Uthink this one qualifies as hands to the faceš¤ā¦
- Thread starter CockofEarle
- Start date
That fullback ran right into his fist! This must have been before there was more than one referee.
Need to go back to softer helmets like the current practice helmets and no facemasks. Nothing to grab plus players wouldn't be weaponizing their heads then. Provide dental insurance. Many fewer concussions and paralysis cases. The modern helmet has given rise to more catastrophic injuries than could have been imagined.
This has been discussed and suggested previously (back on CT, it was a big discussion). It make sense for all the reasons you suggest. People naturally protect their heads, but when you encase the head in a hard shell, they are less inclined to do so, and are even inclined to use their head as weapon.
I guess the problem comes with implementation. Some think it would need start at the lowest levels and trickle up over a matter of years to the NFL (filtering though youth football, then high school, then college, then finally NFL). Problem is you have to convince the parents of young children to let them play without a standard helmet. Or, you could just do it like a band-aid, and switch everyone at all levels to softer helmets with no face guard. You'd have to deal with a rash of injuries staring out until habits adjusted. Or you could begin to gradually modify helmets over time until they resemble what you mention.
Sensible - true progressiveness achieved through returning to something more basic from an earlier era. It would be paradoxical in a good way.
The anti-helmet change folks also point to data from other sports (basketball, soccer, rugby, etc) showing that concussion rates aren't much different for sports without helmets. But I don't know how much reliable data is out there. And unbiased data at that.
Helmets haven't stopped CTE. If anything, they have probably exacerbated it. But research would be required to verify that - if unbiased historical research could be conducted in this day and age.