The Week 18 clash between the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings will be a rare one, with both teams having 13 wins and being 10 or more games over .500. The loser will have 14 wins but not win the division. There's a reason the league chose it as the final game of the regular season for "Sunday Night Football."
Because that becomes a conversation these days for any big game the Lions play, Justin Rogers of Detroit Football Network addressed an inquiry about what uniforms the Lions will wear against the Vikings by saying they submitted wearing their throwbacks (blue jersey, silver helmet, etc.) in Week 18 before the season.
Uniforms are selected and approved by the league before the season. The Lions submitted the throwbacks for Week 18 (third time in Campbell's four years) in June. I'm not aware of mechanisms that allows for a mid-year change. https://t.co/4FF87MNpIQ
— Justin Rogers | Detroit Football Network (@Justin_Rogers) December 31, 2024
The league tends to be pretty inflexible when it comes to uniform and dress code matters unless there's a greater purpose (fining players for wearing the wrong color cleats, as an example). So as Rogers suggested, a midseason pivot to wearing anything other than their throwback uniforms in Week 18 felt unlikely for the Lions.
Not so fast.
Lions tease black uniforms for Week 18 vs, Vikings
On Tuesday night, the Lions dropped this tease on social media.
Guess what's back, back again 👀🖤 pic.twitter.com/q5t5mqcGWK
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) January 1, 2025
Every other time the Lions' social media team has dropped a tease about wearing the black alternate uniforms that were brought back this year, it has happened. So we can just about book they will be wearing the black uniforms on Sunday night, pending an official announcement.
The Lions have worn their black alternates twice before this season. They wore the, the first time in Week 4 against the Seattle Seahawks, a 42-29 victory on "Monday Night Football." They wore them again, as had been expected all along, in Week 15 against the Buffalo Bills, as a 45-42 loss.
Sunday night's game can't be any bigger. The winner will win the NFC North, along with the No. 1 seed in the playoffs and the coveted first round bye. After Monday night's win over the 49ers, head coach Dan Campbell pointed to the uniqueness of the Week 18 matchup and the size of the moment.
“This is what your in it for, man,” Campbell said, via Lions.com. “You couldn’t write a better scenario. You couldn’t come up with this. The fact that both teams are sitting at 14-2 and it’s for the division and the No. 1 seed. It just doesn’t get any better than this. This is fairytale stuff.”
So it's totally appropriate the Lions will be in their best uniform for such a big game. Maybe, as put out there by Jeff Risdon of Lions Wire, the Vikings will counter by wearing their all-white uniforms.