Football Equipment Guide

Archive for the ‘Football Equipment – Football Helmets’ Category

Let’s start from the bottom up, shall we?
By bottom up I mean the youth helmets up to the big boys.
So your son or daughter (yea, I said it) wants to play football? Chances are, unless you’re from a broken town with a run-down athletics program, your team will provide a helmet for your child to use. Let’s say you’re not feeling to safe with the helmets they’re giving out (and rightfully so, the effectiveness of a helmet decreases after just one full contact game!)
You might wanna take a look at the things being done over at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (a town that knows football).
They recently completed a study which spanned 3 long years with over 2,000 highschool football players. Their findings show, without question, the Riddel Revolution helmet provides exceptionally better protection for football players than any other.

Players wearing the Revolution helmet were 31% less likely to suffer a concussion compared to athletes who wore traditional helmets. For young players that have yet to experience a concussion, they were 41% less likely to have a concussion while wearing the Revolution.

Watch a Riddel helmet being made.

These helmets were built around highschool ballers needs. You can rest assured these helmets will do more than their share to protect your child’s precious little dome-piece.
Football equipment, top to bottom, not just helmets, should never be compromised. If you disagree, please, fill me on why in the world you would send your child out in untested, questionable and used football gear? To save a couple bucks? Because you think your school district gives a damn? Do yourself, your family and especially your child a favor; do your research and ask questions before you send him or her out onto the field in subpar football equipment.

Learn more about the Riddell Revolution IQ.

For starters; check to make sure all hardware and the face mask is made from stainless steel. I mean ALL of it. If not, toss it and keep shopping.
Of course, you’re going to want a face-mask that is appropriate for the position your child is going to be playing.
And secondly, make sure the helmet meets NOCSAE Standards – NOCSAE stands for the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, a voluntary organization that has developed standards for a variety of sports protective equipment. Any helmet that bears the NOCSAE seal shows the manufacturer has met the standards at the time the helmet was manufactured.
Everything else outside of that such as material used for the shell and the thickness of the padding is not to be worried about because, if it meets NOCSAE standards, you will know the helmet was made properly. And last but not least, check for a warranty. Three-years on the shell means the manufacturer stands behind their product.

So what about the big boys?
If you’re an NFL or even college player and you came across this site in search of advice on a good football helmet, you probably don’t have a lot of faith in the powers that be for your league. If you genuinely are looking for some advice on the kind of helmet to purchase if you’re purchasing your own, my recommendation gets thrown to the Schutt ION 4D Adult Football Helmet. This baby is the ultimate in protection with Skydex 2 Thermoplastic Urethane Cushioning (TPU) and the exclusive Energy Wedge shock absorber. The advanced Skydex 2 cushioning system features 3-D cushioning which conforms to the shell more closely eliminating breaks, meaning better protection. As opposed to the foam padding found in older traditional helmets, TPU Cushioning performs equally well at higher temperatures, does not take a compression set, eliminates the break-in period for the helmet and, unlike, is highly resistant to mold, bacteria and mildew. The exclusive ION 4D Energy Wedge absorbs up to 15% more energy from impacts to the facemask.

The ION 4D provides unsurpassed comfort and fit with the two-piece SUREFIT inflatable air liner, making this football’s best fitting helmet. Other features include an unobstructed wide view for better field vision, large ventilation holes for maximum air flow and unique chinstrap integration for the ultimate protection. This football helmet includes a soft and hard cup chin strap and universal jaw pads but does not come with a face mask. Ideal for top high school, collegiate and pro players who need the best protection and performance from their helmet. And yea, it fully meets and exceeds NOCSAE football equipment standards.

As always, I welcome opposing views and opinions.
Until later

Which piece of equipment comes to mind when you first consider the overall subject of football equipment? For me, it’s the helmet. That single piece of equipment has gone through more evolutionary changes than intelligence of our presidents.

The football helmet dates back to over 100 years ago when the first one was used in an Army/Navy game. The football helmet wasn’t invented for the sake of players to protect their melons, but rather for ONE player who was told that he was risking death or instant insanity if he took one more foot filled shoe to the dome. That player was Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves and his leather helmet was crafted by a shoemaker from Annapolis. It took close to 3 years for the idea to catch on when in 1896 a Lafayette College halfback by the name of George Barclay so feared the fabled cauliflower ear on his “hearing organs”, which he felt was a direct cause of playing bare-headed, that he had a playing hat made. What a long way they have come; from playing hats to the intimidating shells of protection and communication we see today.

In 100+ years, we went from this:

To this badass piece of equipment:

The picture above shows a football helmet with a headset installed inside for easy communication with coaches and coordinators. Even this kind of awesomeness doesn’t come without it’s hangups. NFL rules state that all helmets with a headset in them must have a visible green dot on the back. A few times in 2006, the holder on the field goal attempt was told to pull up and throw or run at the last second because of a change the coaches saw on the field. This gave teams an “unfair advantage” in the eyes of the NFL. The new rules let each team know who is wearing a headset and who is hearing the plays being called. Boo hoo.

Fun Fact:

“Did you know that football helmets weren’t even required in the NFL until the 1940′s ? Even still, it wasn’t until the 50′s when polymer helmets were finally introduced and the face mask began to take on a simplistic but important role.”

Let’s not kid ourselves though, although they’re very protective, just like all things “protective” they are not 100% preventative (see:condoms).

It’s only throug true badassery that a player is able to do something like have his helmet knocked off of his skull and still wrestle for extra yardage (I originally made a typo there and said ‘tardage’).
For more on such, see January 15, 2007 issue of Sports Illustrated which shows pics of Jeremy Shockey of the Giants pushing for extra mojo in a playoff game versus the Eagles.

So just how much impact can this pieces of wired up plastic brain paddings take?
Hell if I know and hell if anyone knows, the numbers are always going to be based on how the football helmet was manufactured and how/where the wearer was hit. However, in 2002; Dartmouth College nerds developed a system called the Head Impact Telemetry System (HITS). Using this piece of software, nerds can measure the impacts of players in real game time. HITS is being used to have a better understanding of how concussions and other head injuries happen. A major advantage of the Head Impact Telemetry System is its ease of use. Lower-level dorks can operate the system quickly, easily, and efficiently. I shamelessly borrowed the above from absolute astronomy dot com and then inserted the word nerd a couple times.

Check back later…