100 Fun Facts About NFL Logo

Which NFL team's logo is a fleur-de-lis?

New Orleans Saints helmets have carried the fleur-de-lis since the team's first season in 1967; the lily of French royalty is also the emblem of the city itself.

A blue horseshoe on each side of a white helmet identifies which team?

Indianapolis Colts horseshoes began in 1954, the club's Baltimore days, as a white pair on the back of a blue helmet; only later did they move to the sides of a white one.

A single white horn, outlined in gold, on each side of a purple helmet belongs to which team?

Minnesota Vikings helmets have worn the horn since the 1961 debut, when a Los Angeles newspaper cartoonist designed the look; it was reshaped in 2006 in what the team calls its most dramatic uniform change.

An arc-shaped lightning bolt has been which NFL team's emblem ever since its first season in 1960?

Los Angeles Chargers bolts date from the first season, when the club crest also showed a horse's head; a charger can be a war horse as well as a jolt of electricity.

Which is the only NFL team that puts its logo on just one side of the helmet?

Pittsburgh Steelers equipment manager Jack Hart put the logo on the right side only in 1962, as a test of how it looked on gold helmets; the oddity drew so much interest that it stayed.

What steelmaking ingredient does the yellow shape in the Steelers' logo represent?

Coal is the yellow shape, iron ore the orange and scrap steel the blue; the three first stood for a slogan that steel "lightens your work, brightens your leisure and widens your world".

The Steelers' logo is based on the 'Steelmark', an industry emblem originally designed by which company?

U.S. Steel created the Steelmark, but it was a rival, Republic Steel of Ohio, that suggested the football team wear it in 1962; the emblem now belongs to the American Iron and Steel Institute.

What did the NFL team that wears the Steelmark win permission to add to it?

The letters 'ers' turned the emblem's 'Steel' into the club's own name after it petitioned the steel institute; around the same time the helmets went from gold to black to show the logo off.

Which is the only NFL team with no logo on its helmet?

Cleveland Browns helmets are plain orange, and the club treats the bare helmet itself as its logo; the only marks ever worn on the sides were players' numbers, from 1957 to 1960.

The Browns' darker official color is formally known by what name?

Seal brown has been on the club's color list since its first season in 1946, beside burnt orange; by one account, coach Paul Brown fell for the pairing on a framed jersey at Bowling Green, where the team first trained.

The oval 'G' logo was drawn in 1961 by an art student from which school, the Packers' training-camp home for six decades?

St. Norbert College student John Gordon, an assistant to the equipment manager, sketched the football-shaped "G" after the head coach asked for a logo; it was approved within a day.

What was added to the Cowboys' plain solid star in 1964?

A border of white and blue went around the star in 1964, the year the helmets turned silver-blue, so that the mark would stand out against the new shell.

What is embossed on the blue strip of Dymo tape on the back of every Cowboys helmet?

The player's name is punched into label-maker tape on the white stripe at the back of each helmet, a habit the Cowboys have kept for decades while other clubs hide such labels inside the shell.

When the Bengals unveiled their tiger-striped orange helmets, Sports Illustrated likened them to what?

Varicose pumpkins was the magazine's verdict in December 1981, the stripes' first season; the team ignored the jibe and has worn tiger stripes on its helmets ever since.

From 1968 to 1980, what appeared on the sides of Cincinnati's orange helmets?

The word 'Bengals' in plain block letters was all Paul Brown put on the helmet; fired by his old club, he had dressed the new one in the very same shade of orange.

Fans nicknamed the Patriots' 1993 logo after which singer?

Elvis Presley is who fans saw in the sleek grey profile, so "Flying Elvis" it became; the team wanted a mark simpler to reproduce than the finely drawn Pat Patriot it replaced.

At a 1979 game the Patriots let fans vote on a new logo; how was the crowd's verdict measured?

A sound level meter recorded the cheers for each design at halftime, and the old minuteman won easily; the owner, it later emerged, had never wanted to change the logo anyway.

What was the Patriots' very first helmet logo, worn only in 1960?

A tricorne hat, sent in by a fan, was the first helmet logo; it lasted a single year before a cartoonist's minuteman, soon known as Pat Patriot, replaced it.

The Buccaneers' original pirate logo winked instead of wearing an eyepatch, to avoid copying which team?

The winking swashbuckler was quickly nicknamed 'Bucco Bruce' and became a symbol of the club's early futility.

In the Miami Dolphins' logo, the dolphin is set against what?

