Most noticeable, the Bengals stripped out color blocks and emboldened the stripes on the jerseys. A smaller detail that won’t be easily noticed, team founder Paul Brown’s signature lines the back, inside the neck line.
The stripes on the pants were designed to “really pop,” as Blackburn described them.
“They look really great, and the players love them,” Blackburn said.
Credit: Aaron Conway
Credit: Aaron Conway
The Bengals decided not to change Paul Brown’s “iconic” black striped helmet, as the organization found it till relevant and riveting 40 years later.
Cincinnati had been working on a new uniform design for the past 30 months, but a change has been long overdue. There had only been four major style changes in the team’s 53 seasons and the most recent update came in 2004.
Look good, feel good, play good 🐅@Tide | #NewStripes pic.twitter.com/HIwOHLYys9
— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) April 19, 2021
From 1968 to 1980, the Bengals wore plain black and white jerseys with three regular stripes around the arms and down the pant legs. The tiger stripes came in 1981 and that first design lasted until 1996. A leaping tiger was added on the arm in 1997 and that stuck until 2003, after which the modern stripes were revealed.
An orange alternate also was added in 2004, but the jersey style – other than the color rush all-white alternative that came into play in 2016 – had remained the same since then. Cincinnati was 129-139-4 in the previous uniforms.
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