Football

(Slow, encapsulating music plays)

[Will Smith] “I found a disease that no one has ever seen.” (Helmets collide) “Repetitive head trauma chokes the brain. “

(Loud thumping)

[Alec Baldwin] “The NFL does not want to talk to you. You turned on the lights and gave their biggest boogeyman a name.”

[Lawyer] “You’re going to war with a corporation that owns a day of the week!”

[NFL Representative] “No proof was presented today because there simply isn’t any.”

[Will Smith] “They have to listen to us. This is bigger than they are.”

(The thumping speeds up and loudens)

[Alec Baldwin] “What you think they’re doing to you now—that’s nothing. You have no idea how bad this could get.”

[Will Smith] “I have to keep going.”

[Lawyer] “They want you to say you made it all up.”

[Will Smith] “If they continue to deny my work, men continue to die.”

What you just heard was part of the official trailer for Sony Entertainment Picture’s 2015 film Concussion (which is by the way a great movie, and I highly recommend it to anyone regardless of their interest in football). Concussion stars Will Smith as the real life forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, the man credited with discovering the fatal brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). There are a lot of intricacies in the film depicting the actions of the National Football League (NFL) in response to Dr. Omalu’s work, but I will not comment on it; almost everyone is aware of the NFL’s shady history, and I do not want to focus on a social commentary of the league’s misdoings. Instead, I want to present a solution to the biggest problem facing the league right now: concussions.

How exactly can the NFL reduce its concussion rates? Simple. Get rid of helmets. It seems ludicrous, it’s counterintuitive, and it just doesn’t sound right. But bear with me.

I’m your host Logan Boal, and welcome to Rules Rule, where today I’m going to tell you why the NFL should get rid of helmets.

(“All That” plays)

Thank you bensound.com for that jazzy sax.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019), “A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury [. . .] caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head or by a hit to the body that causes the head and brain to move rapidly back and forth.” When the brain suddenly moves back and forth, it has a high chance of hitting the cranium, which can then cause severe swelling and bruising known as a contusion. If that sounds like it’s painful, that’s because it is. Take it from me: I’ve dislocated a disk in my spine and had my fair share of concussions, and I would rather dislocate three more disks than have another concussion. As the number of concussions a person gets increases, so too does their likelihood of getting another one; and—as Dr. Omalu discovered—too many concussions over time lead to CTE, a fatal brain disease that looks like an overdose of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, Schizophrenia, and insanity. Suffice it to say concussions are no joke, and the NFL has tried desperately to avoid litigation by reducing the number of brain injuries its players receive.

According to John Breech for CBS Sports (2015), the NFL made helmets mandatory in 1943 to combat head injuries. In those days, the helmets were made of soft leather designed only to protect the players’ heads from the ground and to prevent their ears from ripping up. Then, in the 1950s, the plastic helmet was introduced, which was significantly harder and more rigid than the leather helmets. That helmet saw light for about 30 years until the 1980s, when the polycarbonate helmet was introduced. The polycarbonate helmet is what the NFL still uses today. Due to its lightweight nature and incredible sturdiness, the polycarbonate helmet is essentially a hollowed-out quarter pound rock designed to protect players’ heads from skull shattering collisions.

Except, they don’t do that great of a job. Helmets can only prevent superficial damage to the head; as for the brain rattling around in the skull, helmets do nothing. The reason why is because of a phenomena in physics known as the Impulse-Momentum Theorem. The theorem describes the relationship between a force applied on an object over a given amount of time to that object’s change in momentum. The longer the force is applied, the smaller the force has to be to achieve the resultant momentum change. Think of it like pushing a car. It would take a great, heaping shove to push a car 10 feet in one second; but if you wanted to do it in 20 seconds, you wouldn’t have to push as hard. In football, a big, hard hit is delivered to an opponent in a short time span, which means the brain experiences a greater force and thus a more drastic change in momentum, causing it to crash against the skull. Helmets do nothing to change this time interval, especially the polycarbonate one. Because the polycarbonate helmet is so rigid, the force applied through a tackle is transmitted very rapidly to the head, causing the rapid change in momentum to cause a concussion. Going back to the pushing a car analogy, imagine now the car is wrapped in paper. You’re still going to push the car the exact same way, except now the outside of the car just won’t be touched. Helmets don’t change the force, they just protect the outside of the head.

