Oddly enough, unless I’m way off base, I think these 2 groups have lower concussion incidents than “skill†positions.
NFL to Allow Guardian Caps in Games
- Thread starter davefrat
- Start date
I thought i read somewhere awhile back the repeated mini impacts that lineme endure though not registering as concussion is worse than sustaining the occasional concussion. Thus the reason for my post.
The evolution of football padding is a great example of “moral hazard;†reducing the negative consequences of an action or behavior, leading to an increase in the behavior that makes the consequences either more serious, more frequent, or both.
Football padding, combined with what constitutes a legal tackle, allows players, unlike in any other team sport save (to a lesser degree) ice hockey, to use their bodies as weapons. You can't, for example, deliver football style hits in rugby and stay healthy enough to play very long; and the rules forbid it anyway; but in football, well, the padding is itself the root cause of these issues. We’ve traded players’ short-term broken bones for their long-term CTE. Until and unless the rules around what constitutes a legal tackle are changed (e.g., require the tackler to hold the tackle all the way to the ground or else the ball carrier can continue), helmet guardians et al. are lipstick on a pig at best, and at worst I’m willing to bet will incentivize other, perhaps yet more dangerous behavior…
Football padding, combined with what constitutes a legal tackle, allows players, unlike in any other team sport save (to a lesser degree) ice hockey, to use their bodies as weapons. You can't, for example, deliver football style hits in rugby and stay healthy enough to play very long; and the rules forbid it anyway; but in football, well, the padding is itself the root cause of these issues. We’ve traded players’ short-term broken bones for their long-term CTE. Until and unless the rules around what constitutes a legal tackle are changed (e.g., require the tackler to hold the tackle all the way to the ground or else the ball carrier can continue), helmet guardians et al. are lipstick on a pig at best, and at worst I’m willing to bet will incentivize other, perhaps yet more dangerous behavior…
I think I remember an OL wearing one -- seems like it might have been a former barn guy.
Agreed. The looks pale in comparison to the legal liability if a preventative is available but not used.
In the days before CTE became such a big thing, I'd agree.
Today, I just don't see how they can leave them unrequired. Forgetting the humanitarian considerations, the monetary legal liability is monstrous.
Yeah, they look kind of dorky. I'd rather (1) look like a dork today, make 8 figures for a few years, and play with my grandchildren in old age than (2) look cool today, make 8 figures for a few years, then have a destroyed brain starting at 45 or so.
Plus, pretty soon they'd stop seeming dorky and start seeming normal.
Interesting point I hadn't considered, though I'm not sure how a guardian pad could be weaponized.
Regardless, I'm curious -- have there been any studies on the incidence of CTE and other neurological conditions in retired professional rugby players?
I think weaponized inasmuch as a belief the pad will prevent a concussion so I can lay that hit I might have thought twice about delivering before.
I think the other poster was referring to current helmets and facemasks. the facemask keeps you from breaking your nose, but lets you try to use that hard metal and the hardshell as a weapon.
The real answer long term is likely something like the g- form that's being used in some 'adventure sports' and the tech from unequal (kevlar/aramid with different layers of different density padding) that was developed for military use to reduce blast impact force into vehicles and they are now starting to use in sports gear.
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Guardian uses something similar to the g-form stuff, and my son has started using lacrosse arm pads that leverage g-form type tech. They are lighter, thinner and unless he gets really unlucky with a slash right to a gap in the pads, they protect better than his previous pads that had the traditional style much thicker padding with some hard shell in places.
I guarantee you once you start seeing them in games a bunch of idiots who never played past Pop Warner ball will be calling them sissies and how they will never watch again and throw in comments I can’t say here because it is political.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one thinking this way! It's been on my mind for years that less padding was probably the way to solve this problem. You can't spear someone with your head -- twice -- if the padding doesn't support it. Tackling in good form is reasonably comfortable without pads, as any backyard tackle football player can attest. Protect the face and groin from direct collisions with heads/feet/etc., maybe give them some shin guards like in soccer, then let them play without any extra padding. Amend as needed to cover other obvious needs.
I think the same thing. I'm almost 70 and I think most people my age played a lot of tackle football without any pads growing up. I don't remember anyone getting seriously hurt because we knew we couldn't go flying around using our heads as a weapon to tackle.
I’ll admit (even on an Internet forum) that I don’t know, so it’s really an hypothesis. However, we know in real life that what you incentivize (whether or not intentionally) you get more of. Helmets incentivize the kind of behavior that increases head trauma. Ergo (but not Q.E.D.)…
Speaking of real life. I’m visiting my CU sophomore daughter today in Boulder, or, as Coloradans call it, 50 square miles surrounded by reality…
Hope she's doing well and has a good plan for the summer.
I should clarify that I'm not saying they should or shouldn't be required just that the reason they aren't is how jarring and goofy they look and the NFL wants to sell the sport to new markets who prefer sports with basically no safety gear.
If they actually help maybe they should be required, they changed the helmet design a few years ago for ones that are supposedly better and some players had fits and have gotten exceptions to wear older ones just because they prefer the look.
The league fines people for wearing the wrong socks, they deeply care about image and until we adapt the the goofy foam helmet hats they won't be requiring them....maybe if enough folks choose to use them we will see it happen.
There have definitely been studies regarding CTE in Rugby recently. Began around the same time as the NFL studies. In Rugby they keep playing around with the tackle rules to try to address it.
.
I remember when nobody wore helmets snow skiing because they did not look "cool"; now everybody wears them.
Not saying that they may not be a good thing at the LOS (CTE is cumulative, I know), but the most vicious hits to the head that I`ve noticed have been in the open field.
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