Cleveland Browns

[pooter]

Cruising the net, I found these Browns jerseys. Anybody rememberr them? I had never seen them before.

They look like something that would come from the USFL.

[tohasbo]

Did you find this on ebay by any chance???

Because I have gone through the entire Cleveand Browns database and did not see this uniform at all.

[pooter]

Did you find this on ebay by any chance???

Because I have gone through the entire Cleveand Browns database and did not see this uniform at all.

I found those pix at Grey Flannel Auctions.

Mid-1980s Ozzie Newsome Cleveland Browns Game-Used Brown Jersey

Lot # 178

Brown mesh jersey with screen printed orange and white stripe trim around sleeves. On the left front tail of the jersey is the "Medallist Sand-Knit Cleveland Browns" manufacturers tag. Below that is an additional "Medalist Sand-Knit" tag with the jersey size 46" on it. On the front, sleeves and on the back of the jersey is the player number "82" screen printed in white on orange. Across the back of the jersey is "NEWSOME" screen printed in white on a brown name plate. The jersey shows game use with heavy wear on the back numbers. There appears to be no alterations of any kind.

Reserve Price: $250

Current Bid: $275

[John in KY]

While not from the USFL it was from that era - that was the 1984 1-year-only uniform. In fact, that would be the second version of this jersey, when they debuted in pre-season they had orange numbers with white trim. No one could read them, and they were switched to the white number/orange trim you see here. Also, the pants that year had a brown/orange/brown stripe, just like the ones they've worn for the last couple of years.

1983 was the last year of the orange pants uniforms, and in 1985 they switched back to the classic white pants uniforms, which were worn until the team moved to Baltimore after the 1995 season.

Follow this link to the Football Uniforms Past & Present site's 1984 page, and scroll down to the AFC for a look:

Football Uniforms P&P 1984 page

[Gothamite]

Good call with Football Uniforms P&P - that's a great resource.

So's Grey Flannel Auctions - they have spectacular photos. I get a lot of good reference material from them.

Good company, too - have bought several items from their auctions, and have always had a great experience.

[CC97]

Good call with Football Uniforms P&P - that's a great resource.

So's Grey Flannel Auctions - they have spectacular photos. I get a lot of good reference material from them.

Good company, too - have bought several items from their auctions, and have always had a great experience.

Gotta fix their UniForum, victimised by the phpBB worm almost 2 weeks ago

[Gothamite]

Didn't know that - shows how often I visit the forum these days....

[cableguy]

Ive been a Browns fan for 40 years..those uniforms were never worn. The striping pattern is very similar to an experimental jersey they wore ONCE in a pre season game against Pittsburgh only the numbers were orange with white trim. Those were scrapped immediately after that game and never worn again.

But to answer your question..these jerseys were never worn.

[pooter]

Ive been a Browns fan for 40 years..those uniforms were never worn. The striping pattern is very similar to an experimental jersey they wore ONCE in a pre season game against Pittsburgh only the numbers were orange with white trim. Those were scrapped immediately after that game and never worn again.

But to answer your question..these jerseys were never worn.

So the jerseys with orange numbers were worn once in pre-season.

The jerseys with white numbers were never worn.

Which dark jerseys did they wear during the season?

[quantum]

Ive been a Browns fan for 40 years..those uniforms were never worn. The striping pattern is very similar to an experimental jersey they wore ONCE in a pre season game against Pittsburgh only the numbers were orange with white trim. Those were scrapped immediately after that game and never worn again.

But to answer your question..these jerseys were never worn.

This design was worn for one season. However, the sleeves look too long on these jerseys.

[John in KY]

I remember seeing this set in action against Cincinnati (both home and road games) as well as the roads against Seattle. The orange number version was scrapped after one game, and the whole design scrapped after the season.

The sleeves look long compared to today's uniforms because the style was to come down to the elbow in those days; if I'm remembering correcly Newsome liked his to hit a bit below the elbow, like Terry Bradshaw and a lot of Steelers wore their Durene jerseys.

EDIT - my bad; it seems like during the orange pants days Newsome liked to leave the sleeve about elbow length but cut away the inside part of the sleeve; that cutaway, which isn't present on the jersey in the original post.

You can't link to it, but if you go to the offical Browns site and view the team photo from 1984 (which is black & white) you can see they are wearing white pants and this brown jersey. However, didn't the Browns primarily wear the white jersey (at least early in the season) at home under both Rutigliano and Schottenheimer? I know Marty took over sometime during the 1984 season, but I don't remember off hand exactly when that happened.

[TruColor]

The Browns most certainly DID wear jerseys similar to this - with Orange trim on the numbers.

It upset me when they changed them back...

[TruColor]

I went ahead and saved the 1984 FUP&P pic to my own Photobucket account:

I used to have nice large color photos of these being worn in actual games, but don't have them anymore. Darn it.

[Harmening]

The trim around the numbers in the first picture looks waay too thick than I remember from the '84 unis.

[pittfan11]

Those are old school.

[leopard88]

Those are old school.

Not as much as the current unis (orange alt excepted).

[bricknivy]

Always loved his iagae of Paul Brown and his attempt to mimic his old Cleveland Browns identity.

http://www.footballhappenings.com/uniformguru_afc.htm

Some of this helmets pictured seemed inspiration for the cool helmet they wear today. How can a team who has such a cool helment have such a cruddy set of uniforms? Seems strange.

[VitaminD]

Always loved his iagae of Paul Brown and his attempt to mimic his old Cleveland Browns identity.

http://www.footballhappenings.com/uniformguru_afc.htm

Some of this helmets pictured seemed inspiration for the cool helmet they wear today. How can a team who has such a cool helment have such a cruddy set of uniforms? Seems strange.

Uniform Guru doesn't appear to be the most credible source. His entire criticism of the Browns' uniforms revolves around the fact the team was named for a color. They were named in honor of coach Paul Brown. His last name happens to be a color, which is a coincidence. That's all, the same way Bowling Green State U. in Ohio exists in a town with a color in its name (a reference to British park space for lawn bowling) but does not use that color primarily (or at all, in this case).

[Gothamite]

Uniform Guru doesn't appear to be the most credible source. His entire criticism of the Browns' uniforms revolves around the fact the team was named for a color. They were named in honor of coach Paul Brown. His last name happens to be a color, which is a coincidence. That's all, the same way Bowling Green State U. in Ohio exists in a town with a color in its name (a reference to British park space for lawn bowling) but does not use that color primarily (or at all, in this case).

Add to that the fact that the traditional colors of the Green Bay Packers are gold and navy....

[Blue Falcon]

I remember seeing this set in action against Cincinnati (both home and road games) as well as the roads against Seattle. The orange number version was scrapped after one game, and the whole design scrapped after the season.

So did the Bengals wear white at home for the entire season? The Bungles are a hard team to track since it appears they usually wore black at home, but then would suddenly break out the white jersey for a home game that was not related to the weather.