And the NFL knows this. Jonathan Chew wrote a 2016 article in Fortune detailing an ongoing lawsuit between retired NFL players and Riddell, the company responsible for making the NFL’s helmets from 1989 to 2014. In the lawsuit, the 1,000 plus former players accused the NFL of knowing the current design of their helmets was not preventative of head injuries and for hiding that knowledge from players. Riddell was indicted for marketing their helmets as adequate protection from concussions despite numerous reports proving otherwise, many of which were even quoted as saying, “‘No helmet can prevent a concussion.’”

In response to this lawsuit, according to a 2017 article by Alexander Aciman of the technology website Quartz, the NFL tried making a new helmet. They call it the Vicis Zero1. And it looks identical to the last set of helmets. However, the Zero1 does have one key difference: a crumple zone. Similar to the bumper on an automobile, the Zero1 has a crumple zone that squishes during impacts, thus expanding the time parameter of the Impulse-Momentum Theorem and decreasing the change in momentum for a player’s brain. The crumple zone is a layer of foam that returns to its original shape after impact, making the helmet more durable as well. The helmet performed well in tests and was touted as the NFL’s long desired solution to their boogeyman. It just never lived up to the hype though. Players were still getting concussed at an increasing rate. What happened? Well, as it turns out, nothing happened. Pro players were just hitting each other harder and more often. The helmet played an Uno reverse on itself. It was designed to prevent head injuries, yet when players put the Zero1 over their eyes, they feel invincible after being told that this helmet can stop head injuries. The Zero1 gave those players a false sense of security that ended up giving them more concussions than before.

To any person, the next logical step would be to develop a new, even more improved helmet. But I have a different idea: let’s remove the helmet entirely and ban players from wearing them.

(“Semi-Funk” plays)

The idea behind banning helmets in the NFL has actually been around for a few years, and it makes sense why in a really odd way. With helmets, players feel invulnerable, which leads to harder, less reserved hits with bad form. However, with no helmets—or even the leather helmets from the old days—players have a natural instinct to protect their heads, leading to a more grappling-style type of tackling focused on form and self-preservation.

In fact, this concept was even studied. According to Lindsay Gibbs’s 2016 article in ThinkProgress, researchers at the University of New Hampshire studied the effects of tackling with and without a helmet. The study showed that players who practiced for only five minutes without a helmet experienced 28% less impacts to their heads than those who never took their helmets off. Over a long period of time, such as a season, that 28% adds up to a lot of prevented head contact. Even current NFL players have thought about this study. Hines Ward, the former wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers, told ThinkProgress, “‘If you want to prevent concussions, take the helmet off. Play old-school football with the leather helmets, no facemask.’” Creating a new helmet did nothing to alleviate the risk of concussions, but taking them off—that actually made a difference.

One could argue that with the removal of helmets, the NFL would start to resemble rugby, which, according to a 2018 post by the site Complete Concussion Management, has a slightly higher concussion rate than football. However, I would argue that this is not a fair comparison. Rugby is not football; football is not rugby. These two sports—while similar—are vastly different. They have different cultures associated with them, they have different rules, they have different styles of play, they have different governing bodies, they have different season lengths and different amounts of playing time, and they have different people playing them. Comparing rugby to football would be like comparing field hockey to ice hockey; yes, there are similarities, but they are by no means the same sport.

One other key difference between the NFL and rugby: how rule changes are made. To find out more about how a rule change like this would even go into effect, I interviewed a personal friend of mine named Randolph “Randy” Lerner. Randy owned—yes, owned—the NFL’s Cleveland Browns from 2002 to 2012. He asked that his voice not be used in this recording, so I will read his responses for him. When asked how the NFL could go about making a rule change to ban helmets, Randy commented:

The NFL always forms committees that are in turn advised and guided by outside experts. I do not know or recall what level of voting is necessary for rule changes. The key will be ‘what does this do to the game? How will sponsors and fans react? And will the violence just show up elsewhere, meaning will the violence always be a step ahead of the rules?’

