Browns are making a subtle change to their logo

Hall of Fame head coach Paul Brown was one of the league's greatest innovators. With the Cleveland Browns, he became the first coach to test his players on their knowledge of a playbook, scout opponents, and hire full-time assistants. He created the practice squad, the draw play, and — of course — the modern face mask. Perhaps that's why Cleveland is paying such close attention to the color of their face masks.

The Browns are swapping the brown face masks on their orange helmets for white face masks on April 17. They are also updating their primary logo, which is an orange helmet, to reflect the color change.

The Cleveland Browns change their face masks almost as much as they change quarterbacks. The Browns previously wore the white face masks from 1975 to 2005. Cleveland moved to a gray face mask in 2006 to celebrate their 60th anniversary, and they opted for a brown face mask as part of a redesigned uniform in 2015. The Browns returned to their classic look in 2020, but the face mask on the helmets remained brown.

Browns will switch to white face masks in most recent uniform change

Fans demanded a permanent return to the white face masks after Cleveland wore them during a 13-10 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in November. Executive vice president J.W. Johnson responded to fans on social media in December and said the Browns would make the switch back to the white face masks.

Things have changed a lot since Paul Brown and quarterback Otto Graham guided Cleveland to seven championships. The Browns were once the greatest dynasty in football. These days, they are more confused than anything else. Their primary logo is a helmet, a Labrador dog is one of three team mascots, and an elf now resides at midfield.

The Browns are the only team without a logo on their helmet — after all, placing the primary logo on the helmets would create a Droste effect of infinite orange helmets.

Brownie the Elf was the team's original mascot and logo. In 1953, Brown asked trainer Leo Murphy to put the Brownie logo on one of Cleveland's helmets to see what it would look like. Murphy, like a good little elf, immediately went to work. Once it was finished, he brought the Brownie-emblazoned helmet to Brown's office and proudly set it down on his desk. The legendary head coach found it repulsive.

"I don't like it," Brown said. "Take it away."

Brownie didn't make it onto the helmet, but he remained the team's mascot until 1961, when Art Modell bought the team and banished Brownie.

"My first official act as owner of the Browns," Modell told newspaper reporters, "will be to get rid of that little f---er."

Like a Batman villain, Modell killed off Brownie and moved the team to Baltimore. Brownie was slowly reintegrated when the Browns returned as an expansion franchise, and he reemerged as the midfield logo in 2022.

An alternate dog logo almost made it onto the field instead of the elf, and Cleveland's star pass rusher Myles Garrett probably would've preferred it.

"I don't know what to think about it," Garrett said about the new midfield logo. "It's original, it's unique. But I've always been more of a fan of the dog. I mean, we're the Dawg Pound, but we've got an elf? I think we're a little bit confused on what route we want to go creatively."

Either way, Brownie's grandiloquent return to the gridiron was overshadowed by an inexplicable loss. In Brownie's first game on the field, Cleveland became the first team in 21 years to blow a 13-point lead in the final two minutes. Some fans blamed the disgraceful loss on Brownie.

Perhaps it's time to focus less on aesthetics and more on victories — especially after a promising 2023 campaign ended with a rare playoff appearance.