PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Detroit Lions will not be changing uniforms for at least another season.
Lions president Rod Wood said at the NFL’s annual meeting Monday that the team is in the exploratory phase of the uniform process and that a change will not be coming until at least 2023.
“Nothing for this year,” Wood said. “We’re actually starting a process to look at a possible change for next year. It’s really like almost a year-plus lead time, so we just convened a committee. I know we get a lot of things tweeted at us on suggestions of what fans want, so we catalogue all those and we’ll take them under advisement.”
The Lions last updated their uniforms in 2017, when they tweaked their home and road jerseys, changed color rush schemes and brought back throwbacks that replicate the team’s first season in Detroit in 1934.
Teams can change uniforms only after five years.
In a nearly 20-minute interview with Detroit reporters at The Breakers hotel, Wood said it’s not necessarily his goal to change uniforms next season “but we’re going to evaluate it and then decide if it’s the right thing at the right time.”
“Because once you make the change, then you’re stuck for five years,” he said. “So we want to make sure that if we’re going to do it, it’s worthwhile and we’ll be happy for the next five years.”
Senior vice president of football and business administration Mike Disner, along with representatives from the marketing and communications staff and some football-side members will have input on the change.
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Wood said removing the “WCF” patch — a tribute the organization has had on its jerseys since owner William Clay Ford died in 2014 — is possible, but has not been talked about. And he indicated it’s unlikely the Lions incorporate colors from the organization’s founding as the Portsmouth Spartans in 1928.
“There’s the option of adding another helmet, as you probably know,” he said. “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 that had a different helmet. So 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 kind of gone through a design.”
Wood covered several other topics Monday, including:
Attendance decline
The Lions ranked last in the NFL in attendance last season, but Wood said season ticket renewals this spring “have been better than we expected” and the Lions rank seventh or eighth in the NFL in new season ticket sales.
While some of the Lions’ attendance decline was due to the closed Canadian border – the Lions host about 5,000 Canadian fans per game — Wood acknowledged the biggest problem has been the team’s performance on the field.
The Lions are coming off a 3-13-1 season and have finished in last place in the NFC North four straight years.
“I certainly think the key is you got to win football games,” Wood said. “If you look at the teams that had the most attendance growth last year, it was teams that turned around their football team, teams that relocated to new markets or teams that built a new stadium. We’re not going to do the last two, so we got to focus on the first one.”
Wood said he hopes the Lions see a bump in fan engagement this fall from the team’s appearance on “Hard Knocks,” and he insisted the attendance drop — the Lions averaged 51,522 fans per home game this season, down from 61,323 in 2019, after having no paid attendance during the 2021 COVID season — had no impact on the team’s quiet approach to free agency.
“Did not affect anything. No,” he said.
The Lions previously announced they would not be raising ticket prices in 2022.
Draft and develop
The Lions have signed just four players from outside the organization this spring: Receiver DJ Chark (Jacksonville Jaguars), linebackers Chris Board (Baltimore Ravens) and Jarrad Davis (New York Jets) and tight end Garrett Griffin (New Orleans Saints).
Wood called the Chark signing “pretty big,” but reiterated the organization’s approach is to build through the draft.
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“He’s hopefully going to return to health and produce with us like he did a couple years ago in Jacksonville,” Wood said. “You can’t diminish the fact that the guys we brought back were guys that helped us the second half of the season. We didn’t have Josh Reynolds the first half of the year. Kalif Raymond was playing a much different role early in the season than he did later in the year. So bringing those guys back, Alex Anzalone. So we didn’t just go out and sign other team’s players, we re-signed some of our own and brought in a few to complement what we had.”
Embracing ‘Hard Knocks’
The Lions were one of three teams who could not decline an invitation to appear on the HBO reality series “Hard Knocks” this summer, and Wood said he reached out to Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s chief media and business officer, early this offseason to say the organization would embrace the opportunity to be on the long-running show.
“(I) didn’t volunteer, but said if we were chosen, we would definitely be willing to do it,” Wood said. “Talked to Dan (Campbell) and Brad (Holmes) about it, and they were on board. So here we are.”
With the charismatic Campbell as coach and no previous history on the show, the Lions were an easy choice for the NFL.
Wood said he does believe the league’s decision to award the 2024 draft to Detroit had anything to do with the Lions’ willingness to be on the show.
And he said the Lions have ultimate editorial control over what appears on TV.
“In fairness, I’d rather not be eligible to be on it but since we are we’re going to embrace it,” Wood said. “I think it’d be a good way to build some momentum going into the season and hopefully get our fans a behind-the-scene look that otherwise is very difficult to provide them. I know of other teams that have gone through it, there’s always a reluctance but it seems like they’ve come out of it enjoying the process and feeling better for it.”
International affair
The NFL did not approach the Lions about hosting an international game this fall, but the team is in line to play overseas in the near future.
“We’re probably due,” Wood said.
The Lions played two “road” games in London in 2014-15, beating the Atlanta Falcons in their first trip overseas and losing to the Kansas City Chiefs the following year. The team was scheduled to play a road game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London in 2020 that was moved to Florida because of the pandemic.
Beginning last season, the NFL required teams to give up a home game to play internationally at least once every eight seasons, which means the Lions could “host” an international game in 2024, the next season they have nine home dates on their schedule.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.