Pros And Cons Of Football Helmets

According to Daniel Flynn, the NFL has made vast improvements in safety to prevent concussions. The NFL has implemented a stricter concussion protocol. The NFL concussion protocol watches for players on the field to have any contact to the head, and show symptoms of a concussion. The player that shows symptoms will be pulled off the field and evaluated by a team physician and an independent neurologist. Then, if the player is suspected to have a concussion, he will be taken to the locker room to be evaluated further. If the player is not diagnosed with a concussion, he can return to

Safety and equipment have come a long way in football in order to prevent brain injuries. A very important piece of equipment used to prevent brain trauma is the helmet. The helmet has evolved a lot over the years, even more in the past decade. The Helmets main purpose use to be just to stop skull fractures, then they added the facemask to prevent facial injuries. Concussions are more of a recent concern (Hand 1). Overconfidence in the helmets' protective power prompts many NFL athletes to deliver and accept hits that would have killed players of previous generations. Now the helmet is being revolutionized. Helmets aren't only being created to stop skull and face fractures but they are being created to help prevent brain damage such as concussions now. Helmets have gone through testing to see how to design a better preventative helmet. These newer helmets are being designed to reduce the amount of force that is being applied to the head by a hit that is received (Vandantam 2). Virginia Tech football has been monitoring helmet collisions since 2003, courtesy of Dr. Gunnar Brolinson. Dr. Gunnar Brolinson has outfitted the teams helmets with six sensors and a small antenna that records and transmits data to a computer on the sideline. This information collected is crucial because it will help find better ways to design a helmet that will prevent concussions(Goldman 1). Equipment isn't the only important part of football that can help prevent concussions.

I think a bigger change that we could make is having players learn to tackle at practice without helmets on. There was a study done by the University of New Hampshire football team and The National Athletic Trainers Research and Education Foundation where they tested the impact of players practicing with helmets and some without. The goal of this study was to see if helmetless practice would teach players to not tackle using their heads which currently is a main reason why players get concussions. They had the control group practice with helmets on, while the intervention group did not wear shoulder pads or helmets. They completed a five minute drill and the purpose of not wear pads or helmets was supposed to teach the players to learn to tackle without using their heads in a way that they could be injured. They found substantial evidence that this helped prevent head injuries, it resulted in a 28% reduction in head injuries over the course of the football season for

Helmets keep a players head safe during a game. Most NFL players still wear helmets that were made in the nineteen-nineties (Halstead). DeSean Jackson now has an anti-concussion football helmet (Chase). If helmet companies manufactured more anti-concussion helmets, players would be better off and the rule would definitely not need to be in play. Also, according to Halstead, in two thousand-thirteen, players will finally have price breaks from helmet companies to be able to buy newer safe helmets (Halstead). If players buy more anti-concussion helmets, they would not get injured as easy nor would the helmet-to-helmet hit rule need to take

There has been an increase in concussion research which has changed how helmets are designed. Despite improvements in helmet design over the years, traumatic brain injury cases (TBI) from heavy contact sports have increased drastically. Our football team cares a number of different helmets that are at the top of the research in protecting the athletes head. We carry the Riddell speed, flex and Schutt vengeance, Xenith X2E. These helmets are rated as the top four in safety. The speed, flex and vengeance are the most used by our football team. Not as many people on the team like the Xenith because it hard to get it to fit just right. Mack said the Xenith is the safest helmet because it suspends the head but is very hard to adjust but you never have to readjust it.

The issue of multiple concussions is finally becoming recognized by major sports. The awareness has led to a variety of interventions to help protect athletes. There have been two recent interventions concerning football helmets. First off, Riddell, a company that produces football helmets, has released a new helmet that is supposed to best prevent concussions. This helmet is known as the Revolution Speed. Using advanced technology, the Speed helmets were designed around the head 's center of gravity and include an uneven outer shell to help absorb a hit. The inside of the

An increasingly popular topic in the realm of sports fans has begun to unravel. The National Football League recently has begun to introduce new rules and regulations for their athletes to start abiding by to ensure the continued safety of the player’s health. Although most find this change in the game of professional football as a positive step forward, others see this as a diminishment of the sanctity of NFL football. New rules and regulations that have been introduced into NFL are vital to athletes involved in the sport and help them to play with lowered risks of long term injuries that could possibly affect not only them but also the league in the future as well. The reasons for these

