The two final Cleveland Browns logos aren’t the best

The Cleveland Browns have narrowed down the contest for their new logos

The Cleveland Browns have narrowed down their new Dawg Pound logo for the 2023 season. There are now just two remaining logos, both of which you can see below. The winning logo will be able to be seen in and around the stadium, much like the Brownie the Elf logo was seen on the field last year.

Of the two new logo suggestions, neither is all that much different than what Browns’ fans have been seeing over the years. They’re pretty cookie-cutter ideas, just slightly edited. They both still look enough alike to the original logo that they’re based on, but different enough to make people think what they’re seeing is totally new.

Neither is great, and both feel very safe. That’s fine if you’re not trying to ruffle too many feathers, but the logo contest was a great time and place to maybe freshen up the team’s long-standing look. It feels like the winners of this contest are going to be providing more of the same in regard to looks for the team.

Maybe it’s time to freshen up the entire Cleveland Browns team

Maybe it’s time to think beyond a similar-yet-different approach to the Browns’ logo and identity. The team has long been held in this miasma of suck, and while simply changing the team’s logo from an orange helmet to a more unique and dynamic dog may not make all of the last 30+ years go away, it may help refocus things.

Sometimes a change in culture can just come through a grand gesture. Someone sees that a grand change or something minor has happened and it awakens something inside of them. It happened to the Tampa Bay Rays, the season they stopped being the Devil Rays, and changed their mascot to a beam of light as opposed to the eponymous devil ray sea creature, they became a team to be reckoned with.

And with a salary lower than the Cleveland Guardians, they’ve become one of the most consistently good teams in all of baseball. Could getting rid of some of the long, outdated concepts that the Browns have wrapped themselves in help detour the current narrative around the team and boost a change in culture?

Maybe, maybe not, but at least it’d be different and sometimes that’s all we can really ask for.