Football season – including Professional, College and High School – is well underway, and beyond upsets and surprising victories, much of the talk this year continues to be about the helmets. NBC Sports noted last week that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick was looking to have his helmet re-fitted by Riddell, shifting from a Schutt helmet, possibly the version he wore when he suffered a concussion against the Atlanta Falcons.
Vick reported looked to have his helmet re-fitted by Unequal Technology, which would use Kevlar to “disburse the effects of a blow to the helmet.” It was also reported that while this technology is new to the gridiron it has been used in hockey helmet and of course in the military.
This reporter, who has experience as the author of books and articles on actual military helmets, can attest that there is a difference in what Kevlar is designed to do. Kevlar is typically used in ballistic helmets, namely those meant to stop a bullet on a battlefield to save a wearer’s life (where a concussion would be preferable to death), and not for the brunt force trauma that one might experience on the playing field.
Yahoo! Sports also weighed in on this issue and noted, “Despite new technology in helmets developed over the past two years, concussions are still at the forefront of the NFL. A lawsuit was filed in July when 75 former players claimed the NFL hid the dangers of concussions from players intentionally. Statistics may back up the lawsuit. Concussions were up 21 percent in 2010 over the season previously. Over eight weeks, 154 such injuries were reported versus just 127 in 2009. Based upon a survey of former NFL players in 1996, as many as 61 percent of NFL players suffered from some kind of concussion.”
Helmets have long been a part of football, but they weren’t always used, but there has long been the military connection. The Atlantic noted:
“The first football helmet belonged to Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves who wore it in an Army-Navy game in 1893 in Annapolis, Maryland. A local shoemaker made the moleskin contraption after a Navy doctor warned Reeves that one more kick to the head might result in death or ‘instant insanity.’ Early aviation caps were based on the shoemaker’s design.”
Helmets of course evolved, but there was yet another military connection. The Atlantic story on the development of helmets adds:
“In 1939, the Riddell sporting goods company (still one of the top football-helmet manufacturers) made the first plastic football helmet, but because of wartime plastic shortages, such helmets were not widely adopted for several years. That same year, colleges began requiring their players to don helmets. The NFL followed suit four years later.”
What that article doesn’t note is that the U.S. Military at the same time was looking to develop the helmet that would become the M-1 steel helmet, which would eventually remain in use from 1940 until it was replaced in the early 1980s by the PASGT (Personnel Armor System Group Troops), and Riddel’s suspension system was used in the M-1 helmet liners. Thus the military and football helmets have had a long and interesting history together.
Body Armor and Beyond
And it seems that concerns over personal safety go beyond just the helmet. This week Unequal Technologies noted that Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Tony Romo had suited up with two new products in the EXO Skeleton Body Armor line of supplemental full-body, protective performance padding. These include the two customizable products, The Wall and Egis, which are designed to ensure athletes take tackles and hits head on.
“In the end, all that stands between an athlete and his enemy on any given day is paper-thin polyester and ineffective foam,” said Rob Vito, founder and President of UNEQUAL Technologies, in a statement. “Romo knows first-hand the dangers that are associated with sports, as does Michael Vick, who also wears our padding to protect his chest and thighs. They know that additional protection is needed to survive the game. This is why they chose our EXO Skeleton padding to protect them on the field. Now, we’re expanding that line to further protect athletes.”
The question is what it says when athletes have to turn to military style gear to suit up. The Exo Skeleton products feature DuPont Kevlar at its core, which according to the press release from Unequal Technologies is “the world’s only patented suite of impact-absorbing protective sports padding to dramatically reduce the possibility of injury to the head or body brought on by a tackle, hit or flying object.”
Even the warning in the Unequal Technologies press release sums up that helmets are not the final word:
WARNING: NO HELMET OR PAD CAN PREVENT SERIOUS HEAD, BRAIN, BODY, AND/OR NECK INJURIES INCLUDING PARALYSIS OR DEATH A PERSON MIGHT RECEIVE WHILE PARTICIPATING IN ACTIVITIES, GAMES, OR SPORTS. CONTACT WITH A PERSON, OBJECT, SURFACE, OR PROJECTILE CAN RESULT IN SEVERE HEAD, BODY OR NECK INJURIES, PARALYSIS OR DEATH TO YOU AND POSSIBLE INJURY TO YOUR OPPONENT. THIS CONTACT MAY RESULT IN CONCUSSION-BRAIN INJURY OR SEVERE BODILY INJURY WHICH NO HELMET OR PAD CAN PREVENT. SYMPTOMS INCLUDE: LOSS OF CONSCIOUSNESS OR MEMORY, CONFUSION, DIZZINESS, HEADACHE, NAUSEA, PAIN, SORENESS, DISCOLORATION, NUMBNESS OR TINGLING. IF YOU HAVE SYMPTOMS, IMMEDIATELY STOP PLAYING AND REPORT THEM TO YOUR COACH, TRAINER AND PARENTS. DO NOT PLAY OR RETURN TO THE ACTIVITY, SPORT, GAME OR PRACTICE UNTIL ALL SYMPTOMS ARE GONE AND YOU HAVE RECEIVED MEDICAL CLEARANCE. IGNORING THIS WARNING MAY LEAD TO ANOTHER AND MORE SERIOUS OR FATAL INJURY. UNEQUAL PRODUCTS ARE NOT BULLETPROOF OR BULLET RESISTANT. REMEMBER TO ALWAYS “PRACTICE SAFE SPORTS(TM).”
However, anything that can make it safer to play the game, without having the actually change (or worse ban the game, as been discussed more than 100 years during the 1905-06 season) is a good step forward. Hopefully the use of these new technologies will help make it safer for those on the playing field as has been seen on the battlefield.
Read More: 10 Steps in the High-Tech Evolution of Pro Football Helmets – Popular Mechanics