Form over fashion

 Joe Flacco, who is 97 years old or something, beat Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers last night in the Osteoporosis Bowl, and raise a glass to the man. Not only did he overcome all the outrages of advancing age, he overcame the shame of modern football fashion, too.

Or to put it the way a lot of America likely did: "You mean Joe and the Bengals actually won? In THAT getup?"

Well, yes, actually. Flacco reached back to his youth -- say, his early 50s -- to throw for 361 yards and three scores. Ja'Marr Chase set a club record with 16 catches for 161 yards and a six. And they did it while reprising the "White Bengal" duds, which would be the height of fashion only if the height of fashion were located at the bottom of the ocean.

Good heavens, those things are ugly. White helmet with black stripes, a yawn in and of itself. All-white uni that looked like the official leotard of the Vestal Virgin Pilates class, which meets every Thursday down at the Our Lady of Stretching YMCA.

Chester the Bengals fan, sitting in his living room with a bag of cheese curls: "Hey! Them ain't football suits!"

His pal Norm, working his way through a sixer of Hudepohl: "Look like a buncha girly men to me! Tell you whut, the NFL sure ain't like it was when ol' Kenny Anderson was slingin' it!"

And yet ...

And yet, somehow the girly men won over Rodgers and a bunch of Steelers who, truth be told, barely looked interested. Maybe they thought they were in some sort of isolation ward, surrounded as they were by all that medical-looking white. Or maybe they thought they'd been kidnapped by some weird purity cult.

In any case, they clearly whiffed on an excellent trolling opportunity.

As in: "Hey, Flacco! Heard the news? Jack LaLanne is dead!"

As in: "Yes, now that you mention it, that does make you look fat!"

As in; "One-two-three-four! Come on, girls! Get those knees up!"

And so on, and so forth.

Here's the thing, though: Not only did the Bengals win anyway, their white-out look will soon be forgotten. I mean, have you seen the all-gold unis the Chargers are rolling out for the Colts?

Poor Indy. They won't know what hit them.

Other than a jar of mustard, that is.