Three of the four teams in the AFC North will have changes to their 2024 uniform lineups: The Ravens, the Bengals and the Browns. None of these changes are major overhauls, but include a new helmet, new pants and a new helmet finish and facemask color, respectively. The Pittsburgh Steelers are the only club to have no announced changes at all for 2024.
Baltimore Ravens
The Baltimore Ravens will be joining the alternate helmet bandwagon this season. For all of their existence, the team has only worn black shells, but that’s changing for 2024, as the team is adding a new purple helmet. The helmet is designed specifically to be worn with the Ravens “Color Rush” uniform.
The helmet itself is painted with a purple matte finish, and features a gold facemask. The front bumper reads “RAVENS” in raised black and gold lettering. Two gold helmet stripes taper to a point from front to back (which is the same striping pattern as is on their current black helmet).
Here’s a look at the helmet with the Color Rush jersey.
You can read more about the new purple helmet here.
In addition to the Ravens primary purple and white jerseys, they also have a black alternate jersey. They will wear the black alternate in Week 4 (September 29th) for a primetime Sunday Night Football game against the Buffalo Bills. The team will debut the purple helmet in Week 10 (November 7th), for a Thursday Night Football matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Those are the only two weeks this season when the team will wear anything other than their primary uniforms. But the team has multiple pants options (white, purple, black) and they have mixed and matched those with both the purple and white jerseys over the years. Someone went to the trouble of ranking all the Ravens uniform combos (including the “mustard” pants, which were worn for one game only in 2015 and then mothballed), so now they have eleven different looks.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are another team with multiple uniform options. They have two helmets (orange with black stripes, and white with black stripes), as well as black, white and orange jerseys. Up until this season, they only had a white or black pants option, but for the first time in their history, they have added an alternate set of orange pants for 2024.
Not only that, but the team will debut the orange pants in Week 1 (September 8th) against the New England Patriots. And they’re not just debuting the orange pants, the team will wear all-orange (with black socks, mercifully) to open the season.
That’s a LOT of orange.
The Bengals, as mentioned above, also have a white alternate helmet, which they pair with their white jerseys and pants to create a “White Bengal” look. The team debuted that helmet in 2022, and for that season, paired it with their all-white Color Rush uniform. But the team wanted to pair the new helmets with their regular white jerseys, so they petitioned the league and were permitted to do so. Here’s what the “White Tiger” uniform looks like:
The team had worn those all-white uniforms four times in the past two years, amassing a 4-0 record in them. They’ll wear them just once this season, a Week 8 (October 27th) game at home against the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Bengals helpfully release a uniform schedule prior to the season starting. With two alternate dates already taken (mono-orange in Week 1 and White Tiger in Week 8), they have one more available date for an alternate helmet or jersey. The team will wear their orange jersey a second time (but we don’t know which pants they’ll pair it with) in Week 13 (December 1) against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
According to the GUD, the team will wear their orange pants a second time, this time pairing them with their black jerseys in a Week 16 (December 19th) matchup against the Cleveland Browns.
The Bengals will also be making minor adjustments to their field design for 2024.
Here’s a good look at all the Bengals uniforms throughout the years.
There has even been some talk that the Bengals could add a third helmet in 2025.
Cleveland Browns
The Browns have no announced uniform changes for the 2024 season. However, they have slightly changed their primary helmet. It will feature a glossy finish and a white facemask.
You can read more about that here.
The team also possesses many different uniform combination possibilities, as they have two helmets (their primary orange and a white fauxback), two jerseys (brown and white) and three sets of pants (brown, white and orange). In addition the team has a “1946” fauxback uniform with which it pairs the white helmet the team added last season.
The Browns primary jerseys are brown and white. So, combined with the 1946 fauxback, they have three jerseys. The Browns have in the past poked fun at the Bengals (their cross-state and divisional rival) for adding a white helmet, and now, the Browns are poking fun at the Bengals for adding orange pants.
Unfortunately, the Browns have not unveiled their uniform schedule for 2024, so we don’t know when (or if) the team will wear the 1946 fauxbacks or the old color rush uniforms. However, last season the team wore their 1946 uniforms three times and did not wear their CR uniforms at all. The prior season, the team wore their old Color Rush uniforms thrice, and didn’t wear their 1946 jerseys at all. It’s likely the team will continue to wear their 1946 throwbacks in 2024.
Earlier this year, the Browns again asked their fans to vote for their field design.
Field vote is back!! Check out the options below and make your voice heard in the ultimate showdown of looks for this season's field design.
Vote NOW ➡️ https://t.co/syJXAtZ9ad pic.twitter.com/ZNtq2tMuO4
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) August 4, 2024
And for the third consecutive year, Brownie the Elf won the fan voting and will appear at midfield this season.
There are also rumblings that the Browns will introduce a new third helmet shell for 2025.