A sunburst has sat behind the dolphin since 1966; the 2013 redesign kept the sun but took off the football helmet, marked with an "M", that the dolphin had worn for more than four decades.

The Atlanta Falcons' swooping bird logo is drawn so that its shape suggests which capital letter?

F for Falcons has been hidden in the bird's outline since the first logo of 1966; the 2003 redesign, with red and silver accents, made the letter easier to see.

The Buccaneers' original orange uniforms earned what dessert-inspired nickname?

Creamsicle orange was barely seen at first: the team wore white for every regular-season game of 1976, so the orange jerseys came out only in preseason.

Since 1997 the Buccaneers' primary colors have been red and which metallic shade?

Pewter arrived in 1997 with a skull-and-swords flag meant to toughen the club's image; the old winking pirate had been mocked as better suited to an Easter parade than a pirate ship.

Which team was the first in the NFL to put a logo on its helmets, back in 1948?

Los Angeles Rams halfback Fred Gehrke, who had studied art, painted the horns onto the leather helmets himself in 1948; six years on, only one other club had a helmet emblem.

In the Patriots' 1961–1992 logo, the minuteman known as Pat Patriot is shown doing what?

Hiking a football, crouched like a center in Revolutionary War dress, is how a newspaper cartoonist drew him in 1960; fans loved him enough to vote down a replacement in 1979.

In their 2020 rebrand, the Rams gave their shade of yellow what official name?

Sol, Spanish for sun, came with a blue called Rams Royal; the logos unveiled alongside drew enough criticism that the club's chief operating officer read out mean tweets about them to reward donors to a charity telethon.

The horse-head logo the Broncos adopted in 1997 was inspired by their live mascot, an Arabian horse named what?

Thunder, the name shared by the grey Arabians that have galloped the field for the club since 1993, was the model Nike's designers built the new logo around.

From 1968 to 1996 the Broncos' logo showed a bucking horse bursting out of which letter?

D for Denver framed the snorting bronco through the Orange Crush years; the 1997 redesign dropped the letter along with the royal blue helmets.

The Jaguars' first proposed logo, a gold leaping cat, was scrapped after objections from which automaker?

Ford, which then owned the Jaguar car company, objected that the leaping gold cat looked too much like the carmaker's own; the team redrew its logo rather than fight the matter in court.

Wayne Weaver joked that the teal tongue in the Jaguars' logo came from 'feeding' which fellow expansion team to them?

Carolina Panthers entered the league alongside Jacksonville in 1995, hence the owner's jab at them; he credited the teal tongue itself to his wife.

The Panthers' cat-head logo was shaped to mimic the outline of what?

The two Carolinas, North stacked on South, are traced by the outline of the cat's head, a nod to a club that calls itself "Two states, one team"; a 2012 touch-up was the logo's first change.

The logo of Super Bowl XXVIII, played in Atlanta, was built around what?

A peach, for the Peach State, sat at the heart of the Atlanta game's logo; the league dropped such one-off designs for a fixed silver template in 2011, then let local scenery back inside the Roman numerals in 2022.

In the NFL's 2008 shield redesign, the football was reshaped to resemble the ball on top of what?

The Vince Lombardi Trophy's upright ball replaced an old-fashioned pigskin that league staff had nicknamed the "Hamburger"; the new shield made its debut at the April 2008 draft.

Which is the only Super Bowl of the Roman-numeral era branded without one?

The 50th wore gold Arabic numerals because designers found an L on its own, the Roman 50, too awkward to build a logo around; settling the design took 73 mock-ups.

Which Super Bowl was the first branded with Roman numerals, applied retroactively to earlier ones?

The 5th game, played in January 1971, was the first billed with a Roman numeral, and the four before it were renumbered to match; Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt is credited with the idea.

Lamar Hunt's interlocking 'KC' arrowhead was inspired by the helmet logo of which team?

San Francisco 49ers helmets carried an 'SF' inside an oval; Hunt sketched his own overlapping 'KC' on a napkin and set it inside an arrowhead instead.

The bird's head on which NFL team's helmets was redrawn in 2005 to look sleeker and meaner?

Arizona Cardinals red had barely changed for decades; the 2005 redraw, billed as the club's first major makeover in a century, sharpened the bird and turned its beak from gold to yellow.

In 1996 the Eagles swapped kelly green for a darker shade officially called what?

