is there to overhaul? They have a good uniform. They just have some terrible combos they wear sometimes.

I would agree that an overhaul isn’t necessary.  However, that’s what they’re doing. 

[Old School Fool]

5 hours ago, TBGKon said:

The Panthers designated their all black uniform as the alternate last year to use the black helmet, so its possible.

 

3 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

 

Right.  They have those stupid stripeless white pants which are technically alternates. They could just pull a Panthers and call the all white their Color Rush.

 

The point is, the NFL's "rules" about alternates jerseys, throwbacks, Color Rush, and alternate helmets are so vaguely written and poorly enforced that a team can just play around with the language a bit and do whatever they want.  Once these floodgates were opened this was always what was going to happen.

 

Even so, teams literally can't mix and match their helmets. You're not going to see the Commanders wear all black then take the helmet and wear it with the white jersey in the same season. Maybe they change it it in the next season, but the point is that in season combos won't happen with alternate helmets......for now.

 

Do I want to see it happen? Not really. The Texans white jersey with red helmet and red pants looks nice on Madden but I don't know if I am ready for that flood gate to open.

 

If it ends up happening then whatever, I just want the Raiders to make it to the Playoffs man.

[MCM0313]

10 minutes ago, Pigskin12 said:

What is there to overhaul? They have a good uniform. They just have some terrible combos they wear sometimes.

The overhaul is to make the terrible combos a full-time thing. 

[burgundy]

2 hours ago, Brave-Bird 08 said:

EDIT: wow, for a 33 year old, I feel so old re-reading what I just typed. 

 

Don't worry; as a fellow 33 year old, I totally agree. We're not old, we're just the last generation to have any sense of proper aesthetics.

 

(Please ignore whatever we wore in the 90s. We didn't know any better.)

 

[Eszcz21]

1 hour ago, dont care said:

What? The license plate is white, with blue letters im just saying I think they may be using it to indicate the color of the helmet. Anyways it’s a custom plate and not the official plate for Michigan.

It pretty much is the official plate for Michigan. The default play just has a blue strip at the bottom instead of saying historical

[damnyoutuesday]

My unpopular opinion for alternate helmets is I think having them be only worn with alternate jerseys is stupid. Just enforce the "3 games for alternates" rule, but wearing the alternate helmet or jersey counts. Mix and match how you please, but you get 3 games total and that's it, so choose wisely

[VikWings]

1 hour ago, MNtwins3 said:

My unpopular opinion for alternate helmets is I think having them be only worn with alternate jerseys is stupid. Just enforce the "3 games for alternates" rule, but wearing the alternate helmet or jersey counts. Mix and match how you please, but you get 3 games total and that's it, so choose wisely

 

I think that's basically the case. At least it was for the Panthers because wearing the black helmet with the black jerseys took away one of their blue jersey games.

[damnyoutuesday]

1 minute ago, VikWings said:

 

I think that's basically the case. At least it was for the Panthers because wearing the black helmet with the black jerseys took away one of their blue jersey games.

Once again, the Panthers designated their all-black look as the color rush, which is an alternate. I'm saying if the Panthers wanted to wear black/black/silver, let them. If the Texans want to try the red helmet with the white jersey, let them. My proposal is you can wear the alternate helmet with home, away, or alternate jerseys, but it still counts as one of your 3 alternate games regardless of the jersey. I'm encouraging mix and match, but only for 3 games a season. It's stupid that the Bengals created their road uniform to match the white helmet, but can't wear the white helmet with that jersey because it's not an alternate, which is why they had to bring back the old color rush

[hormone]

Not what I want, but I could see the nfl relaxing the helmet rules. They already relaxed socks by not enforcing length, then even further by allowing all white. They relaxed the number system and went one step further this year with 0. I just don’t think they’d care enough to continue to police helmets with this particular jersey. They know a team like the raiders won’t be in white this week, silver next, and black the following week. I don’t see them caring the jets are black today, green next week or white. Heck, one of the most identifiable teams by helmet is the Cowboys and they wore 4 iirc last year (regular, red/white/blue stripe, throwback white, color rush white). Yeah, it was really two and only worn as delegated, but it’s still 1/4 of the season.

[projectjohn]

18 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

I would agree that an overhaul isn’t necessary.  However, that’s what they’re doing. 

What particularly scared me about the new uniforms coming next year is that the team president referred to them as "significant", while in the same breath calling the 2017 set a "tweaking."