Darius Slay said the Eagles aren’t bringing back kelly green this year. Don’t worry. He’s wrong.
After a minor panic among Birds fans, the team confirmed the popular jerseys will be back this season.
Darius Slay made every Eagles fan’s heart skip a beat when he said on a local podcast that the Birds would not be bringing their popular kelly green jerseys back in 2024.
That felt unfathomable. The Eagles lobbied for years for teams to be able to wear an alternate helmet design, a rule change the league finally adopted for the 2022 season, paving the way for the return of the kelly green helmets. The new kelly green gear officially launched in July 2023, to massive fanfare. The jerseys quickly sold out of their first run, leaving fans waiting months to get their hands on one of the new throwback uniforms. Some even came with slanted numbers, leading Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin to issue an apology. The Eagles team store is currently selling Saquon Barkley kelly green jerseys. The team couldn’t be getting rid of them, right?
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But Slay was asked on the Pulp Phiction podcast whether he thought the Birds would wear the kelly green jerseys — which he said were his favorites — in 2024, and he said no.
“Hell nah they ain’t,” Slay said.
On X, Slay clarified a bit, saying he wasn’t sure.
Rest easy, Birds fans. The Eagles confirmed to The Inquirer that the Birds will wear their kelly green jerseys again in 2024. The number of times and specific dates when the team will wear kelly green are still undetermined, but the jerseys themselves are not going anywhere this season.
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The controversy is just the latest in a series of misinformed Eagles green takes, after Packers running back Josh Jacobs started another by saying the NFL had told the teams not to wear green in Brazil due to “something to do with the gangs.”
In reality, green is the color of Palmeiras, the rival of local soccer team Corinthians, whose stadium is hosting the game. So while fans are discouraged from wearing green during Corinthians soccer matches, that’s not the case for NFL games.