Anthony Costa

The Cleveland Browns have a brand new logo. After a few weeks of online teasing though it's a bit of a cold shower.

The helmet’s back, but it now rests on a bolder sans-serif script. The orange has been amped for more bounce and the facemask has gone from grey to brown.

Todd Radom’s surly secondary logo is also gone, replaced by a more cartoonish Dawg face that floats aimlessly without any defined outer silhouette. 

Overall it’s a tiny tweak probably wasn’t worth a press release. It’s more a teaser for the uniform reveal on April 14. Given Cleveland’s song and dance about how the logo ‘honors the past’ I can’t see Nike Ducking-up the Brown’s duds to any great degree.

Two questions: 

1)   Why do the Browns need a new logo / uniform anyway? Surely there are bigger changes to be made at Cleveland if they want to inject credibility and excitement into the franchise. Like the Packers, the Browns have a strong old-school jersey that just doesn’t need to be messed with. And I can't see how taking the light grey off the helmet is an improvement. If anything it makes the helmet more dull and heavy.

2)   Why not make this old secondary logo the primary? A pennant helmet feels too generic for a team emblem in an elite comp like the NFL. To me this bold 2003 logo ticks all the boxes for a traditional brand like the Browns. Twelve years old and the design is still on-trend. It's everything that the Brooklyn Nets logo tried to be.

Images via Chris Cremer's Sportslogos.net & Cleveland Browns.