Ahead of the 2018 NFL season, SportTechie senior writer Joe Lemire joined Kevin Saum on the Heads ‘N Tales podcast to discuss the league’s controversial new helmet rule. That regulation is the focus of the first story of Lemire’s four-part series on NFL safety technology. On the podcast, Joe explains the data behind the new helmet rule, the NFL’s “Play Smart, Play Safe” initiative and research grants, how the rule faired during the pre-season, and the recent collaboration between the league, players’ union and industry experts.
Read more about the episode on Heads ‘N Tales, or listen to the full discussion here:
The NFL’s investment in the Engineering Roadmap
“They’ve taken ownership of how serious this is, and one of the key points that stood out to me is how much those on the players association side, the consultants involved, how much they often went out of their way to say the league was doing a good job of collaborating and communicating this information not only with the NFLPA, but publicly.”
The data behind 2018’s Helmet Rule
“They just ingested this gigantic amount of data, and [what] they found very troubling is that in the last few years, the percentage of concussions occurring from a helmet to helmet collision have been increasing by a statistically significant margin. A few years ago only about a quarter of concussions were helmet to helmet blows, then it went up to about a third, and then last year in 2017 that was up to 46 percent.”
Why a rule, rather than just education, was needed
“I played high school football, at this point almost 20 years ago, and I always learned you keep your head up and you don’t use it to tackle. This seemed like the very fundamental, but, in reality, that’s not what a lot of players do. A lot of them really do lower their heads to initiate contact.”
How the NFL and NFLPA are crowdsourcing innovation
“The NFL and NFLPA want to surround people with good ideas with the infrastructure they need of experts, money, and testing materials in order to see these ideas to fruition, rather than have them stall out before they’re ever given a real chance.”
What might be next for helmet design
“One of the big pushes that they’re going to be making in the next couple of years is a move away from universal helmets and toward position specific helmets. As it is, an offensive lineman and a wide receiver are wearing very different shoulder pads. It seems like there’s a lot of personalization in the equipment already.”
For more inspiring athlete stories of perseverance or expert knowledge in the field of sports health and safety, check out Kevin Saum’s Heads ‘N Tales podcast. Each week he shares a new episode covering sports injury rehab, prevention, concussions and athlete transition.