Also, the team have unveiled plans for a new domed stadium, although that would be a ways off, and couldn’t happen before the Browns lease on their current stadium expires in 2028.
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers have no announced uniform changes for 2024.
Aside from their primary uniforms (shown above) the team also have throwback uniforms (throwing back to their early Super Bowl years) and which are quite similar to their current uniforms. The biggest difference is the university block used for numbers, compared to the Futura Condensed they have worn since 1997.
Likewise, the Steelers have an all-black Color Rush uniform. That jersey is similar to the throwback jersey and uses university block numbers, but they are rendered in gold instead of white. The sleeve caps have the same striping pattern, but instead of white striping in between the gold, these are just gold. The black pants are the inverse of their regular pants, with a thick gold stripe.
The Steelers haven’t released any information on when or if the throwbacks or Color Rush will be worn in 2024. Last season they wore the throwback once (vs. the Packers in Week 10) and the Color Rush uniform once (in Week 14 against the Patriots).
The Steelers did make some uniform history in the preseason, when Offensive Lineman James Daniels became the first player to wear a Guardian Cap in a game. While a few players have worn the Guardian Caps during the preseason, there are many opposed, because it messes up their swag.
Phil, disappointed that there was no mention of a truly great visual delight, the USC/LSU game. Besides having two of the best CFB uniforms going against each other, the crowd being split in two was beautiful. Half the stadium Cardinal Red, and half Purple, was do great. They set an attendance record at the Raiders Allegiant Stadium.
A good looking division…and a good synopsis, Phil!
BAL: Generally OK with the purple alt (love their mono-black)…wish they’d used the raven-in-flight logo on the helmet-
link
CIN: Full-on Orange > Mono-Black. While matching the stripes matters…I’ll never warm to the zebra set.
CLE: The white masks are the last tweak needed for generations…don’t change a bit, Browns!
PIT(Or PGH): Great as always … but they’d improve a bit by mandating white-bottom socks and gray masks (yes, I said it) for the t’backs. The mono is ok…occasionally. Eventually, they’ll break out the Batman’s , right?
For the Steelers, the gray mask would be appropriate if throwing back to their first 2 Super Bowls. For all the others (particularly the 3rd & 4th, when they still had the block numbers), the black mask is appropriate. I was extremely disappointed that they didn’t wear a gray facemask for the December 24, 2022 game when they retired Franco Harris’s number. After they went to all the trouble to duplicate the field design (right down to a period-appropriate AFC logo), the gray facemasks would have been an easy detail to include.
Cincy’s orange socks with the standard black home set looks so nice, I wish they did that every home game.
Thanks to the Browns for going back glossy on the helmet. To me the flat finish on the helmets looks, well, dull. That goes for baseball as well.
Definitely in the minority here, but I wish the Browns would add orange outlines to the numbers of their standard uniforms.
Absolutely! The browns need a traditional/boilerplate look. it’s just who they are, but that orange drop shadow on what appear to be larger and thicker numbers makes them stand out without straying from a classic look and it’s a small thing that makes a huge difference.
Just need to state that the Browns and Bengals don’t need a 3rd helmet. Also, Love the preview series.
As a Vikings fan, I feel like the Ravens are encroaching on our territory.
I’m pretty sure the Browns all brown Color Rush still exists(orange numbers, no stripes). They wore it three times in 2022(and once in 2020). The Throwbacks debuted in 2021(with orange helmets), before they came back last year with the aforementioned white helmets. Although the Browns have just announced the three dates they’ll wear the throwbacks(Wks 4, 13, 15), so it looks like the Color Rush will stay in the closet again this year.
Man I can’t believe there aren’t even rumblings of the Steelers bringing back the yellow helmet. Their Color Rush jersey is basically the same as the jersey they wore the yellow helmet with from 2007-2011, and I think the black pants would actually work better than the white pants they wore back then.
What’s the opinion out in Pittsburgh on the yellow helmets?
I like the browns new glossy helmet. Much better for an old school team. Also they should change the numbers so all of them are the standard block design with sharp angles and not rounded edges. The Steelers YELLOW HELMET is awesome and would good with the black or white jersey and BLOCK numbers. It’s time to get rid of the italicized numbers they are approaching 27 years and most fans don’t prefer them.
The Browns are another team that needs to go back to standard Varsity numbers. Like the Patriots, Nike felt the need to make a needles tweak by lopping off half the bottom serif on the 7 and rounding some 45-degree angles on the 6, 8, 9 and 0. It isn’t an upgrade; it is 5% unique for being unique and it looks like a mistake, not an upgrade. I do agree with those who add a drop shadow in orange.
Not crazy about the Bengals in orange pants, and while I get the “White Tiger” look, I prefer the orange/black/white for Cincy.
Cleveland look great.
Pittsburgh is timeless.
I love purple as a trim color for the Ravens, I will see how the purple overload looks, but I am not optimistic.