Eagles

Opinion: I Used to Hate Everything About Kelly Green, but the Super Bowl Win Changed My Mind

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Jul 31st, 2023 · 9:18 AM EDT

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They say the customer is always right, and if the customer wants the Eagles to bring back Kelly Green, then you bring back Kelly Green.

Lines began to form outside of Lincoln Financial Field at 3:30 on Monday morning, so it looks like the Birds certainly made the right call in reviving the old school color for the first time since 1996, notwithstanding a one-off revival for the 2010 season opener.

Click here to buy the “new” Kelly Green jerseys.

The thing about Kelly Green is that it harkens back to a loser period of Eagles football, but only for the generation of fans somewhere between age 25 and 45. It was the color of Buddy Ryan and first round playoff exits and your uncle calling up 610 WIP to complain about Izel Jenkins. Kelly Green triggered memories of Marion Campbell, Richie Kotite, and two fucking playoff wins in 19 years. That’s why the incessant yearning for the color seemed pathetic on the surface, because the first Eagles experience for Millennials and the younger portion of Gen X was watching guys like Bobby Hoying stink up the joint while your dad yelled at the TV.

I can’t speak for everybody else born after 1980, but the mindset for me changed when the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2017. They finally got over the hump to claim that first Lombardi Trophy, and a rare moment of satisfaction took over. We were less angry as a fan base in general. People cooled off a bit, at least until Carson Wentz embarked upon Trent Reznor’s downward spiral. But after 2017 I think a lot of people began to look at Kelly Green as an appropriate throwback of sorts. A historic revival. It was cool to see Shady McCoy and Michael Vick wearing it in 2010. Wouldn’t it be cool to see Jason Kelce and Lane Johnson wear the color that Seth Joyner and Reggie White wore? There were enough successful periods in the Kelly Green that go back decades now, pre-dating the creation of the Super Bowl even, so if you’re one of those people who is 50+, you remember, for example, the 1980 NFC Championship and the height of the Dick Vermeil era.

It’s true that a lot of shitty football was played in Kelly Green, but there was also a lot of great football played in those colors. The Eagles won championships in the 1940s and 1960s wearing Kelly Green. Harold Carmichael went to four Pro Bowls and won the conference in Kelly Green. Reggie and Chuck Bednarik were six-time All Pros wearing the color. So if you expand your view of the motif beyond that feckless late 80s/early 90s stretch, there are plenty of worthy moments to focus on. Plus, it’s not a loser color if winners are wearing it, exemplified perhaps by this banger of a Brandon Graham photo that leaked over the weekend:

photo credit: Philadelphia Eagles

That photo is TOUGH, as the kids say. It goes hard.

The thing about uniforms and color motifs is that they trigger memories both good and bad. You make associations with specific looks, like the black Sixers jersey of 20 years ago. You look at that jersey in a vacuum and think of Allen Iverson and the 2001 run to the NBA Finals. Likewise, Midnight Green was the color of the successful Donovan McNabb era and later the jersey that Nick Foles wore while carving up the Patriots in Super Bowl 52. From now until the world ends, you’ll look at that photo of the Eagles lifting the Lombardi Trophy and see Midnight Green tops with the white pants. You’ll watch the Tyronn Lue stepover for the 7,000th time and see the black Sixers kit. We watched Bedlam at the Bank in the Phillies cream alternates. We’re always linking iconic sporting moments with these visual evocations.

#Eagles’ alternative kelly green jerseys will first be worn for the following home game, according to team sources:

Sun, Oct. 22 vs. the Dolphins, 8:20 p.m.

Second game, TBA by the team at 9 a.m.

— Jeff McLane (@Jeff_McLane) July 31, 2023

Another thing we can say, unequivocally, is that Jeffrey Lurie understands the fan base. It’s the “emotional intelligence” he described years ago, and he’s been consistent talking about the Kelly Green revival.

“I think the fans will love it,” the Eagles owner said in March. “It’s why we’re bringing it back. We really took the feedback seriously over the years and the first moment we could get the Kelly Green helmet approved, we’ll finally be able to see it on the field.”

Lurie gets it, because he knows that the customer is always right. And in this case, the customer finally got that parade, so if the Midnight Green era hypothetically ended tomorrow, it would be go into the annals of Bird history as a success.

Not sure about you, but that’s what changed my mindset when thinking about the Eagles. I used to hate Kelly Green with every fiber of my being, just absolutely abhorred everything it stood for and all of the stupid Buddy Ryan shit of 30 years ago. But in the months following the Super Bowl win, I mellowed out faster than B-Real doing Hits from the Bong. Why not bring back the Kelly Green? No harm, no foul. The Birds got this one right.

Buy the “new” Kelly Green jerseys at this link.

header image credit: Philadelphia Eagles