Crack! The sound of football helmets colliding on the field is an audible sign that fall is just around the corner.
But that sound also comes with a darker side. Mounting scientific evidence shows that repeated hits to the head — even if they don’t result in concussions — may cause lasting damage in the brain and perhaps progressive neurodegeneration called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
The problem has set off alarms at all levels of the sport, with coaches, trainers, parents and leagues wrestling with tough questions about whether football can be made safer for athletes.
In just the past month, three young players have died after playing football, two of them with head injuries. The third death is still under investigation.
After his son’s death, Ryan Craddock, the father of 13-year-old Cohen Craddock, called for all student players to wear additional soft-shell coverings called Guardian Caps. They are not helmets but pliable padded coverings that slip over a player’s existing helmet.
“I believe if my son would have been wearing something like this, this would have made a totally different outcome,” Craddock told CNN. “You’re not modifying the helmets. It’s just something that attaches directly on. So why not just have that extra layer of protection?”
Intuitively, putting more padding around a football player’s head might sound like a good idea, but there’s little independent research showing that it reduces the force of blows to the head or that it prevents head injuries.
Lab studies in which researchers simulate hits to the head have shown that the caps can reduce impact forces. But the handful of published studies that have tested the caps on college football players running drills have failed to find any benefit compared with helmets alone. There are no published independent studies that have tried to measure whether Guardian Caps reduce concussions or head injuries in players and no testing to see if they might work for younger players.
Guardian Caps have gotten a big boost from the NFL, which now allows all players to wear them during regular-season games. The league also mandates them for most players during every preseason practice, as well as regular and postseason practices with contact.
The caps’ maker, Guardian Sports, says its own extensive testing — as well as years of use by many large college football teams — proves that they reduce injuries on the field.
“We will tell anyone who asks that no product can make a player concussion proof,” Erin Hanson, who started Guardian Sports with her husband in 2011, said in a statement.
“Our product, however, is well past the point of proof of concept. We now have over 12 years of on-the-field data and feedback with over 500,000 players using Guardian Caps. Schools like UGA, Ga Tech, Alabama, Tennessee wouldn’t use a product year after year that isn’t working for their players. The NFL and CFL certainly wouldn’t mandate Caps if the data wasn’t clear,” Hansen wrote.
Dr. David Camarillo, an associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford University and a former college football player who has tested the Guardian Caps, said he doesn’t think the evidence is so clear.
“I think the rationale is, football’s in big trouble. People are worried about CTE. We’re seeing kids dying,” Camarillo said. “People want to try to do something, right, as long as they don’t think it’s going to hurt.”
On its website, Guardian says its XT model reduces the impact to a player’s head by up to 33%, while the beefier model used by the NFL reduces head acceleration in a collision by up to 40%.
NFL Vice President Jeff Miller told CNN’s Coy Wire that the caps have made players safer.
“The last two seasons, we saw about a 50% decrease in concussions in the positions that we mandated to wear them. So of course, we said, ‘OK, all positions will now wear them in the preseason,’” Miller said.
The NFL has not released the data behind its claims, however, leading to skepticism among some scientists.
“It’s hard to take what the NFL says at face value,” Camarillo said. “What they really ought to do is publicly share the data, not just publish it but release it,” and follow up by funding independent studies that could confirm their conclusions.
The league says it plans to publish research backing its conclusions soon.
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