Midnight green replaced kelly green two years after Jeffrey Lurie bought the team; the old shade came back as a throwback in 2023, once the league allowed clubs a second helmet.

The Eagles' name and original emblem were inspired by the Blue Eagle symbol of which New Deal agency?

National Recovery Administration posters carried a blue eagle, Franklin Roosevelt's badge of economic recovery; Bert Bell borrowed the bird in 1933 for a club replacing the bankrupt Frankford Yellow Jackets.

The Ravens' first helmet logo was ruled to infringe on a design faxed in by an amateur artist who worked as what?

A security guard, Frederick Bouchat, had faxed his drawing to the stadium authority; one jury agreed the team's winged shield copied it, but a second awarded him nothing.

In 1984 the Bills changed their helmets from white to red mainly for whose benefit?

Their quarterback, Joe Ferguson, kept facing three division rivals in white helmets like his own team's; red was meant to help him pick out receivers downfield, a story the Bills have since confirmed.

The Bills' charging-buffalo logo was created in 1974 by Stevens Wright, a designer from what industry?

Aerospace was Stevens Wright's field, not sport; his wife worked for the league's licensing arm and passed his sketches on, and the streaking blue bison has been the Bills' mark ever since.

The Seahawks' original logo was based on a mask made by which Indigenous people?

Kwakwaka'wakw carvers made the eagle mask that the designers copied from a 1950 art book; its whereabouts were forgotten until a museum in Maine recognised it in 2014 and lent it to Seattle.

In the Texans' bull-head logo, what forms the eye?

A lone star marks the eye, its five points standing for pride, courage, strength, tradition and independence; the bull's head is split in red and blue to echo the Texas flag.

The stars in the Titans' logo represent what?

Tennessee's Grand Divisions, East, Middle and West, are the three stars, borrowed from the state flag; they ride on a 'T' that trails flames like a comet.

What piece of oilfield equipment was the helmet logo of the Houston Oilers?

A derrick, the drilling tower of the oilfields, stayed on the helmet through 37 seasons in Houston and two in Tennessee, until the team became the Titans in 1999.

The Chargers' 2017 'LA' logo was scrapped within two days after being compared to which team's logo?

Los Angeles Dodgers baseball had long used an interlocked 'LA', and the lookalike was mocked at once; the Chargers recoloured the logo within a day, then dropped it altogether.

The Lions' official shade of blue is named after which city?

Honolulu blue is said to have been named by owner George Richards for the ocean he saw on a trip to Hawaii; a player and his wife had picked blue and silver for him in 1934.

The Falcons' 1966 colors paired the Bulldogs' red and black with which school's white and gold?

Georgia Tech's gold ran as stripes down the first red helmets beside the Bulldogs' black; the gold was dropped after a few seasons, while the white stayed.

Who changed the Raiders' colors to silver and black and first put a logo on the helmet in 1963?

Al Davis arrived as coach and general manager in 1963 and swapped the original black and gold for silver and black, adding the shield to the helmet; the early Raiders had even worn full names on their jerseys.

The New York Jets switched to green because owner Sonny Werblin was born on which holiday?

St. Patrick's Day was Sonny Werblin's birthday, so when his group bought the Titans of New York it swapped their navy for kelly green and white.

Before a 2005 redesign, the Arizona Cardinals' bird logo was widely mocked as which pet?

A parakeet was the jeer aimed at the old cardinal head, so the 2005 version was drawn sleeker and meaner in the club's first major makeover in a century.

Until a 2013 redesign, which NFL team's logo animal wore a football helmet of its own?

Miami Dolphins logos showed a leaping dolphin in a helmet marked with the letter M until 2013, when the animal became a bare aqua silhouette.

A debunked story claims the 'G' on Green Bay Packers helmets stands for which word?

Greatness is a myth the Packers have denied: their Hall of Fame archivist found nothing in club history behind the tale, which news outlets had copied from Tiki Barber.

'Sea hawk', the name behind the Seattle Seahawks' logo, is a historic nickname for which bird?

Osprey is the fish-eating raptor once known as the sea hawk, though the team's logo was modeled on a museum mask that depicts an eagle.

The rounded 'C' logo on Chicago Bears helmets is named after which bone?

Wishbone is the name of the C the Bears first wore in 1962, when pro teams were adding helmet logos; it began as a white letter and later turned orange.

Feathers along the right edge of the Philadelphia Eagles' logo form which hidden letter?

E, the team's initial, appears because the eagle's head is turned to the left, leaving the ragged right-hand side of the logo to shape the letter.