Helmets are a major guideline that needs to be improved because a helmet is there to protect the head and prevent concussions but it doesn't seem to be doing a good job. Now there's always that question of “why don't we just make the helmet better and more equipped to prevent concussions?”, well we've had football around for years now and if it hasn't been done yet I don't think it will ever be done. According to the North Eastern Undergraduate Writing Journal, since the 1970s, helmets have been made with a polycarbonate shell, a steel face mask, and padding which is just foam and inflatable air bladders. Even though modern helmets maybe more

Statistics have proven that about 300,000 cases are reported annually, many of which are high school students due to sports or strenuous activities. Many coaches could argue that technology has given us the ability to create helmets that could ultimately absorb the shock impacts from a blow to the

Today’s world, the top rated helmet to use is a Riddle. Priced at about $400, it features a hard polycarbonate shell to bounce off an impact and an energy absorbing foam lining to absorb the aftershock (Wilson). Dr. Timothy of Gay, University of Nebraska physics professor, writer, and industry helmet said, “I think that it’s true that football helmets are 85% as good as they’re ever going to get.” The optimal football helmet won’t be much better than the helmet you can buy right now because there are just physics restraints on the kind of padding you can use. To make a helmet that is concussion proof you would need about fifteen inches of foam on the helmet.

Playing football is not like playing other sports. Athletes in all kinds of sports risk injuring themselves, but in football, a lot of the risk comes from other athletes. While there are many ways to be injured playing football, one of the worst is head-to-head targeting. This has been a problem in football since the beginning of the game, especially, when equipment was not very protective. Over the past eight years, the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) has implemented rules and penalties specifically designed to protect players and to hopefully reduce the number of bad head injuries (Marshall). The NCAA is doing the right thing by protecting players from severe injury by calling and enforcing targeting penalties.

Blankets are put down at 4 p.m. to reserve a seat. Streets become deserted and restaurants empty just before 7:30 p.m. kickoffs” (B. 12). While football is one of the most loved sports; it is also one of the more dangerous. Many football players will endure bone fractures, ankle sprains, and knee injuries, which are very common; but the injury high school football seems to attract the most is head injuries.Head injuries can have a lasting effect on high school players and tend to be very common. Some people consider the players at fault, while others will blame the helmet manufacturing, coaches, or even the parents. High school players are almost always overlooked and many problems can arise. Therefore coaches, players and parents need to take more responsibility and see that there are solutions to prevent concussions and eliminate such a common problem among high school players.

Football can be a very dangerous sport. And although those who play the game believe that they are being protected by the helmets that they wear, the truth is that this may not be the case. In a recent study released by the American Academy of Neurology it has been found that “protection against concussion and complications of brain injury is especially important for young players, including elementary and middle school, high school and college athletes, whose still-developing brains are more susceptible to the lasting effects of trauma”(Science Daily, 2014). The study also found that standard football helmets worn by the majority of players on the field today, only reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury by 20 percent compared to not wearing a helmet at all (Science Daily, 2014).

There has been extraordinary improvements of helmets from the old leather to the modernized-plastic football helmets along with the face mask and energy- absorbent padding. In addition, the concern over preventing concussions, have led to helmet changes, impact testing methods and reconstruction of injuries during play helping to provide insight on concussions(4). Helmets have been successful in decreasing the risk of traumatic brain injuries, but there is much concern over concussion; therefore, scholars argue the importance of technology development to address concussion(5). As the author(s), David Viano and David Halstead discusses, there is room needed for understanding the types of collisions associated in youths and the impact condition addressing collisions. There are many variables to consider addressing concussion and where they occur.

American football has been around for over one hundred years, and along with the sport has been the need to provide proper safety for the players. An assortment of padding has been instituted in the game that protects against most blunt trauma including blows to the shoulders, mid section, and legs. In an attempt to prevent fracture of the skull, helmets were designed. However, studies have shown that helmets do little to nothing to prevent concussive damage to the brain. A polycarbonate shell is used as the outer housing for regulation football helmets, but along with this material, the materials used on the inside of the helmet are just as, if not more, important. The purpose of this report is to analyze the materials used in current football helmet design and the improvements being made in the field of materials science in order to combat the severe number of concussions suffered by NFL players.