I then asked if he thought a rule change like this was foreseeable, and he quipped, “Football is legalized fighting on a certain level. That’s another way of saying it of course, and one has to be careful and tactful, but football does satisfy a uniquely American obsession with violence.” In short, the NFL will never get rid of helmets.

Yet, can you blame them? The NFL is a business, and sacrificing their business model for player safety would ultimately not work out for them. Hard, skull-shattering hits are what the NFL has branded for the last decade, and it’s what the fans love. Americans adore organized violence, which is exactly what the NFL has built itself to be. Removing helmets from the game just will not happen.

But that doesn’t mean we should give up. The NFL is the big time, full of professional athletes who have agreed to get paid to play its branded game. Youth leagues are not. Youth leagues are independent of the NFL, and nobody plays in them for money. Youth leagues are played out of love for the game. Removing helmets there is actually practical; kids would be safer and parents would be more comfortable with letting them play such a dangerous sport. In fact, new leagues are already emerging. According to Richard Boadu in a 2016 article for Complex, there is a new league sweeping the nation by storm. It’s name? The A7FL. The A7FL is a full contact, seven-on-seven league created in 2006. And it is played with no pads and no helmets. The league has stuck around and even grown in popularity in the United States for the last 13 years, and the main reason why is that every single member of the A7FL truly believes that it is safer than regular football. Nobody has a helmet to use as a weapon, and as a result, players tackle with proper form to preserve themselves, leading to less head injuries. It is brilliant.

The NFL will never get rid of helmets. But they don’t have to. Youth leagues and even alternative leagues can still sprout, which would provide a safer outlet for kids and adults to play the game they love without having to worry as much about the long-term effects. It is leagues like these that are taking the initiative to save the lives, careers, and futures of thousands of American people.

I’m Logan Boal for Rules Rule, and thanks so much for listening.

(“Acid Jazz” plays)

REFERENCES

[Sony Pictures Entertainment]. (2015, August 31). CONCUSSION - Official Trailer (HD). [Video file]. Retrieved April 18, 2019 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io6hPdC41RM

Aciman, A. (2017, September 22). The NFL's new helmet is supposed to make players safer from brain injuries. It'll almost certainly do the opposite. Retrieved April 18, 2019, from https://qz.com/1084348/the-nfls-new-helmet-is-supposed-to-make-players-safer-from-brain-injuries-itll-almost-certainly-do-the-opposite/

Boadu, R. (2018, June 01). Is No Helmet and No Pads the Future of Tackle Football? Retrieved April 18, 2019, from https://www.complex.com/sports/2016/10/no-helmet-no-pads-football

Breech, J. (2017, April 06). Could NFL eventually go without helmets? Retrieved April 18, 2019, from https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/could-nfl-eventually-go-without-helmets/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, February 12). What Is a Concussion? | HEADS UP | CDC Injury Center. Retrieved April 18, 2019, from https://www.cdc.gov/headsup/basics/concussion_whatis.html

Chew, J. (2016, April 13). Ex-NFL Players Say League Knew About Helmet Design Shortcomings Long Ago. Retrieved April 18, 2019, from http://fortune.com/2016/04/13/lawsuit-riddell-nfl-concussions/

Complete Concussion Management. (2018, November 07). What Sport Has The Most Concussions? | Concussion Rate. Retrieved April 18, 2019, from https://completeconcussions.com/2018/12/05/concussion-rates-what-sport-most-concussions/

Gibbs, L. (2016, January 7). Could Getting Rid Of Helmets Actually Make Football Safer? Retrieved April 18, 2019, from https://thinkprogress.org/could-getting-rid-of-helmets-actually-make-football-safer-75393ffe5c32/