Lurie announces Eagles are officially bringing back kelly green this season originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
PHOENIX — The news Eagles fans have been waiting for is finally here.
Kelly green is back.
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Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie announced on Tuesday evening at the NFL owners meetings that the Eagles are officially bringing back the popular jersey color as an alternate in the 2023 season.
Lurie initially announced last year at the owners meetings in Palm Beach, Florida, that the kelly green jerseys were returning but that it was going to take a year to get it right. They got it right.
The Eagles’ owner wanted to match the 1980s style that so many fans remember and love.
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The NFL announced a policy in June of 2021 that would allow teams to use two different helmets starting in the 2022 season. That had been the Eagles’ hurdle in the way of kelly green jerseys because Lurie didn’t want to settle for using decals on the helmet. There was never any rule against using the jerseys but he wanted a matching helmet. Lurie didn’t like the thought of kelly green jerseys and midnight green helmets.
In 2022, the Eagles took advantage of this rule by using black jerseys with black alternate helmets.
Lurie initially said the Eagles were going to push for a rule to allow the use of two alternate helmets but such a proposal was not on the docket this week in Phoenix. But Lurie on Tuesday evening said he’s still pushing for the league to allow the use of two alternate helmets, which would allow them to keep a black helmet in addition to their kelly green alternate.
The old one-helmet rule was in place as a safety precaution but it had clearly become outdated. The NFL obviously has enough money to ensure that alternate helmets are safe.
The update from last season was that the Eagles were working with Nike in an attempt to match the kelly green as closely as possible. He said Nike currently didn’t have that color in its palette with the new materials used for jerseys these days.
This has been a yearly storyline for Lurie at these meetings. Way back in 2018, he spoke about how eager he was to bring back kelly green jerseys.
“They know that with the Eagles, it’s important to us,” Lurie said in 2018. “We really want to be able to have kelly green jerseys at times and to make it look really right, you need to have matching helmets.”
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