The New Orleans Saints on Thursday afternoon unveiled a new black alternate helmet, which they will wear for select games this season.
The Saints have worn gold helmets for regular season games since their inception in 1967, though a black helmet made a brief appearance during the 1969 preseason.
Then-owner John W. Mecom Jr. failed to register the changes with NFL, however, and the league forced New Orleans to scrap the design before the start of the regular season.
The black helmets, which lasted just six preseason games, were then sent to the Richmond Roadrunners, the Saints’ Atlantic Coast Football League affiliate at the time.
The design of the original black helmets was effectively the inverse of the Saints’ gold lids, with a gold fleur-de-lis logo outlined in white on the sides and a white-gold-white stripe down the center. It also featured a gray facemask.
The new design shares some of those same features, including New Orleans’ primary logo on both sides. The most notable difference, though, is the fleur-de-lis pattern down the center – which mimics the feather pattern on the Seattle Seahawks’ current helmet that was unveiled in 2012 – and the black facemask.
The helmet is complete with “Saints” on the front bumper, “New Orleans” on the back bumper and oversized uniform numbers above that. Those numbers are smaller and contained within the black stripe on the Saints’ gold helmet, meanwhile.
New Orleans is the fourth team to officially announce plans to wear a second helmet in 2022, joining the Atlanta Falcons, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Commanders. This comes after the NFL scrapped its one-helmet, which was implemented in 2013.
Photos courtesy of @Saints on Twitter.
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