Cincinnati Bengals Tease (Announce?) New Uniform Combination for 2023 Season

The Cincinnati Bengals have all but announced a new uniform combination for the 2023 NFL season. But rather than coming right out and declaring it, the team’s social media accounts have made it a riddle wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma.

What Is the New Look the Cincinnati Bengals Are Teasing?

The clues started Monday with a post on the team’s Instagram account.

From atBengals Instagram 🤔 pic.twitter.com/fxBLGileeP

— Jake Liscow (@JakeLiscow) August 7, 2023

The memo the Bengals purportedly sent to the league reads, “To whom it may concern, we at the Cincinnati Bengals beseech you to allow the opportunity to wear our New Stripes White Uniform combo with our White Bengal Helmet …”

The Bengals had long wanted to use a white helmet as a tribute to the white Bengal tigers the Cincinnati Zoo is famous for housing, but the NFL’s rule of one helmet per player prevented that because the process of painting that many helmets white and striping them and then turning around and re-painting them orange and striping them in time for practice three days after a game was a non-starter.

The desire for a white helmet grew in 2021 when the team introduced its first uniform overhaul since 2004, and the team finally got its wish last year when the NFL did away with the one helmet rule.

However, the white helmets were deemed alternates and could only be worn with alternate jerseys, which were the old Color Rush variety, which debuted in 2012. The Bengals unveiled their White Bengal combination in a Week 4 Thursday night game against the Dolphins last year, coinciding with their Ring of Honor inductions of Isaac Curtis and Willie Anderson.

But the color rush jerseys feature clunkier fonts for the numbers and a few other variations, so the Bengals petitioned the league to be able to wear the white helmets with their standard white jerseys.

For those asking about the difference in color rush whites (left) & primaries (right), here are a few examples:
– Black shoulder band with white stripes (CR)
– B logo (CR) vs NFL logo and "Bengals" on chest
– Black block font for numbers (CR) vs sleeker font, outlined in orange pic.twitter.com/tW8hEBKQ46

— Jay Morrison (@ByJayMorrison) August 8, 2023

The clues to what the league decided Tuesday, with the team’s official X account enlisting the help of popular television host Kay Adams of Up & Adams, who was in town Monday to do sit-down interviews with players such as wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase and defensive tackle DJ Reader.

First, the Bengals tweeted a poetic verse, then they sent out a video of Adams reading the prose.

… The look you seek is your primary whites 😏 pic.twitter.com/7raJAfuDHB

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) August 8, 2023

Clearly, the Bengals and their social media team are having fun with this. If the league wasn’t receptive to the change, it’s hard to imagine Cincinnati teasing it the way they have, especially after the animosity between the sides last year when the league changed its rules for canceled games in the middle of the season and said the Bengals would be subject to a coin flip to determine the division champion if they lost to the Ravens in the season finale, even though the Bengals would have had the better winning percentage.

Leaving Cincinnati out of the neutral-site possibilities for the AFC Championship Game also drew condemnation from head coach Zac Taylor and the front office.

But fences have been mended, and a new uniform combination tailored, or so it appears. The Bengals had already announced the Week 3 Monday night game against the Rams would be their White Bengal game, again coinciding with the Ring of Honor inductions of Chad Johnson and Boomer Esiason.

Allowing the Bengals to wear the white helmet with their standard white jerseys will not prevent the team from being limited to wearing the alternate helmet. Teams area allowed three alternate uniform games. The orange jersey-orange helmet will be one of the three, while the white helmet-primary whites uniform will be used twice.

The Bengals will announce their 17-game uniform schedule Wednesday.