CLEVELAND, OH – Super Bowl LIV is in the books, the NFL Draft is roughly three months away and while we have the rebooted XFL to distract us, the burning question that needs to be answered in the 216 is what the new—or new-oldish—uniforms the Cleveland Browns will be sporting for the 2020-21 season.
Never mind the fact that the Browns are just coming off of PERHAPS—and that’s a stretch since they’ve had so many—disappointing season ever despite having a stacked offense led by QB Baker Mayfield, RB’s Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt and talented—and very mercurial—wideouts in Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr.
On defense, we had Mr. Helmet Swing in DE Myles Garrett, CB Denzel Ward and LB Joe Schobert lead a promising unit that for all intents and purposes underacheived BADLY. That being said, out goes Freddie Kitchens and in comes former Minnesota Vikings offensive coordinator, Kevin Stefanski.
Aside from all the usual changes in the front office, coaches and players every other year, the Browns—much to the joy of die-hard homers everywhere—are going back to basics—and per the Haslams—nothing fancy.
So what exactly could that mean? Just bring the old uniforms back entirely, a modernized reboot or something in-between? As many of you know, I love my Browns, but also I’m an avid jersey collector across all sports and teams, most notably the Browns, my adopted second fave college football team in the UCF Knights (black/gold, white and anthracite), the Ohio State Buckeyes (Braxton Miller 2012 undefeated season) and the wolf gray of J.T. Barrett when they beat Penn State 39-38, the Arsenal Gunners in EPL soccer and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Now, I’m sure to catch some flack for not rooting for or supporting any Ohio-based teams such as the Crew or Blue Jackets, but when CBJ wins six Stanley Cups and produces some of the greatest hockey players such as Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Evegeni “Geno” Malkin or Sidney Crosby come talk to me!
I’m not shy about my jersey collection, nor the players I rep and buy because I LOVE all sports as well as traveling, and outside of the Browns, I have a LB Tremaine Edmunds Bills jersey from my trip to Buffalo, a Vincent Jackson creamsicle jersey and a Mike Evans Bucs jersey from my recent trip down to Tampa for the Browns pre-season game.
And outside of the Pens, I have two Buffalo Sabres (away and 50th anniversary edition) of C Jack Eichel, C Nathan McKinnion (away) of the Colorado Avalanche, C Matt Duchene of the Nashville Predators (alternate Avs sweater), C Pavel “The Magic Man” Datsyuk (home red) of the Detroit Red Wings, D Alex Pietrangelo (home blue!) of the defending Stanley Cup champion St Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks C Jonathan Toews (Stadium Series) and the aforementioned Winter Classic navy sweater of Sid The Kid.
Point is, I LOVE jerseys, and love collecting them!
From all the online chatter I’ve read and seen of what the Browns may or may not do. I keep hearing and seeing “tradition” and “nothing fancy” and it got me thinking of the late 90’s and early 2000’s when the team came back. Clean. simple and tradition. Sadly, the losing came along with it.
I can see in my mind’s eye a return of the five stripes, but maybe with a nod to the Kardiac Kids-style of the 80’s but in a bigger and bolder pattern a la Ohio State, which they wore most recently vs. Clemson.
Take a deep breath my dear Bucks fans! Yes that loss was PAINFUL!
In my designer’s and uniform honk’s eye, I can see something like what the Packers did in going from a similar five-stripe pattern to their current three-stripe pattern. It’ll make the uniforms look even cleaner and visually streamlined. Again, look at Ohio State’s current stripe pattern for an example.
It doesn’t take a rocket science to see how popular that the Color Rush uniforms are amongst Browns fans, so it wouldn’t shock me if they keep them as their alternate OR made them the official home uniform. Again, if the Browns are a marketing-savvy in pleasing their fans as they are in trying to out-smart the NFL in going all-analytics, it wouldn’t shock me one bit if they made the Color Rush—or a variation of it the home uniform.
For the away white, I could see either a bolder three-stripe pattern—a la Ohio State’s “rivalry uniforms” worn vs. Penn State and Michigan on the road—or some modifications added such as block drop shadowing from the early to mid 40’s-50’s giving a nod back to the days of Otto Graham, Paul and Jim Brown.
The alternate is a toss-up, and would be a shock if it’s an orange version of the new white/brown tops. For the pants, it’s pretty simple; white with orange/brown/orange piping, the Kardiac Kids-era orange pants with brown/white/brown stripes and the Color Rush brown pants with two bold orange stripes.
Based on the above, here are my own uniform mocks of what the new Browns uniforms of 2020 will look like:
Home: Clean, simple and a return to tradition with a twist. Gone are the classic five stripes and in is a three-stripe pattern that declutters and makes the jersey look modern, stylish with a nod to the browns storied past.
Away: Again, keeping along the theme of “nothing fancy” with a couple of twists mainly in the shoulder stripe pattern. I wouldn’t be shocked if the browns either bring back the classic five-stripe—as their marketing and ticket promos from this past season alluded to, or do something completely different.
Alternate: This could be what the alternate looks like in 2020. Either this or some variation entirely.
For the pants, its pretty simple here.
Orange: The Kardiac Kids are back and back in style!
Brown/Color Rush: For the most part, its a safe bet that the Color Rush tops will be back in ‘20, and so will the pants to go along with it!
White: The Classic white bottoms return as well. Thank God that the horrific “Browns” on the side is also gone too!
Alternate 2: A new set of white pants with a simple and classy brown stripe down the side.
Again, this is only a uniform mock of what I think the new jerseys will look like and I don’t have any inside information from Nike or Berea as to what the final designs are going to be. Till then, all we can do is speculate and debate!
Have at it, my fellow Dawgs!