Baltimore Ravens unveil new "Purple Rising" alternate helmet

BALTIMORE -- In a series of social media posts, the Baltimore Ravens unveiled their new Purple Rising" alternate helmet Tuesday morning.  

The bold design features metallic paint, gold stripes, and a new front-facing Ravens logo, and will be worn with the Ravens' existing color rush uniforms. 

The first social media post showed wide receiver Zay Flowers, tight end Mark Andrews, linebacker Odafe Oweh, and cornerback Nate Wiggins reacting to the new helmet.

A subsequent post showed wide receiver Tylan Wallace modeling the helmet along with the all purple uniform.

On the Ravens "The Lounge" podcast, Sr. Vice President of Marketing Brad Downs talked about the story behind the new helmets, which he said spent years in the making. 

 "We pay attention to all of that feedback from the fans, to really try to land on something they're going to love," Downs said. "I've been waiting for this day for a long time."

Downs said the final design came after filtering through numerous options for helmet designs. 

"I think I had at least 14 options of helmets, and that doesn't even include swapping decals, locals, stripes. We narrowed it down to two, and this is the direction that we went," Downs said. 

The team will wear the new helmets for one game in the upcoming season, but Downs says that will be a surprise for the fans. 

"We do [know which game], but we're going to save that one. Got to leave the fans wanting a little more. One game is the plan for this year," Downs said.