Which NFL team's helmets carry a white lowercase 'ny' as their logo?

New York Giants helmets first carried the lowercase initials in 1961; after a quarter-century of other logos, the mark returned in 2000.

Whom do the twelve feathers printed on the Seattle Seahawks' uniforms since 2012 represent?

The team's fans are known in Seattle as the '12th Man', so the redesign printed twelve feathers on each neckline and down each pant leg.

Which sportswear company's logo replaced Reebok's on every NFL jersey in 2012?

Nike took over from Reebok as the league's uniform supplier in 2012 and unveiled a new logo and uniforms for Seattle that same spring.

The Arizona Cardinals are named not for the bird but for an early owner's description of what?

Faded maroon jerseys bought second-hand from the University of Chicago struck owner Chris O'Brien as 'Cardinal red', and the name stuck.

Coach John McKay called the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' first winking pirate logo by which actor's name?

Errol Flynn suited the rakish swashbuckler in the plumed hat, who was also briefly known as 'Morgan' before a sportswriter's nickname stuck.

The NFL's Bears borrowed their navy and orange from which university, their founder's alma mater?

Illinois supplied the colors that replaced the striped red jerseys the club first wore as a company team in Decatur.

As the Decatur Staleys, the future Chicago Bears used the logo of a sponsor that made which product?

Starch maker A. E. Staley ran the team to promote his company, so its first players, who also worked in his factory, wore the firm's own emblem.

Art Modell said the Baltimore Ravens' colors were inspired by which college team's 1995 season?

Northwestern Wildcats purple caught Art Modell's eye during the school's 'dream season', just as his relocated team needed colors of its own.

The raven's-head logo the Baltimore Ravens adopted in 1999 was chosen in which way?

A newspaper poll in The Baltimore Sun offered three designs, and owner Art Modell honored the winner once a letter B was added to the bird's head.

The red streak on the Buffalo Bills' charging buffalo logo trails from which part of the animal?

Its horn is where the slanting red stripe begins on the blue bison, which replaced a standing bison on the team's helmets in the 1970s.

Why did the Buffalo Bills scrap a 2002 plan to replace their logo with a 'B' built from two bullets?

A public outcry kept the charging bison in place, though the rejected B had already reached shops on a few baseball caps.

A 2009 update gave the Detroit Lions' leaping lion logo a flowing mane and which other feature?

Fangs and a flowing mane sharpened the blue silhouette in a 2009 rebrand that also gave the team a modern typeface.

The Houston Texans pair Liberty White and a deep blue with a red known by which official name?

Battle Red, Liberty White and Deep Steel Blue were the names owner Bob McNair gave the team's red, white and blue when he revealed the logo in 2000.

The shield on the Jacksonville Jaguars' 2013 secondary logo is a tribute to which local community?

The military community of Jacksonville is honored by the shield, which also marked the first official use of the nickname 'Jags'.

Since 2007, Kansas City Chiefs jerseys have borne the logo of which NFL rival founded by Lamar Hunt?

American Football League history is honored by the patch, added in 2007 and made permanent a year later, with Lamar Hunt's initials, LH, inside the football.

The light blue worn by the Houston Oilers is named after which Ivy League university?

Columbia blue was so coveted that Lamar Hunt first picked it for his own new team, only for Houston owner Bud Adams to claim the shade.

The standardized logo that debuted at Super Bowl XLV showed which building in its background?

The host stadium sat behind silver Roman numerals in a template that replaced years of one-off designs themed to each host city.

The grey accent color the Seattle Seahawks added in 2012 is named after which animal?

Wolf Grey joined College Navy in the 2012 overhaul, bringing grey back to a team that had dropped its silver helmets a decade earlier.

The shade of green the New York Jets unveiled in 2019 borrowed which nickname for their home city?

Gotham Green outlasted the 2019 uniforms it arrived with: the shade was kept, and renamed Legacy Green, when the team's 1980s look returned in 2024.

Which NFL franchise spent 2020 and 2021 with players' numbers on its helmets in place of a logo?

Washington retired its old name and logo in July 2020 and played two seasons as the Washington Football Team before becoming the Commanders.

The Green Bay Packers played their first NFL season with which sponsor's name on their jerseys?

Acme Packing had just bought the Indian Packing Company, the sponsor that first outfitted the team in exchange for its name.

Who chose the Detroit Lions' blue and silver from color options the club's owner offered in 1934?

