Which NFL team was the first to put a logo on its helmets?

In 1946, Rams player Fred Gehrke painted horns on the team's helmets as a way to promote morale amongst the players.

Team owner Dan Reeves paid Gehrke $1 for each of the 75 helmets.

The newly painted helmets debuted during a pre-season match-up between the Rams and Redskins at the Los Angeles Coliseum before a crowd of 105,000. Upon seeing the new helmets the crowd began cheering which was followed by a five-minute standing ovation.

To this day, Gehrke's rams horn logo is still worn by the team. By 1949, the Riddell sporting goods company had created a plastic helmet, baking in Gehrke's design. Some observers of the 1950 NFL Championship Game said that the only way to tell the Rams and the Cleveland Browns apart in the initial low resolution coast-to-coast telecast was the distinctive horns on the Rams' helmets. Throughout the 1950s many pro and college teams began painting logos on their helmets.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame displays one of the original helmets Gehrke painted, along with the story behind the logo, each year during Super Bowl Week. Logo innovation also earned Fred the Pro Football Hall of Fame's first Daniel F. Reeves Pioneer Award in 1972.

Gehrke later became a vice president and general manager of the Denver Broncos.