CLEVELAND — When the Cleveland Browns take the field for the 2024 NFL season, they will do so wearing a piece of history.
The Cleveland Browns announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the team will wear white face masks this season. Star RB Nick Chubb showed off the throwback helmet in one of the team's posts.
"We are excited to honor our storied history through the return of the white facemask," Cleveland Browns Partner JW Johnson told ClevelandBrowns.com. "As we continue to write the next chapter of Browns' history, we reflect on different eras, such as the Kardiac Kids and the return of the franchise, that led us to this place in time."
After initially wearing gray facemasks, Cleveland first adopted white face masks in 1975 -- a look the Browns continued to wear until 1995 and then again from 1999-2005. The look was first made famous by the team's "Kardiac Kids" of the 1980s.
Cleveland continued wearing gray face masks, which the team readopted in 2006, until the 2015 season, when the Browns overhauled their uniform design to a more modernized look, complete with brown face masks. When Cleveland reverted back to a more traditional look in 2020, it maintained its brown face mask -- although the Browns wore gray face masks on three occasions in 2021 as a part of their 75th anniversary-inspired throwback uniforms.
More recently, the Browns wore white facemasks once in 2022 and once again in 2023.
"We heard our loyal fans and are thrilled to see the white face mask featured on the Browns' helmets beginning with the 2024 season and beyond as we continue to write the history of our franchise," Johnson said.
In addition, the team released a hype video to announce the return: