The Denver Broncos Horse Logo – Brown or Blue?

http://www.uni-watch.com/2011/04/27/what-color-was-the-1962-broncos-helmet-logo/

One Horse, Two Horse, Brown Horse, Blue Horse
By Paul Lukas, on April 27th, 2011

OUR STORY SO FAR … Everyone agrees that the 1962 Broncos wore a white mule donkey burrrro oh okay, it’s a horse on their helmets — except during the preseason and possibly the first game or two of the regular season, when they clearly wore a non-white decal. Most helmet-history sites (the Helmet Project, Helmetpix, the Broncos uni-history page, etc.) show or describe this non-white pony as being brown, but our own Richard “Ricko” Pearson, who unlike most of us was actually watching football games in 1962, has maintained for years — for decades — that it was actually blue.

The search for definitive visual evidence one way or the other has become one of Uni Watch’s great white whales. The problem, of course, is that the only photos of this helmet up until now have been black-and-white shots. Wouldn’t it be great if I could resolve this thorny issue by presenting a color photograph?

Yup. And maybe one day I will. But today is not that day.

What I do have today, however, is a newly discovered black-and-white wire shot that brings us a bit closer to the answer. Behold:

Reader Mark Peterson recently spotted that photo on eBay and sent it to me. As you can see in the vague caption, the new uniforms are described as being orange, blue, and white (no mention of brown), but although the helmet decal is mentioned, its color is not. It’s tantalizingly, maddeningly close. Or as Mark put it when he forward the photo to me, “Fuckity fuckity fuck fuck!”

A few days ago I showed the photo to Ricko and Phil. Phil responded first:

If the Bronco was brown, you’d think they’d mention that, right? Why mention the uniform colors and the helmet’s main color but then exclude the most important part — the color of the horsey — unless the horsey was blue [i.e., one of the colors they’d already mentioned]?

This is not the 100% proof Ricko is right, but it’s closer than anything we’ve seen so far.
I basically agree with that analysis, at least to the extent that the caption’s writer was rational, logical, etc. As a journalist, however, I can tell you that captions (and articles, and headlines…) are often written by people who are total goofballs.

Ricko, however, took the argument a step further: “As I’ve said many times, had the Broncos kept the brown [from this design], for any trumped-up reason, they’d have been laughed at, booed, and generally benn the brunt of some serious jokes [i.e., because that previous uni was such a league-wide laughingstock — PL]. That would have made the papers back then. Guarantee it.”

But here’s the thing: Most folks seem to agree that the reason the horse changed from colored (blue, brown, whatever) to white is that the colored decal didn’t provide enough contrast against the orange helmet and was therefore hard to discern. Phil takes up the argument from there:

If the helmets were indeed Texas orange and the pony was brown, it might have been difficult to make out [so it makes sense that they’d change it]. Not so if the horse was blue — they wouldn’t need to change it, or at least one wouldn’t think so. In fact, I’d argue that the white, which is what they changed to, would be less clear than the blue against an orange background.
I basically agree with that analysis too. Hmmmmm.

The tiebreaker in my mind is that it doesn’t make a whole lot of design sense to impose a brown helmet decal on a color scheme that’s otherwise dominated by blue and orange. So I’m leaning toward this.

But we aren’t quite there yet.

Coming soon: Exciting news about another Uni Watch white whale. Full details in a day or three.

Charles, I’m not disputing you at all, but,,, your’ comment adds to the debate…
On the 61-62 Oakland question (which I’ve asked about on other forums) I’ve gotten answers that state: 1961- no stripe, white stripe, or yellow (Iowa type)stripe. 1962- white stripe or yellow stripe. ONLY thing everyone agrees on is 1960 with no stripe. All of the “official” data bases don’t agree either and I’ve gotten different answers from people who swear they seen them (just like the Denver debate we’re posting on).
At least I’ve gotten down to only questioning 3 helmets (1966 Houston is the 3rd, is the derrick outlined in red or isn’t it? LOL) to make my display of the standings for the 10 year history of the AFL.