By Nick Pantages
@nick_pantages22
Head trauma and its ensuing dangers have always been a hot topic around the game of football, with many parents withholding the sport from their children in fear of the physical damage it causes. However, this angst was compounded in 2015 with the release of the movie Concussion, which raised awareness of the disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, better known as CTE.
This was around the same time a new ancillary helmet pad was introduced to high school football teams around the country.
Named the Guardian Cap for Guardian Sports, the company that makes them, the cap sits on top of the helmet during practices and games, designed to reduce the risk of concussions on hits to the head. The cap has been mandated for certain positions in training camp since 2020, and was approved for game use by the NFL prior to this season. So far, seven players have chosen to wear the cap in regular season games.
According to Springfield College Assistant Professor of Athletic Training Matt Mills, the cap does help a lot in the prevention of concussions.
“The guardian caps are a padding that goes on the outside of a football helmet, and the theory behind it is that they are designed to decrease the amount of force that happens when a player gets hit,” Mills said. “So imagine putting a small pillow on the outside of a helmet to absorb some of those forces, that’s generally what the guardian cap is designed to do.”
The NCAA, unlike the NFL, has no such rules related to use of the cap. It is allowed to be worn in practices, and over 200 teams wear them, but they are not mandated in practice and have not been approved for use in games. Springfield College is one of the schools that does not use them in practice, and that may be for a variety of reasons.
Despite people wanting the school to use the caps for the safety of the players, they remain very expensive. The school rosters 125 players on the team, and individually, the caps are available for 60 dollars apiece. Add in additional backups in case some of the straps that connect the cap over the facemasks break, and the bill to get a whole collegiate football team the caps could end up in the range of 10,000 dollars.
Additionally, Mills explains that the research of the caps is incomplete, making it more difficult to foresee an immediate future where they are mandatory in all football games.
“I think there’s still a lot of research that needs to be done about these technologies,” Mills said. “We’ve certainly seen in a laboratory setting that these things can potentially decrease the amount a player gets hit by, and we have some basic, low level evidence coming out of the NFL to support some reduction in injury, but we just need to see a little more research on that.”
He does acknowledge that once the research progresses, that could be the result if football organizations agree with the findings.
“If the research continues in the way that it is, I could see a world in which [wearing Guardian caps] becomes commonplace,” Mills said.
Some players have come out in support of the caps, saying they feel the same, but others have complained about the bulkiness of the caps on the helmet.
So despite the fact that the caps seem like a no-brainer, the decision is not as clear as people may think.
Photo courtesy of Erik Drost.