Football Helmets: Evolution, Safety Standards, and Neck Injury

Introduction

While football is generally a relatively safe sport to play with proper protection, there have still been injuries — some of them severe and even fatal. Because of that, the helmets and other protective gear worn by football players have changed throughout the years in an effort to protect more players and ensure that everyone can enjoy the game safely. From high school through college and into the professional ranks, helmets are used to give everyone who plays a feeling of safety and to prevent concussions and other injuries when players collide or get knocked down. Many players also end up at the bottom of a pile when one team tackles a player from another, so helmets must also protect against that accumulated weight. Overall, of course, there is no way to completely protect a football player from the problems that can appear during the game.

The best that can be hoped for is that injuries will be reduced, and that the injuries that are sustained will be less severe because of helmets. But how did helmets get their start? Why do they look the way they do, and how were they designed? What has happened to them over the years, and what will likely happen to them in the future? These are all important questions, because the evolution of helmets is central to understanding the human factor in both football and engineering. If engineers do not understand how to develop helmets that continually improve, the players who rely on them for protection can end up injured, paralyzed, or even killed. Those kinds of outcomes are rare, but they are not entirely impossible — and they will be made much less likely with properly designed helmets.

Early Helmets

It was not until after World War II that helmets actually became popular and started being widely used. From that point, they evolved quite rapidly in response to demand and better engineering.

The football helmet has changed greatly from one era to the next. The early helmets were called "head harnesses," and they mostly just fit over the head and protected — and covered — the ears (Gaffney, 2009). Unfortunately, the head harnesses also restricted how well players could hear, and that could spell disaster on the field. These primitive options can be traced all the way back to the 1900s, before the actual helmets used after World War II were ever conceived (Gaffney, 2009). Between 1915 and 1917, the soft leather harnesses were reworked and openings for the ears were created. That allowed players to hear much more easily, which improved both the game and the safety of the player. These leather caps also had some suspension between their outer covering and the players' heads, so they were not sitting directly on the skull — and that made them safer (Gaffney, 2009).

Of course, leather is only so helpful when it comes to protecting a person's head from danger, and football players can sustain up to 150 Gs of force when tackled. Because of that, better helmets were still needed. As the 1920s and 1930s arrived, helmet makers began to use both harder leathers and interior padding in an effort to provide further protection (Gaffney, 2009). The original helmets were very flat on the top, but they began to change to a shape more like a teardrop. That new shape was much better because it allowed blows to the side or top of the skull to glance off more easily, rather than delivering the full force of impact directly to the player's head (Gaffney, 2009). While that did not solve all injury problems, it helped helmets evolve and protect players more effectively.

Modern Helmets

In 1948, the first mascot was painted on a helmet (A history, n.d.). It was not long before just about every team was painting a mascot or logo onto their helmets to show team spirit and to be more easily distinguished on the field. Another change that came about around that same time was the facemask. It was a simple, wire-covered rubber device designed to reduce the alarmingly large number of broken teeth and broken noses seen in the game. The mask did what it was designed to do, but it created another problem — players started grabbing one another's facemasks for intimidation (A history, n.d.). Penalties were created for players who grabbed at facemasks, and that slowed down some of the abuse. Specific helmet manufacturers also emerged around that time. Some of them, such as Riddell (2011), are still producing and developing football helmets today.

The modern football helmet is a far cry from what was originally used. Much of the credit for that modern helmet goes to Riddell (2011), which created the first plastic football helmet back in 1939 — though the helmet has undergone many changes since that time (Gaffney, 2009). The plastic model was more durable and stronger than its leather predecessors. In 1940, Riddell moved the helmet strap to the chin rather than its previous position at the Adam's apple, and was involved in developing the first facemasks. Unfortunately, plastic was a scarce material during World War II, so some early helmets were not made as well as they could have been. The early plastic helmets were eventually banned by the National Football League (NFL) because one player split nine of them during a single season (Gaffney, 2009).

Seeing that plastic helmets were the right direction but needed refinement, Riddell quickly made several adjustments. In 1949, plastic helmets were reinstated because the changes had been satisfactorily made and plastic was genuinely a better option than leather. The use of synthetic plastic was the largest improvement, making the helmets far more durable and no longer prone to splitting and cracking under impact (Gaffney, 2009). It is easy to see how serious that issue was — helmets that could not hold up to field abuse would not adequately protect players' heads. Even though helmets have continued to evolve, the earliest Riddell molded shells still serve as models for the modern helmets created today (Gaffney, 2009).

Conclusion

Overall, football helmets have reduced the number of catastrophic injuries that occur in the sport. There are fewer deaths today, and fewer players end up paralyzed. That is very good news, but it does not tell the whole story. Concussions remain a significant problem for football players, and the helmets currently in use may actually be contributing to more of these concussions than they are preventing. Studies have shown that in other countries where helmets are not used, players actually experience fewer concussions and brain injuries. This does not necessarily mean helmets should be banned. Instead, the priority should be on making football helmets better so that they protect players from concussions more effectively. Making helmets larger might achieve that goal, but they would be uncomfortable and heavy. Newer helmet prototypes are not any larger than current models, but they are lighter and incorporate different types of padding and layered protection. There is no guarantee of how well new helmets will perform in protecting players' brains, but companies are striving for new and better options so that the game can continue to be played and players pursuing long careers will not be placing themselves at such high risk of long-term, permanent injury.