I’m impressed by the former players on the advisory board. Men like Jerry Rice, Tony Dorsett, Roger Staubach understand what changes needed to be made.
Hopefully we’ll see these implemented for all levels of football. It won’t be long before the old style (developed in 1960’s) will seem as antiquated as the leather ones.
A few NFL players will be wearing the new helmets in the upcoming season.
Hopefully they’ll work as hoped and the entire league will use them in 2018.
The Arkansas Razorbacks have been practicing with a special outer foam shell on their helmets. There was practice footage on my local station. The coach explained it was something they were using to reduce impact during practices.
It’s very good news that the game is taking concussion injuries seriously and making changes.
For now, it’s the player decides which helmet to use.
I really like the design. The hard shell is on the inside, then plastic columns that flex, and a more pliable shell on the outside. Basically a shock absorber for the head.
https://www.inc.com/kevin-j-ryan/nfl-players-wear-soft-vicis-helmets-in-game.html
I think this is up there with the TSA in terms of ‘doing something’ theater. The new design is still doing what the old helmets did, that is protect against skull fracture. This design still won’t stop the brain from moving in the skull.
Exactly. Helmets prevent catastrophic brain injury and skull fracture, which is what would happen to two people run into each other head-first without helmets. They do not, however, decrease rotational an translational acceleration, which comes from two people running into each other head-first with helmets on… they do not decrease concussion risk.
Well, The new helmets are deigned to do exactly that, reduce the acceleration of the brain in a collision by absorbing some of the energy with deformation. Whether they actually do that to an appreciable degree enough to reduce brain damage is still unproven at this point, but far from conclusive that they do not. Concussion risk is also not the only issue being addressed, protecting from the many smaller impacts, that don’t really risk resulting in concussion, but still cause damage ,is one of the primary goals.
ISTM that would only come into play for hits to the head. Big hits that are not to the head can still cause problems and helmets don’t solve those.
The only solution to *all *football-injury problems is not to play football.
Why oppose things that will help?
according to the research conducted by the NFL (somewhat limited sample, only open-field hits during nationally televised games), the average velocity of the striking player was approx. 20 mph, and the translated acceleration was 16mph. I doubt any form of helmet will decrease this appreciably, but look forward to test results.
sub-concussive blows are an entirely unknown entity, as there are no accelerometers capable of measuring low-impact g-forces. given that cumulative effects are suspected, these helmets may decrease the effects of lower-velocity hits in some manner. all that said, the problem is not something that helmets can solve.
I’ll be interested to hear from the players that try the helmet, at the end of the season.
They are all to aware of contact during a game. Hopefully they will notice a difference.
It would be very encouraging if the concussions drops. I’m sure the league will be monitoring that closely.