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The topic of the Eagles bringing Kelly Green jerseys back as an alternate uniform was heavily discussed at the NFL owners meeting last year after Philadelphia suggested a rule proposal to allow for an alternate helmet.
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie was asked about the progress on that front during his media availability at this year’s owner meetings. Here’s everything he had to say.
Q: Have you made any progress on being able to use Kelly Green helmets?
LURIE: I was just dealing with this yesterday. What we’re hoping to have happen is, and I don’t know if I mentioned this last year, the whole key was we want a Kelly Green helmet to go with the Kelly Green jerseys. OK? We’re trying to get the league to allow a second helmet. That’s where it’s at. So they very much know we want this and we want it badly. And we’re waiting.
Q: I knew you were hopeful it would be ready soon. Is that still on the table?
LURIE: Right. I don’t know. As I said, I was on it yesterday. Trying to make progress. We don’t have a game for half a year, so, you never know.
Q: Which entity of the league decides this?
LURIE: It’s … I don’t know what entity of the league, but in the end it’s probably the commissioner [Roger Goodell]. They have to decide do they want to go with a plan that would be a two helmet plan for the NFL. That’s not what we do now. It’s a one helmet league. So there’s ramifications in that I suppose. They know that with the Eagles, it’s important to us. We really want to be able to have Kelly Green jerseys at times. To make it look really right, we should have matching helmets.
Q: What’s the objection to two different helmets?
LURIE: You’d really have to kind of research with [the league] a little bit. There’s a lot of teams that don’t want that to happen, maybe. Some teams really want it to happen. There’s some complications to it. So I just need them to work it out.
In short, it sounds like the Eagles are really pushing for Kelly Green as an alternate but the league is dragging their feet on the issue. That’s a bummer.
The dream isn’t totally dead, though. At least, I hope it’s not. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.
Now feel free to debate why Kelly Green is awesome / why it sucks in the comments below.