A player and his wife made the call: Glenn Presnell recalled being offered several color pairings and liking blue and silver best.

Why did the New York Jets reverse the colors of their football-shaped helmet logo after one season?

It was hard to see from a distance or on television in white with a green outline, so the decals were enlarged and flipped to white on green.

The bird logo the NFL's Cardinals adopted in 1947 showed a northern cardinal perched on what?

A football's laces gave the cardinal its perch in 1947, when the club still played in Chicago, four decades before it moved to Arizona.

In 2023 the Chicago Bears promoted which secondary logo to primary, ahead of their famous 'C'?

A bear's head in orange, a secondary mark since 1999, took top billing in 2023, though the C stays on the helmets and at midfield.

As the Tennessee Oilers, the future Titans briefly added parts of what to their derrick logo?

The state flag of Tennessee was worked into an alternate logo with the oil derrick, a two-season stopgap before the Titans name and colors arrived.

The Super Bowl LVIII logo filled its Roman numerals with a sunset over which city's skyline?

Las Vegas staged that game in 2024, and the logo followed a newer template that fills the numerals with local scenery, here the Strip and its famous sign.

The logo the Tampa Bay Buccaneers adopted in 1997 pairs a skull with which other emblem?

Swords, not the crossbones of a classic Jolly Roger, join the skull in the emblem that replaced the team's winking pirate in 1997.

The initials 'GSH' on the left sleeve of every Chicago Bears jersey honor which man?

George Halas, the Bears' founder, died in 1983; a football-shaped patch that season gave way to the sleeve initials, which were enlarged in 2012.

The bright accent color the Seattle Seahawks adopted in 2012 goes by which official name?

Action Green arrived with a 2012 redesign that also updated the logo; a decade earlier, the team's 2002 makeover had used lime green only as piping.

Which design have the Philadelphia Eagles worn on the sides of their helmets since 1954?

Wings in silver went onto kelly green helmets in 1954, making the Eagles one of the first NFL teams to wear a helmet logo.

Baltimore Ravens helmets long carried purple stripes named after which part of a bird?

Talons was the name for the stripes, which swept up toward the crown of the helmets worn across the team's first 30 seasons.

The Kansas City Chiefs were among the first NFL teams to drop grey from which part of the helmet?

The facemask on Chiefs helmets turned white in 1974, the same year one rival club introduced a yellow one; until then the bars were grey.

The Atlanta Falcons' bird logo was redrawn in 2003 to resemble which capital letter more closely?

F, the team's initial, shows in the angular falcon, which gained red and silver accents in a redesign meant to look more powerful and aggressive.

Green Bay Packers founder Curly Lambeau borrowed the team's first colors from which university?

Notre Dame, where Lambeau had studied, lent its navy blue and gold, which is why the early Packers were often called 'the Blues'.

What does the pirate in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' original logo clutch between his teeth?

A dagger sits in the teeth of the moustached pirate, whom the artist wanted to look gallant and classy rather than a 'hairy-legged slob'.

In 2017 the Detroit Lions removed which color, added to their logo in 2003, from the team identity?

Black trim had outlined the leaping lion since 2003; the 2017 refresh swapped the border to silver and brought a new typeface.

The Chicago Bears' 'C' logo is similar to the letter long worn on the caps of which baseball team?

Cincinnati Reds caps carry a near-twin of the Bears' letter, which even more closely matches a C used by the University of Chicago since 1898.

The 'T' in the Tennessee Titans' circular logo trails flames to give it the look of what?

A comet is the intended effect of the fiery trail, part of the badge introduced when the Oilers name was retired in 1999.

In the New York Jets' angular wordmark, a jet's silhouette streaks from the top of which letter?

J carries the plane in the wordmark the Jets first wore in 1978; a modified version returned as the primary logo for 2024.

The Kansas City Chiefs' first helmet logo, worn before the team relocated, mapped which state?

Texas in white, with the city of Dallas marked in yellow, was the logo of the Dallas Texans, who became the Chiefs on moving north.

Lamar Hunt first sketched the Kansas City Chiefs' arrowhead logo on which everyday item?

A napkin held the first drawing of the arrowhead, which replaced the earlier emblem on the helmets when the franchise moved to Missouri.

The Denver Broncos' colors are Sunset Orange, Midnight Navy and a third shade with which name?

Summit White completes the official trio, a long way from the mustard yellow jerseys the team wore in its first season.