The NFL just announced that some players will be required to wear a ‘Guardian Cap’ during certain practice sessions. This is on an attempt to reduce concussions and other cranial (a.k.a. ‘head’) injuries - obviously.
I’ve been saying this for years, but the problem isn’t that the protective equipment isn’t good enough. The problem is that the ‘gear’ is simply too damn good!
With all the carbon fibre, special foam, gel and other space-age materials, modern football equipment has all but eliminated the pain factor. When a player now flies into a potentially violent collision, his thoughts are a million miles away from thinking "man this might friggin hurt... I better get my melon out of the way!" in fact, the head is by far the most protected part of the body - so why not use it as a battering ram? The solution seems obvious to me.
While my first thought was that we should simply make the equipment worse… and thereby inject the fear of catastrophic injury, there is a better way.
With today‘s technology, there is absolutely no reason we can’t produce a helmet that both protects the brain AND reintroduces the fear of pain. All you have to do is place sensors on the crown of the helmet so that - when sufficiently activated through contact - they send a safe but significantly irritating jolt of electricity to the player's mouth or armpit or crotch or some other sensitive area. This way, instead of flying into tackles with their head down, both offensive and defensive players will be thinking "oh crap, I don’t want to get my jewels tweaked so I better keep my noggin clear of this other dude."
Surely a mid-level science class at some obscure junior college could build a prototype for the ‘Zap Cap’. No pain, no gain.
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