FIRST LOOK: Detroit Lions unveil 2023 alternate helmet design

On Wednesday afternoon, the Detroit Lions finally unveiled the alternate helmet design they can now wear for the 2023 NFL season.

As they teased a couple times earlier in the week, the design is a classic look, throwing back to the days where they had an old logo. However, they kept the design modern looking with a sleek matte blue helmet—the first time this franchise has ever donned a helmet that wasn’t predominantly silver since the 1950s.

In addition to dropping the new helmets, the Lions also dropped a short teaser video of players and Dan Campbell reacting to seeing the new design:

The NFL created a new rule in 2022 allowing teams to design a second, alternate helmet. At the time, Lions team president Rod Wood said they would not be unveiling a new design for the first year of the policy, but noted they were working on it.

“We’re not doing that this year because our throwbacks really just take the current logo off, but other teams are adding it because they can go back to a throwback with a different helmet,” Wood said. “We may look at a different helmet as part of this as well as the change to the uniforms, but just started the process. We haven’t really sat down with Nike yet and gone through a design.”

The Lions chose not to update uniforms this year—but suggested they could be coming in 2024. So, for now, this helmet update will have to do.

One important note on the helmet: teams can only wear their alternate helmets when paired with three options of uniforms: throwbacks, color rush, or alternates. In other words, the Lions will not be wearing these helmets with their standard home or away uniforms.

What do you think of the Lions new helmet? Scroll down to the comment section and offer your thoughts.

UPDATE: The Lions provided a little background to the design here, and also announced that this helmet will only be worn with Detroit’s all-gray uniform combo:

UPDATE 2: Justin Rogers of the Detroit News has a nice background on how the Lions landed on this helmet design. Also in that story, two home games the Lions plan on using the new helmets:

• Week 8 vs. the Raiders on “Monday Night Football”
• Week 18 vs. the Vikings