Panthers unveil new black alternate helmet for 2022 that marks first helmet change in franchise history

For the first time in franchise history, the Carolina Panthers are introducing a new helmet. The Panthers entered the NFL in 1995 and in the 27 seasons since then, they’ve worn a silver helmet for every game, but that will be changing this year. 

For the first time in franchise history, the team will be wearing an alternate helmet and they unveiled the new look on Tuesday: It’s a black helmet that goes perfectly with their black color rush uniforms. 

The new look is sleek and you can see what it looks like below. 

Here are two more angles of the helmet. 

And here’s a photo of just the helmet (If you want to see more pictures of the helmet, you can check out the photo gallery on the team’s website by clicking here). 

As noted above, the Panthers will be unveiling the new helmet in Week 10 when they host the Falcons for a Thursday night game on Nov. 9. 

The game might be more than three months away, but from the sound of it, several Panthers players are already excited at the thought of wearing all-black. 

“Guys will be fired up, for sure. I know fans have wanted it for a long time,” safety Jeremy Chinn told the team’s official website. “The all-black is one of my favorite uniforms anyway. So [adding a black helmet] is like the icing on top.”

Panthers defensive end Brian Burns also sounds excited about the black helmet. 

“When I saw this, I was like, ‘This will be tough,’” Burns said. “Especially on defense, they call us the dark side anyway, so it brings it all together.”

The Panthers’ announcement likely won’t be the last time this summer that we see an NFL team surprisingly unveil a new helmet. For the past 10 years, NFL teams were only allowed to wear one helmet, but that’s no longer the case. The league rescinded its one-helmet rule in 2021 and when that happened, the NFL announced that teams would be free to wear an alternate helmet starting with the 2022 season, which paved the way for the Panthers to introduce a black helmet this year. 

Carolina is now the sixth team this offseason that has unveiled or announced a new helmet. The other five teams are the Bengals (white tiger helmet), Texans (red helmet), Patriots (white helmet), Saints (black helmet) and Falcons (red helmet). According to UniWatch, there could be as many as 15 teams that end up wearing an alternate helmet for at least one game in 2022, so don’t be surprised if we hear a few more announcements over the next few weeks.