Four days after unveiling their new white alternate helmet, the Bengals announced that the new headgear will make its on-field debut when the team hosts the Dolphins on Sept. 29 — a Thursday-night game.
The new helmet will be worn with the team’s white Color Rush design, which is distinct from the primary white uniform. Here’s a comparison:
The CR uniform was not worn in 2021, and I mistakenly thought it had been scrapped. But no — it’s back as part of the white-helmet combo.
Absolute fire :)
How are the Panthers getting around this rule? The black jersey’s are the primary home just like the white would have been the primary road for the Bengals? Are they making the light blue the primary, so black is designated as an alternate look?
Someone asked a similar question Sunday. My hunch is that the Panthers are going to redesignate the blue jersey as the primary and make the black the alternate. The *other* possibility (although this seems to go against what we’ve been told about alternate helmet use) is that they’ll simply wear the black alternate with the black jerseys (and probably pants/socks) three times, which is permitted, and the silver helmet the other times. But in order to wear the black helmet with the black jersey, it’s my understanding it would have to be designated as the “alternate”. I guess we’ll find out when the “jersey schedule” comes out.
Isn’t it “alternate or Color Rush”? Maybe the Panthers are designating the black jersey/black pants set as their 2022 Color Rush?
AFAIK, the CR is the mono-blue (link) uni. They have designated the blue as primary before and perhaps have done so again. If they do (did), then the black becomes the alternate (again). And they can wear the black hat with the alternate black jersey (and, presumably pants and socks too).
Panthers CR changed when Tepper took over, Blue gone, all black uniform with all black socks (Lions game 2018) Blue has never been primary. So the panthers all black (non sans) is the new color rash since 2018.
Aha! So that’s how they can wear the black helmet with the black jersey. So (in theory) they can wear the CR up to three times — which is all black (jersey, pants, socks) and they’ll wear the black hat only when they go mono-black. The other times (I’m guessing) they’ll wear white at home or the blue alternate, and any games where they wear the black jersey that aren’t designated CR games, they’ll have the silver or white pants and silver lids. Does that sound correct? Best explanation I’ve heard so far.
This doesn’t make a great deal of sense.
In that case why did they take out so much orange out of the primary away jerseys? Why did they make a white pant with no orange?
That set is absolutely begging for a white helmet. And especially considering the CR set is just derived from their previous set, why not just stay forward with the current set?
I agree, but the silly uni rules say that the alt helmet can only be worn with a throwback/cr/alt jersey. the bengal’s alt is the orange one, and they don’t have a throwback. so the CR (which people like anyway) got brought back.
They should start wearing the white pants with the orange stripping with the standard away jersey to make a differentiation.
Why schedule the game against the Dolphins another white helmet team? You would think that having contrast would be desired to showcase the white helmet.
Maybe the Dolphins have something up?
Probably because it’s a Thursday Night game. For those teams who have announced when they’ll be wearing the alternate helmets, a good number of them seem to be TNF games. I’m sure that’s not coincidental…
Right. I would like NFL teams think about the uniform match-up when considering which uni combo will be worn in which Week, by I guess they think more about the time slot. This Bengals white combo against the Ravens all black combo or the Steelers home uniform, would stand out more.
These uni’s make me wanna listen to my favorite Beach House song “Zebra”
Never to be worn when they play the Lions!
Bringing back their color rush uniforms, which are specifically and intentionally modeled after their old uniform template, which they specifically and intentionally got rid of in their 2021 re-design, is beyond puzzling to me. Normally I would point that the language of the press release is mostly ambiguous and that when they say ‘Color Rush’ the really mean their CURRENT white-on-white, and that they’re just counting that as their ‘new’ CR combo. But the photoshopped pictures at the top of the post that they, themselves, put out, as well as making a point to saying that they’re talking about the CRs that were worn until 2020 really make it seem like they’re bringing the previous template back.
Something tells me they’re gonna walk parts of this back in the coming months and will take the field on this Sept night in question in their primary white-on-white. But I guess we won’t know for sure until it happens. But for now, this announcement is bizarre.
