Explaining how the Detroit Lions select their game day uniforms

Allen Park — The Detroit Lions are a sponsorship-generating machine. The NFL is the hottest thing going and the Lions are one of the league’s hottest teams, so it makes sense brands are eager to attach their name to the product.

If you pay attention to the team’s social media accounts, they’ve managed to find a sponsor for anything and everything. Injury report, sponsored. Game day playlist, sponsored. Press conferences, the practice facility, training camp and quarter-by-quarter score graphics, all sponsored.

So is the weekly announcement of the uniform combination the team will wear, typically posted the evening before the game. And why not? Fans go crazy for it, with some going as far as to track the Lions' record in each combination, superstitiously pleading for the team to wear one pair of pants over another.

But how does the team select its weekly attire? It’s not particularly complicated.

The process starts in June, approximately a month after the league announces the upcoming season's schedule. Before teams take their summer break — between mandatory minicamp and the start of training camp — they are required to submit a full list of jerseys they intend to wear for home games.

In Detroit, those decisions are made collaboratively between coach Dan Campbell and team president Rod Wood.

For most NFL teams, home games usually mean a colored jersey. In the Lions' case, they’ll typically wear their Honolulu blue at home. The exceptions are for alternative jerseys, which teams are permitted to wear up to three times per season.

Last Monday, against Seattle, the team debuted its new black jersey. Alternatives are often reserved for the team’s biggest games, so a nationally televised primetime matchup made sense, from a branding perspective.

Additionally, a team source told the Detroit Football Network the black was selected in part because of Hall of Fame receiver Calvin Johnson’s fondness for the look. He was inducted into the team’s Pride of the Lions during halftime of the matchup.

Detroit will wear the black jerseys again when they host Buffalo in December. The team will also wear its throwbacks once this season, presumably for the Thanksgiving matchup with Chicago.

The Lions do have the option of wearing white jerseys at home, but usually don’t. The one expectation in recent years was a 2019 matchup with the Dallas Cowboys.

And there was a reason for the decision. The Cowboys are one of two teams, along with the Miami Dolphins, that usually wear white at home. For those teams, it means they wear white almost every week. A team source said the Lions' decision to go white for that contest was to take away the visitor's preferred look.

Whatever psychological edge the team sought that week didn’t pay off as the Cowboys came away with the 35-27 victory.

With jersey selections for away games, there is no formal submission requirement from the league. The road team is simply expected to wear the opposite of the home team’s choice, which is why the Lions are almost always in white.

The final piece of the equation is the pants and socks. Those are decided weekly, by a select group of players. Equipment manager Tim O’Neil typically sends a text to a small group of team leaders early in the week, asking them to decide.

Technically, the Lions can wear any of four pants — plain blue, plain white, plain silver and silver with striping — with either the blue or white jersey, although we’ve not seen the blue jersey/white pants combination. Perhaps that's because O’Neil doesn’t offer the non-traditional option as a choice to the players. Socks are either blue or gray.

There are no pants or socks options for the throwbacks. With the black jerseys, the Lions can technically wear blue pants. It remains to be seen whether they'll consider that against Buffalo or stick with the black-on-black look from the Seattle matchup.

Linebacker Alex Anzalone, who is involved in the pants selection, joked the group has settled on monochromatic looks for what he said feels like 90% of the time.

And even though he claims he isn't superstitious, he’s aware of how the team has struggled in the blue jersey/gray pants combo in recent years.

“We probably won't go with the blue and gray again any time soon,” he said with a laugh.

For the playoffs, the process is the same. The home team decides first and the visitor is required to go with the opposite. The only other thing of note is alternatives are not permitted in the postseason.