Bring On The Leather Helmets?

The time is coming where change to some of the basest elements of the game are coming.

Credit: USA Today Images

Credit: USA Today Images

 
Back in the mid-20th century, racing car experts decided to create a new design of vehicle that would protect the driver in the event of a crash. The design was essentially a silver bullet, solid steel that wouldn't crash or even dent in the event of a crash. Thus, the driver would be totally safe no matter what happened outside, safe in his little compartment.
 
More drivers died in those cars that any other in the same timespan.
 
It was a colossal failure of physics. Remember how a steel ball will bounce higher than a rubber ball, because the steel doesn't "give" and therefore translates all of its momentum in the opposite direction? These silver bullets didn't just crash: they bounced. They rolled, They flipped and tossed and turned for yards and yards down the racetrack, with the poor driver inside eventually having his neck snapped.
 
As we know, that failure of design led directly to the safer design today: sheet metal over a frame that crunches and absorbs all of the force, leaves far less to react in any other direction and protecting the drivers at a pretty impressive rate given the rates of speed and dangerous conditions.
 
If only we could figure out some way to pass that kind of ingenuity on to football helmets.
 
Eddie Lacy might lace them up today and play against the New York Jets, despite suffering a concussion in the first few games of the season in his career. Naturally, we want him to play, and we want to treat the concussion in the same way we might treat a sprained shoulder. "Come on, Eddie...we NEED you. Reggie White always pulled through in a week. You can do it. 
 
"Soldier through."
 
But we know a lot more now about concussions than we did back then, and given Roger Goodell's track record as late of avoiding accountability with former players and the lasting impacts of repeated concussions (as well as sketchy handling of the Ray Rice situation), we know he's in it to protect the brand over the protection of the players (or their fiancees).
 
Lacy went with Riddel's "Speedflex" helmet design, one that promised to be more "concussion-proof". And perhaps it was. Perhaps if Lacy had been wearing a different helmet, the severity of the concussion would have taken him out of the lineup for weeks. Or the entire season.
 
Or forever.
 
One thing is obvious, though, and we have to come to grips with diluting the brand of the NFL as much as Goodell does. Lacy didn't cause his own concussion. Kam Chancellor caused it, winding up like Chuck Cecil and laying a hard hit that sent Lacy out of the game. Fully armored and with proper hitting technique, he has a much better chance of sending the guy he's tackling out of the game than himself.
 
When Cecil played for the Packers, we cheered those hits. We loved it when he knocked a running back into next week, blood spilling down his nose.
 
But its not nearly as much fun when it is your own running back getting knocked out, and its even less fun when you realize that a dose of smelling salts doesn't fix the problem anymore. The lawsuit from former players suffering from long-term post-concussion symptoms lets us know that with each concussion, Lacy's career shortens by just a little bit.
 
Which is why we need to be open to messing with the brand of the game. Marty McFly may not want to go back to the 1950's to revisit the silver bullet designs of cars, but maybe, just maybe, we need to go back and provide LESS protection for the players.
 
By suiting them up in suits of plastic armor, players like Cecil and Chancellor can deliver hits they'd never, ever try to deliver without. The plastic shoulder pads absorb the blow for the player wearing them, but not typically for the player receiving the hit. Chancellor can afford to be a headhunter.
 
Lacy pays the price.
 
Am I making the call for the return of leather helmets and a few tiny shoulder pads, like you see on your journey through the Packers Hall of Fame? No, but we may need to look at what we can do to help prevent these concussions, because pretty soon player concussions are going to lead to the NFL being forced to change their brand anyway.
 
Look, we watch the NFL for many of the same reasons we watch NASCAR. Sure we like watching the cars go around the track, but there's this weird tension that comes with waiting for a crash. We know its is dangerous and it is what pulls us in. The same goes for the NFL: its a beautiful game, a brilliant chess match of schemes and skills that can result in a wonderful catch and run, or a well-designed pocket collapse and sack.
 
But we know that big hit is always there. And we celebrate it when it happens. While there are professional flag football leagues, that is pretty much regulated to ESPN8 (The Ocho). Who wants to watch a beautiful game with no danger involved?
 
But the time is coming where change to some of the basest elements of the game are coming: and those changes can be chosen or have them foisted upon you. Instead of putting more and more armor on players, not unlike the silver bullets of old, it might be wise to actually put less on them.
 
Will it change the game? Of course. But it will also preserve the game, and perhaps more importantly, the careers of treasured players like Aaron Rodgers and Eddie Lacy.
 
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Comments (6)

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The GrEEn kNiGhT's picture

September 14, 2014 at 09:57 am

Interesting point. I have been meaning to research concussions in Rugby for a while. I also agree that these safeties and linebackers are more reckless with their bodies because of all those pads and helmet. Would love to see how hard Chancellor and Meriweather would hit without pads and a helmet!

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jeremyjjbrown's picture

September 14, 2014 at 10:08 am

I wouldn't be surprised if eventually the helmets became more flexible and also disposable. Motorsports helmets work very very well to prevent head and neck injuries, but once they get heavily impacted they must be thrown away, just like those safer cars. So, even if Lacy went trough 10 helmets in a game that's still only $4000. The Packers can afford that to protect an NFL running back. High Schools, well that's another story.

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TommyG's picture

September 14, 2014 at 10:49 am

It's refreshing to see that I'm not the only calling for a look at changing the armor these guys now where. I do believe pads are a good thing, especially on the head, but the hard plastic shelled pads and helmets we use today are defeating their own purpose. I would like to see soft pads brought into the game. Instead of hard plastic plates they would be gel pads. The helmets would be of similar soft construction. The whole idea being that the impacts would be lessened by the give of those pads. Doing this would also stop (IMHO) some of these guys flying like missiles into each other head first.

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dullgeek's picture

September 14, 2014 at 08:18 pm

Economists have called this "The Peltzman Effect" for several decades. Gordon Tullock even went so far as to suggest that the best way to ensure driving safety would be if the government mandated steel spikes in the middle of the steering wheel.

If you assume that this applies to football, then you can't make players more safe by making safer equipment.

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PackerBacker's picture

September 14, 2014 at 09:56 pm

Sorry, but the armor isn't the problem. It is the only solution they have that won't diminish the sport.

The problem is the Kam Chancellor and the rest of the players in the NFL are elite athletes, who are trained and work out to the point where they are in nearly perfect condition. They run harder, faster, and are bigger than any other players at any point in history. When you have a 6'-2", 225 lb safety, who can run a 4.5 second 40, and has been trained over the last 15 years to hit people on the fly, you will have more injuries.

The way to fix this, is not to lessen the amount of pads they use. That's ridiculous. They are the only things keeping them from being killed out there. The only way to fix this is to have the players be smaller and weaker.

What am I saying? I'm saying that this will never happen. Training and nutrition will only get better. Players will only be faster and stronger. The answer is that you will either have to stop playing the game, or continue to watch it with the acceptance of the fact that players WILL be injured and they WILL have shorter careers because of it.

It's the cold truth, but it is the truth.

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FITZCORE1252's picture

September 15, 2014 at 09:35 pm

Yep. Especially injuries with tendons and ligaments. These 255 lb lbrs have a frame that should probably carry a 210ish lb person. These huge muscles are overloading the tendons/ligaments which is a big reason why these nonstop blowouts occur. I'm sure blowouts happened 40 years ago, though I doubt they did at this rate (no link, too lazy to research, could be wrong).

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