Cincinnati Bengals choice of Super Bowl jersey is sharp but risky

The Cincinnati Bengals have picked out their jerseys for Super Bowl LVI. Their choice is sharp, but superstitions suggest it may be a risky move. 

As the designated “home” team for Super Bowl LVI, the Cincinnati Bengals get to select what jerseys to wear against the Los Angeles Rams. It was either black or white; the pants were the same thing.

Cincinnati chose to wear black with white pants, orange stripes, and orange socks. As a uniform choice in general, it is very sharp, as demonstrated by the organization when it announced its decision of what they will don at SoFi stadium. Additionally, the Super Bowl LVI logo has plenty of orange, so it seems like a perfect clash. As for the Rams, they will wear white jerseys.

Now that the oohs and aahs are done let’s take a closer look. As clean and sharp as this is, it may be risky. How so? In the past 17 Super Bowls, dating back to Super Bowl 39, the team that wears the white jersey is 14-3. The notable exceptions are the 2010 Packers, 2017 Eagles, and 2020 Chiefs. Two of them wore green, the last wearing red. Last season, Tampa Bay, as the home team, chose to wear white against Kansas City.

Throughout history, teams wearing white are 35-20. In terms of teams that wore black jerseys, they are 4-5. Most of those wins were by, you guessed it, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The 2006 Bears don’t count because although images may make it seem like it was a black jersey, it is navy that they wore against the Colts.

Also, the Bengals need only be reminded, rather upsettingly, that they wore this exact uniform combination against the San Francisco 49ers back in Super Bowl XVI, a defeat. They faced San Francisco again a few years later in all white, but John Taylor and Joe Montana delivered a crushing blow against Sam Wyche (God rest his soul) and Boomer Esiason.

It does not matter what the Cincinnati Bengals wear, provided they come away with their first Lombardi trophy

The good news for Cincinnati is that they don’t have to face San Francisco in the big game. Here’s the bad news, though, they get a supremely talented from front to back Los Angeles squad that has champions written all over it, at least on paper. But, the game is never won on paper.

It will take a perfect game and perfect execution by the men in black to complete this mission. Men in Black. It has a nice ring to it. Coming in with style and defeating a team headlined by some of the best players in the game today? We just saw Joe Burrow‘s ice before the AFC Title Game and how it fired up his troops; what could he pull out for the biggest game of his life?

Maybe this time, the fortunes will change the excess orange from both the uniform and Super Bowl logo will be enough to push Cincinnati over the top. Oh, and it’s also the year of the tiger. You just never know. But superstitions don’t matter; results do. Only one game left for the Bengals, and it’s the biggest of them all.