Last week, the Detroit Lions officially announced that they will be unveiling new uniforms for the 2024 season on April 18 with an event being hosted at Ford Field.
These new uniforms have been long expected this offseason, but there haven’t been many details leaked about what to expect. Lions team president Rod Wood was pretty tight-lipped about the uniforms, but he did conduct three different interviews last week at the NFL Annual League Meetings: one with a group of Lions media, one with Lions play-by-play announcer Dan Miller, and one with team writer Tim Twentyman.
Gathering information and quotes from those three interviews, we can start to piece together all the things we already know about the uniforms before they’ve even been revealed.
The William Clay Ford patch is not going completely away, but it is changing to something new
Many fans have complained about the “WCF” patch on uniforms honoring the late William Clay Ford Sr., who was the team’s owner from 1961-2013 when the team had just one total playoff win during that entire span. In his group media session, Wood revealed they are finding a different way to honor Ford.
“We’re going to treat that in a little different way. I’m not going to tease exactly how it is. It’s going to be honored, but not in the same way it was on the current uniforms.”
Detroit is increasing its options for pants
In the same media session, Wood focused specifically on the pants options, noting that the Lions will have more options than they have in the past.
“We’re going to introduce a couple different pant options that can go with jerseys, so it will give us different options to wear during the season.”
Current Lions uniforms have four pants options: Grey with stripes, all-gray, all-white, and blue with stripes.
They will continue to sport their traditional colors
The Lions’ official team colors are silver and blue, and that—obviously—isn’t changing. Here’s exactly what Wood said about the colors moving forward.
“They’re not purple. They’re not yellow and gold. They’re honoring our traditional color with a little updating and twist.”
What does “a little updating and twist” mean? Are the ever-polarizing black uniforms considered a traditional color? Wood seems to be purposely vague here.
Alternate helmet tweak
Last year, the Lions unveiled a new, chrome-blue alternate helmet. While most seemed to like the helmet, it clearly clashed with the all-gray uniforms they were paired with (and had to be paired with by NFL rules). Wood told Twentyman the alternate helmets are going to be back, but they’ll be a little different this time around.
“The alternate helmets will be back, and maybe a little updated version of the alternate helmets. So stay tuned.”
The numbers will be easier to read
The most common complaint about the current uniforms are that the numbers on the jerseys are difficult to read. That’s because the grey numbers on the uniforms are outlined by a slightly darker shade of gray on the home jerseys.
Wood didn’t comment specifically on this uniform tweak, but during an appearance on Woodward Sports, Miller did say that this issue is being addressed in the new uniforms.
“The one thing I was told a ways back was that the numbers would be easier to read,” Miller said.
No, they haven’t been leaked yet
There have been a few uniforms that have dropped via social media or other sources. For example, this jersey being sold by Dick Sporting Goods is confirmed to NOT be the new uniform design:
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