After a long series of hints, the Bengals finally made it official today and unveiled their white alternate helmet. It will presumably be worn with their white jersey and white pants (although they haven’t yet announced that) and would therefore look something like this Photoshop concept:
I like this. After all, there are white bengal tigers out there in nature, right?
The Bengals are the 11th NFL team so far to add a second helmet color for 2022. The other 10 are the Eagles (black alternate), Falcons (red throwback), Patriots (white throwback), Saints (black alternate), Commanders (black alternate), Texans (red alternate), Panthers (black alternate), Giants (navy throwback), Cowboys (white throwback), and Jets (black alternate).
You can see more photos of the new helmet here, and there’s a good video of the tiger striping being applied to the white shell here.
FINALLY officially confirmed and it is CLEEEEEAAAAAN! I love this look.
Except that Photoshop mock up features the discontinued Color Rush jerseys and not the current white / white uniform – so it will look slightly different…
Yes exactly, though Paul would know smh… My only question is if they will tweak their current all white away set for the new helmet by removing some of the orange in the number trim and nike logos
My name for the all-white Bengals outfit: the Siegfried & Roy. Good stuff.
Are they no longer factory painting the stripes or was that just a mock-up they used decals?
It’s a tribute to the famous white tigers that used to be featured at the Cincinnati zoo. I think the last one died in 2018.
Realyl thinking they should do a reverse alt uni in black and white. If San Diego can have 2 alt unis, so can Cincy.
I made the mistake of clicking on the Commanders link. I’d forgotten how terrible that whole rebrand is. God, what a crushing disappointment. Oh well. What do you expect from Snyder?
They look like the uniforms from a movie about pro football that couldn’t get the NFL license.
The Cincinnati Zoo once had (and may still have) a famously large population of white bengal tigers which, legend has it, is why the franchise chose “Bengals” as a name. So these uniforms make sense. Frankly, I’ve thought since 1968 that they should drop the orange altogether.
Paul Brown was also trolling the Browns by having a team with the same initials as well as a similar color/scheme for the uniforms.
Cincinnati’s team in the old AFL of the late 30s and 40s was called the Bengals. If memory serves, Pete Rose’s father played for those Bengals.
White tigers had* been at the Cincinnati Zoo only since 1974… Thats according to the Cincinnati Zoo website.
* – The last white tiger at the Cincinnati Zoo was euthanized in 2018.
Lee
A rare example of adding a white helmet and having it actually look good! The Bengals have an underrated look overall already (no matter what Paul says) and this helmet with the all-white uniform will actually be nice (preferably for night games though).
The worst-kept secret is finally officially out… and yeah, it’s pretty good, so long as it’s with the all-white combo. Plus, as a Transformers geek, the all-white combo reminds me of Tigatron from Beast Wars, who of course was a white tiger in beast mode.
I miss the one shell rule.
(If the NFL keeps this nonsense up, I’m gonna get banned).
Lee
Yep, it’s definitely turning into a “be careful what you wish for” scenario more than it isn’t.
Lifelong Bengals fan here…
I just came in my own mouth.
WTF is that supposed to mean, lol.
Lee
Umm..
it’s a great look!! … but it bothers me as a matter of logic/consistency. You wouldn’t have a team called the “Whales” that sometimes dresses like blue whales but other times like killer whales, would you? Or you wouldn’t want the Chicago Bears to have a “polar bear” uniform/theme for certain games, would you? Seems like an animal-named team shouldn’t be switching back and forth between different forms of that animal. Stick with what you are or do a total rebrand …
Oh no, now you’ve put it out there, Chicago Bears to have a “polar bear” theme!
Lee
Cincinnati Zebras? Cincinnati Referees?
Thumbs up from this long time Bengals fan.
As a longtime Bengals fan, I would have preferred the throwback to be the original unis/helmets, with the block-letter “BENGALS” on the side of the helmet. A boring uniform, frankly, but I’ll bet it the nostalgia element would get a better reception than the white-with-stripes version.
Dunno… I think the younger kids are way more excited about these white tiger uniforms/helmet than the block-letter “BENGALS” set.
Lee
The photoshop you posted was the old Color Rush uniform that they don’t wear anymore. Not the current all white road uniform.
However I do hope that old color rush is brought back for the white helmet. I think it looks a lot better than the new one
Interesting to see this post (and its associated comments) juxtaposed with the prior post about the Jets’ helmets (with its associated comments).
FWIW, I’m not a big fan of either of these two new helmets. Black and white are boring. Give me color! But the difference in emotion elicited by a heavily white look (mostly positive) is so noticeably different from the emotion elicited by a heavily black look (overwhelmingly negative), and it makes me wonder a bit about the underlying psychology.
So in an effort to learn something to that end… Can someone explain from an aesthetic perspective – preferably without cliches or overused tropes like “BFBS” – why a white-white-white football uni is more appealing than a black-black-black uni? I’m genuinely curious, not trying to criticize.
A lot of us bengal fans have been hoping for these for a while. Its exciting to finally get them. Ciny also got new unis last year that was an upgrade. I think these are a nice afdition on top.
Dont really know what Jets fans feel but i prefer their chad Pettington era or Namath era jersey. That style whatever it is. Not in love with their current unis but i do think the black is better than the green but im prob in the minority.
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Renderings using last season’s white unis.
Ironically, the old color rash costume is more pure white than the current all-whites, which have orange details and number stroke..
They look like the old Cincinnati Jungle Kats.
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I wanted to post that this white was a great nod to a local institution, but it seems the Zoo doesn’t have white tigers anymore, which may be explained by the arguments made here.
Alas, youthful civic pride sullied.
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