They’re already selling the old color rush with the new players on all the merchant sites, they’re not walking back from anything. They also released a video with three tigers with orange crowns and said they couldn’t wear the new white crown, only an elder tiger from year’s past could wear it, hinting at the NFL rules for wearing the alternate helmet.
As a Bengals fan, I think I would’ve preferred the traditional all-white with white socks if they wanted, but prefer black myself to prevent the leotard look. I just don’t like the Bengals’ color-rush. They look dated next to the new uni sets.
I could be mistaken, but I recall hearing somewhere that alt. helmets must be worn with an alternate uniform. This makes sense, as the Bengals and other teams have paired alt. helmets with new/existing alternates/throwbacks. However, how about the Panthers announcing they’d wear their black helmet with the black jersey.
Is that rule non-existent, or have Carolina re-designated the blue as their home uniform?
Has any program talked about so much been less satisfying than NFL alternate helmets?
What a mess.
Lee
Yes:
– Color Rush
– City Connect
– City Edition
MLB All-Star game
NASCAR’s Darlington “Throwback Weekend” is right up there.
A lot of retro-looking paint schemes cribbed by modern-day advertisers…often with no real rhyme/reason/historical connections to the car # they appear on…and too few that look like they’re ‘supposed’ to on cars trying to accurately depict a team or driver’s legacy.
And now with the new door number placements, why bother?
– Disagree about CR, some of those were OK.
– Agree with CC, you are 100% correct… but I have personally started ignoring them, so it didn’t occur to me, my bad.
– CE doesn’t seem nearly as talked about, plus a few are OK.
In my opinion, not a single alternate* has been “Good” when we ask “Is it good or stupid?”.
Lee
*- I consider alternates and throwbacks different programs, I like throwbacks.
One of the best in the NFL. Nice job!
I like that the NFL tries to have rules to control an entire “Oregonizing” of the league, but having the Bengals have to take out of mothballs the old CR so they can wear all white, when they have perfectly good white uniforms just seems a bit anal of the league.
Let’s see. New helmet, but “old” (1 year old) jersey. Probably not many new jersey sales. New helmet, “new” (mothballed) CR jerseys. I bet they sell a few of those. More than a few, actually, especially with the cats coming off a Super Bowl appearance.
Wonder if there’s any connection.
And just think how many new alternates may be introduced next year, now that teams have had time to put in for a helmet change? I don’t want to say anything nefarious is afoot but…
I have a friend who buys everything new release from his team the day the team releases the new item and right now he is in his heyday.
I understand the market and that’s why they’re billionaires because if they listen to us they’d probably be broke as a joke.
The Color Rush uniform was not worn in 2021 after their redesign. It was worn in 2020.
Right, my bad. Fixed!
MINOR nitpick but there should be zero orange on this. Bumper logo and chest logo and Nike logo should all be b&w
I’m kinda surprised The Bengals didnt take the opportunity to do a hybrid of the best features of their two tidy whitey sets. The sleeve stripes and leg stripes on the old one are just awful compaired to the new ones. The advantage that set had was the block number with no orange stroking…
Very strange they brought those back. Oh well, they dont consult me..
Probably not permitted to do so, even if they wanted (which would make sense); they just got new unis last season, so they have 4 more years of the current set before any changes are allowed; they’re not doing a throwback; probably their only option was to resurrect the CR uni.
What are the odds they just use the current vertical leg stripe vs that old swooshy one?
I *hope* they do, but technically those pants don’t go with the CR uniform. So my guess is they have to wear the swooshy one — unless the NFL is gonna let them play a little fast and loose. Thing is, the rules on “usage” don’t apply to pants (or at least, I haven’t heard they do), but they *may* require the CR uni to be in tact. I know a couple teams (Seahawks, for example) have worn their CR tops with non-CR bottoms, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
I wonder how long it will be before the NFL relaxes the rules completely and teams can do whatever they want. I wonder who will be the first team to go full-on Oregon on us?
So will they bring back the previous sets pants as well or wear the Color rush jersey with the current sets black and white pants?
Old pants.