New NFL rule opens door for Eagles to bring back black helmets originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
A new NFL rule has opened the door for the Eagles to bring back their black helmets as a second alternate for the 2025 season.
The league sent out a memo to teams on Wednesday announcing that all teams will be able to have a third helmet design in 2025. Teams going through a redesign will be allowed to have a third in 2024.
The NFL finally allowed a second helmet for the 2022 season, replacing a one-helmet rule that was initially in place for safety but that had been outgrown by the success of the league.
Here’s more from today’s memo to clubs about the third helmet design. The memo notes: “If either alternate color helmet is paired with a Classic uniform, the helmet colors and designs must be historically compatible.” pic.twitter.com/ulQqS7WffV
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) April 10, 2024
If you remember, the NFL allowed just one helmet per player for years, which slowed down the Eagles’ process of bringing back their fan-favorite kelly green jerseys. Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie always said that he wanted to bring back kelly green jerseys as an alternate but only with a matching kelly green helmet.
When the rule was changed before the 2022 season, Lurie said kelly green would be returning for the 2023 season but they needed some time to work with Nike on nailing the classic shade because it wasn’t in the company’s current color palette. For 2022, the Eagles still wanted to take advantage of the two-helmet change so they added a black helmet in addition to their regular midnight green helmet.
But then last season, the Eagles finally unveiled their kelly green helmets, which meant they couldn’t have a black one too.
Lurie has for a couple years hoped the league would expand the rule to allow three helmets. Here’s what he said at the 2022 owners meetings in Palm Beach, while announcing black as a stop-gap option:
“We’re also allowed in the…
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