Football Equipment Guide

Yea, your shoulder pads suck if they don’t follow some simple rules.

When speaking about football equipment, one of the first things that come to mind, second only to football helmets, are the shoulder pads.  Unless you think you’re funny or you’re just some pervert, in which case you would blurt out jockstraps.
Either way, when thinking about the shoulder pads, one would only consider it’s function of protecting the shoulders from all of those cracks and crashes on the field.
As outlined in some other posts of mine, the shoulder pad also can function as a stabilizer for the helmet when used in conjunction with various restrictors.

The shoulder pads, when closely looked at, carries many different intricate details in it’s make-up. For starters, the shoulder pad has a hard plastic shell with foam padding underneath. The pads fit over the shoulders and the chest and rib area, and are secured with various snaps, buckles, straps and ties.
Take a look:

Pictured above is the Schutt Y Flex Youth All-Purpose Football Shoulder Pad. A great purchase for your youngster, especially if he doesn’t want shoulder pads that suck.

What to look for when purchasing shoulder pads:
1) Shoulder pads that allow free movement- The last thing you need or your child needs is to be cramped up on the field. People will be coming at you from all angles and you need to be able to move. Do not overlook this. Just because your pads are stiff does not mean you’ll be safer.

2) Comfortable- If I’m going to be out there for a couple hours, my heaviest piece of padding had better be comfortable. I’m sure some of you might disagree as some of you might want be reminiscent of the early days of football. For you, I urge you, until you strap on your moleskin helmet ala Admiral Reeves and hit the field, shut your mouths, you posers.

3) Excellent protection- DUH. This is the main qualifier in this list. You can throw all of the other points in this list in sacrifice for this one. Don’t waste your time searching for a comfortable set of shoulder pads only to find out they’re comfortable because they offer crap protection. Unless of course various trips to the ER for head, neck, shoulder, and chest injuries are your thing.

4) High quality- Yes, the old saying is true. You get what you pay for and I can guarantee that a good trusted brand of shoulder pads are going to be of better quality than the no-name set of shoulder pads you found at Wal-Mart.

5) Lightweight- The shoulder pads are already the heaviest piece of equipment in your locker, try not to make this any worse than it needs to be.

6) Price- If you can find a set of shoulder pads for roughly $100 that match all of the above criteria, you found a good investment.

To wrap this all up, shoulder pads need to essentially do 2 things:
1) Absorb shock on impact.
2) Distribute the shock across the larger area of the shoulder pads so the impact isn’t exclusive to one spot.

Find a pair of shoulder pads that meet up to the criteria I outlined above and you will have a good set of shoulder pads that do the above two necessary jobs.