3 mascots NFL teams need to bring back

Mascots are, with few exceptions, an entirely disposable piece of the NFL gameday experience. These underpaid performers are the Flavor Flav to the Chuck D action on the field: sometimes-useful, occasionally grating hypemen who serve to blunt the violence of the product they serve.

Few of these toddler’s sketches brought to life ever got the chance to approach the orbit of beloved mascots like the Phillie Phanatic or Western Kentucky’s Big Red. Several have been retired. Others, thankfully, are riding into the sunset soon. Some never should have existed in the first place.

Nevertheless, they’re still a part of the NFL for 28 of the league’s 32 teams. And while 2018’s mascot lineup leaves something to be desired, that doesn’t mean the league hasn’t come up with some gems in its past, only to see those icons shelved in a storage facility somewhere, destined to live a life as sports memorabilia rather than spending their Sundays in a raucous stadium. Often, this is a sensical and logical move. Other times, however, this is a damn shame.

Today, let’s focus on the latter. These are the NFL mascots who deserve a second chance to tell their tales through interpretive dance and hot dog cannons.

Kudos to the Steelers for allowing some unknown artist to design their revamped NFL Heroes Week mascot in 1995 without actually knowing anything about the team aside from its name. Pittsburgh shipped this abomination to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl that winter as part of a failed marketing campaign that gave us a slew of other one-off variations on team mascots. That included diabetes Dolphin, as seen below.

Steely McBeam, excellent name aside, is Pittsburgh’s current and entirely generic mascot. Mr. McBeam is an ode to the city’s past. Steelers robot, however, is an intriguing nod to the city’s growing reputation as a tech hub. Steelers robot forever.

Brownie — the elf sidekick (?) who serves the two dogs who also claim residency in Cleveland’s hall of NFL mascots (??) — has been back in various incarnations since the Browns returned to the league in logo form in 1999, overseeing exactly one (1) playoff game in the process. He was brought back as an actual mascot to some fanfare in 2013, but he’s not even listed on the Browns’ mascot page and hasn’t been featured prominently, possibly due to shame.

You still see an older, angrier version of the Brownie logo on merchandise and on the team’s revamped website, yet that’s not enough. He needs to stop hiding in the shadows, and there has never been a better time to bring him out of mothballs than here in what, god willing, is year three of Hue Jackson’s 20-year reign. That smug look of unearned confidence just screams “I’m not going 1-15. No. I’ll be swimming in that lake over there somewhere. That’s not happening,” before an 0-16 season. Brownie and Hue share a soul. Let them be together.

New Orleans currently has two mascots. One is Sir Saint:

Just look at that big-chinned, Stan Smith-looking beauty play. I have no complaints about him. My concern instead comes with the team’s primary mascot, a man or woman performing generic Saint Bernard cosplay. The Saints used to have a lineup of adorable, massive bear-dog hybrids roaming the city in Archie Manning jerseys. Now they have none.

Saint Bernards are entirely manageable dogs everyone loves, regardless of what the Beethoven series may have taught us. If nothing else, the Saints’ mascots should be a real Saint Bernard named Gumbo and its handler, Sir Saint. And at halftime they venture up to the cheap seats and revive fans with cognac served from a barrel around Gumbo’s neck.

The NFL offers its fans a mostly uninspired lineup of mascots every year. It can do better — even if a bunch of mascots of the past are an amalgam of creepy, bizarre, and occasionally racist caricatures no one wants ruining their football Sunday. But not all retired mascots should stay that way.

What I’m really trying to say here is: Please bring back the Steelers robot.