The Green Bay Packers haven’t had many alternate helmets in more than 100 years of existence. The ones they have had haven’t been anything special.

There was last year’s all-white uniforms drained the team’s signature yellow surrounding its signature block G. The team’s 2010s throwbacks, in compliance with an NFL rule that allowed only a single helmet style to be worn all season, went in the opposite direction. Those helmets had no logo and were *only* yellow.

And, famously, the team accidentally inspired the Cleveland Browns’ all-lower-intestine look by bringing an incredibly obvious Aaron Rodgers joke to life long before he became a staple of daytime television.

This left a low bar to clear for the franchise’s 2025 throwbacks. The good news is they’ve easily sailed over those 2011 doo-doo lids.

While the Pittsburgh Steelers threw their uniforms back to the 1930s, they did so with their already established alternate yellow helmets. The Packers are going back to brown leather, but this time they’re adding the details to let us know it’s a tribute to the old, slightly safe helmets of yore rather than just looking like, uh, that.

The little things make all the difference. Finely painted stitch lines? Hell yeah. Look at the effort that went into these:

Granted, it’s one thing to see them in a promotional video. It’s another entirely to see them in action, especially after a few quarters of collisions has scratched away some of the detail. Still, this is a monumental upgrade from Green Bay’s last throwback helmet and a gorgeous look that will be the standard for all other NFL leatherhead-style throwbacks that follow it.

Even if the University of Illinois did it first.