Concussions are a very large portion of the injuries in the NFL, and in recent years, they have gone down significantly. But what if there was a way to limit concussions even more? Guardian Caps, an invention in 2010 by Erin and Lee Hanson, were made to decrease the impact force on the helmets worn by players. The attachment itself is another outer soft shell for the helmets. The players should already be jumping to this, as there are no downsides to them. As studies show, the caps themselves reduce the impact force by 33% on helmet-to-helmet contact and by 25% overall in practice. The NFL reported a 52% decrease in training camp concussions when players wore the Guardian caps. These statistics further prove why the caps are needed, and why the NFL doesn’t take more action with them is nonsense.
One player is quite famous for his concussion rates in 2022. Tua Tagovailoa suffered a severe concussion during a game versus the Bengals, which resulted in him suffering terrible symptoms, including involuntarily holding his hands to his face and bending them in grotesque ways. This could have been further prevented if Tua, who has suffered concussions before, had taken the necessary precautions. Even some of his teammates, including some of his linemen and starting running back Devon Achane, have started wearing Guardian caps in the game, so there is no reason for Tua to risk his life and his career by not wearing one.
At the college level, some teams are making moves to help with concussion prevention. Virginia Tech, which is usually known for its entrance to Enter Sandman by Metallica, led a research project in 2022 with a new guardian cap design by a company named SAFR.
Helping the players feel as safe as possible, the Helmet Lab tested the concussion risk of two of the most popular five-star football helmets on the market, both with and without three kinds of helmet covers: The Guardian Cap XT, the Guardian Cap NXT. All in the test was a standout success in all three ways, with the linear acceleration of the player’s head decreasing between 3 and 8 percent. As well as rotational acceleration by 5 to 14 percent, and the big one, concussions are decreasing at a rate of 15 to 34 percent.
Guardian caps should be mandatory in practices at least because the players’ safety is too important to neglect. And with no downsides, there is no reason not to implement these devices for the seasons or, at the very least, to experiment with them in future seasons. And with contracts getting higher and higher within the National Football League, protecting the star players and keeping them in the games should be a main focus of the league and the players.
