Content available exclusively for subscribers
We have seen this problem first-hand around the Jets, and the NFL is taking their efforts to fix-it to a whole new level . . .
Concussions ended the careers of two of the greatest receivers in Jets history – Al Toon and Wayne Chrebet.
In the past, the NFL didn’t do enough to deal with the concussion issue. Now they are bending over backwards to fix this problem.
They set-up the “Head, Neck and Spine Engineering Subcommittee,” led by Dr. Jeff Crandall and an experienced group of technical experts — biomechanical engineers, biomedical engineers, material scientists — who study helmets, pads and other equipment to improve safety on the field.
“The engineering roadmap is a comprehensive and dedicated plan where we are trying to create innovation, and we are trying to significantly improve head protection for NFL players in three-five years,” Crandall said.
They are looking to use some technology from the auto industry.
“It’s an injury-prevention strategy that is based on and takes a lot from practices that have been successful in automobile safety,” Crandall said. “If you look at what happens in automobile safety, the way that they design a vehicle now is very different from how they did it 30, 40 years ago, simulations are done before you have ever done an experiment, so you can run through many different iterations of design, and see which ones are effective.”
They are looking into advances in roof lining of cars as something that can be used in helmet technology.
They have done extensive film study of every concussion from the last two years to see how each occurred.
“Roughly one-third of all concussions are caused by a helmet to helmet impact,” Crandall said. “About one-fifth or 20 percent are helmet to ground. Nearly half are helmet-to-body. If you look at this, we can compare it to some comparable data that was collected 15-20 years ago and we start to see a shift in the demographics of how concussions are occurring. What we see is that there has been roughly a 40 percent reduction in the number of helmet-to-helmet concussions that have occurred, so there has been a large drop in those.”
New helmets are on the horizon.
“We bring all new models of helmets in, and we perform testing. We do this in conjunction with the players’ association,” Crandall said. “Basically what that is, is a different type of helmet, it has a more deformable shell, an outer shell. What we’ve seen is that by innovations that can be realized, we can break away from traditional designs, and create better performing helmets. We’d like to capitalize on more of those innovations.”
Crandall said the position-specific helmets are close to being a reality.
“Longer term, I said that we wanted to look at position-specific helmet,” Crandall said. “In order to get enough information to do that on all the different positions, we have to capture a lot of information on the head motions that occur both when players are injured and when they are not injured in plays. We’re looking at developing sensors that would go on the player’s head that would actually capture both the linear and rotational motions that occur during impact.”
It’s too late for Wayne and Al, but perhaps players moving forward will have a better fate.
April 6, 2017
Premium will return by 9:30 pm on Friday.
