Youth and high school football players across the U.S. could soon be seen on Friday nights wearing a new device on top of their helmets. That new device could help reduce their risk of sustaining concussions.
Exero Labs, founded in 2016 by Ben Rizzo and former New England Patriots punter Zoltan Mesko, unveiled that device, called the EXO1, at the NFL’s 1st & Future innovation showcase earlier this month. The device uses a leaf-spring design that attaches to any standard football helmet and works to create more distance and surface area over which an impact to the head can dissipate, Rizzo told the panel of judges and crowd of entrepreneurs at the event.
Football helmets haven’t changed fundamentally since the 1980s, advancements in helmet technology are too expensive today, and impact sensors are helpful for diagnosis but do nothing to actually protect players from concussions, Rizzo added. But the EXO1 has shown to be effective in reducing impact 45 percent from any hit, Mesko told 1st & Future attendees.
“But what does 45 percent equate to on the field? What does it all matter in the lab if you can’t take it to the field?” Mesko asked.
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Exero Labs partnered with Virginia Tech to both test the EXO1’s efficacy — resulting in that 45 percent figure — and to create an equation that gives the probability of one NFL player getting a concussion from one head impact. The equation, backed by 10 years of NFL data, found that 24 percent of NFL players will get a concussion. According to Mesko, with the EXO1 attached to their helmets, that chance would drop to 1.8 percent.
The leaf-spring in the device allows it to work like a car’s shocks or crumple zone; upon impact, it deforms slightly, slowing the impact down over the head and minimizing the force.
Mesko, in speaking with the Detroit Free Press, compared the EXO1 to driving on a highway: “It flexes upon impact and then it gives you extra stopping time. So if you’re driving down the highway at let’s say 70 m.p.h., which is the speed limit in Michigan, so abide by that, at times you get multiples of what the actual foam inside the helmet allows you to (withstand),” he said. “So think of it as you’ve got 300 feet to brake from 70 m.p.h. now versus 100 feet.”
Rizzo, who according to Crain’s Cleveland once worked as an oil and gas engineer, told the magazine that the EXO1 works similarly to a car’s shocks. Mesko’s parents also worked as engineers and the former punter works at IBM selling software, Cleveland.com reported.
Both Exero Labs founders were excited at the opportunity to present their product in front of the very organization that could give them funding to advance it. The EXO1 would retail for $60 or so, and could last for two to three years.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity for us because of the exposure, to be in that room of influential people and get our product out there,” Rizzo told Crain’s. “There will be people in that room who can help us launch that.”
Exero didn’t end up winning 1st & Future, falling short of Impressio — another company looking to improve helmets. But with over $80,000 in letters of intent to order from youth and high school coaches around the country, Cleveland.com reported, Rizzo and Mesko’s company looks poised for success on the market.