SI

Enough With the Long, Drawn-Out NFL New Uniform Reveals

Detroit Lions' masterplan ruined by early leak.

Kyle Koster

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The Detroit Lions had big plans to unveil their new uniforms on Thursday night but the cat prematurely escaped the bag when a third-party vendor pressed a button they shouldn't have pressed and the world got to see the three new looks. Classic internet stuff.

This came on the heels of some pretty heavy teasing from the organization, which is riding high after winning two playoff games last season — more than they had in the previous 65 years combined. It's been almost a week since team president Rod Wood told everyone the new unis would be one of the great looks in the league. It's been more than a month since obvious signs emerged that there would be a refresh. Three weeks since April 18 was circled as the big day when everyone would actually get to see these things.

Two days ago the team tried to whet appetites with 13 seconds of sneak-peeking.

It's a lot of content. Too much content, some could argue. And just because the mystery is gone doesn't mean it will stop. The Lions released what appears to be a pre-recorded video of defensive lineman Alim McNeill expressing disappointment that the surprise was spoiled and a tongue-in-cheek three-seconder accusing Jared Goff of pulling off an inside job.

Enough already. The uniform reveal industrial complex is out of control. To the point where heartless cynics like myself aren't even mad when a leak is sprung ruining all these carefully laid plans. We need a total reset. A return to sanity. Sports teams should let us know when they have a new uniform by revealing the uniform. No more parceling out the information like it's a five-part miniseries.

Look, we're not trying to be fun-ruiners. But imagine just sitting at your desk eating a ham sandwich and a team drops fresh new threads out of nowhere. Would that not be better than sitting around for weeks halfheartedly waiting on something that's going to have very minimal payoff?

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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