With the completion of this Detroit Lions helmet, I have officially made at least one helmet for every NFL franchise. The caveat being that i haven’t made a Titans helmet, but I have made several Oilers with another one coming so I think that counts. Originally my goal was to try to keep up with the new helmets as they came, but I moved away from that plan for a couple reasons. One, some of the new designs like the Bucs and Dolphins I don’t particularly like, so why waste money and time making them? The other issue is i have limited space, so making every helmet every team has had is as of right now not logistically feasible. As it is, I am currently out of wall space and have temporarily placed some of my helmets on the floor while I work to move some things around down in the sports lair to make more room.

For the lions helmet I decided to go with the Barry Sanders era helmet. It is my favorite lions helmet and features the simple lion logo and NFL stripes. I always loved the Lions uniforms and considered them one of the best in football until they decided they needed to add black to the color scheme in 2003. The Lions were in a middle of a particularly lean time as far as wins go and I guess they thought adding the black to the uniforms would give them that winning edge they were lacking. Things got even worse in in 2005 when they added a black jersey to the mix. I’ve seen a lot of dumb things when it comes to uniforms, but this was one of the worst. The Lions forever and always belong in honolulu blue and silver. Not black. In 2009 the Lions would update their logo and uniforms again, ditching the dignified and simple Lion for a new logo that guess is more ferocious? They also moved away from block numbers for a more modern feel. Finally in 2017 we were saved from the black uniform elements when the Lions redesigned their uniforms again. I was hoping they would go back to their classic uniforms, but instead they went with a new design, which in my opinion is lacking. The colors are right, but they kept the inferior logo and the stripes are all wrong. Plus a sliver helmet and silver mask is redundant. At least with a silver helmet, the possibility of a Barry era throwback is there, although they tend to go back a little further for their throwbacks.

Historically though, the Lions have looked great.

as for my custom helmet, it started out as a plain white shell, which I painted with Krylon Metallic paint. This paint is essentially clear coat with silver flakes, but works well for almost any silver helmet, although not really the Raiders if you want to be completely accurate. When using this paint, try not to go to heavy with your coats, otherwise the metal flakes will tend to run a bit and leave uneven coats or run marks. The mask I had lying around is chewed up a bit and the color is not an exact match, but it works for right now. Next I just have to find some space that isn’t on the floor to display it. Now, on to my next helmet, a red Calgary Stampeders.