The Guardian Cap doesn’t look particularly high-tech, but there’s no doubt it’s having a huge impact on the NFL and countless football players. Most NFL fans probably don’t realize the technology behind the Guardian Cap has its roots in Indiana and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Upon first glance, most football fans would agree the padded covering fitted over football helmets looks downright strange, and even a bit goofy.
NFL players thought the same thing earlier this season when the NFL required all offensive and defensive linemen, tight ends and linebackers to wear Guardian Caps over their helmets during pre-season practices. One NFL player said players wearing them look like Stormtroopers out of the Star Wars movie franchise.
Though they look strange, the results are difficult to ignore.
In the first pre-season the devices were used, concussions among players wearing the Guardian Caps were down more than 50%, according to the NFL. Of the concussions that did occur, sensors on the helmet told the NFL that more than half happened on the face mask, an area not protected by the Guardian Caps.
“We were really impressed with the information, maybe even a little surprised,” says Jeff Miller, executive vice president overseeing player health and safety for the NFL.
Miller adds, “There were some lessons learned. We might be on to something here.”
The players apparently agreed. More than 200 of them have voluntarily chosen to continue to wear the Guardian Caps during practices this regular season.
“I was impressed by the numbers,” Miller states. “Either (the players) liked it, or their teammates liked it or they felt some additional protection. The 200-plus number was a good validation of its success.”
Miller admits that initially players were a bit skeptical of the bulky device placed over their helmets, but once they began playing barely noticed them.
“We said when we started all this work on helmet innovation, that it might look a little different,” Miller says. “I think this is case in point; it does look a little different, but people got used to it.”
In 2020, NFL officials chose Guardian Cap and Defend Your Head ProTech Helmet Cap in a collaborative effort between the NFL and NFL Players Association to have high-tech padded helmet covers tested by Biomechanics Consulting and Research under Dr. Ann Bailey Good, a senior mechanical engineer for Biocore.
The Guardian Cap’s technology has its roots in an innovation forged in open-wheel auto racing.
The science behind Guardian Caps is similar to the soft wall – or SAFER Barrier – technology pioneered by the IndyCar Series more than 20 years ago and adopted first at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) and other IndyCar tracks and later at NASCAR racetracks.
Then IndyCar and IMS chief executive Tony George spearheaded the project, spending millions of dollars on the technology with no guarantee in a return on that investment. The payoff came years later, when the technology was credited for saving several drivers’ lives, including IndyCar stars Arie Luyendyk and James Hinchcliffe.
The outer, softer material of the Guardian Caps, like the soft walls, absorbs most of the initial impact, lowering the forces on the hard shell and, in turn, lowering forces exerted on the head.
Some health and safety experts are hopeful there will be a trickledown effect with the NFL’s adoption of the Guardian Caps to the college, high school and even youth level. Some colleges have already adopted the device for use during practices.
Miller says the work on the device – which was specially designed and engineered in a laboratory to endure NFL-caliber impact – is ongoing.
“The fit and sizing wasn’t perfect for everybody,” Miller emphasizes. “We’ll go back to the manufacturer to make adjustments
NFL officials will get feedback from players and medical officials “to get a sense of what to do next,” he adds.
“But my thought around it goes a little bit broader,” Miller continues. “If we can do that with players, why isn’t there a practice helmet. Why don’t we create something for those sorts of impacts that will have an even greater beneficial impact for their health and safety that can withstand those sorts of impacts that maybe looks a little more like a helmet.
“I mentioned the impacts with the face masks where we saw some of the concussions there, why aren’t we looking at different sorts of face masks? Isn’t there innovation to be had there? We’re talking to the manufacturers around that now. It’s an ongoing thing. There is no finish line to the helmet and safety work specifically around concussions.”
Miller says league officials must continue to react to advances and changes to the game on the field.
“There are going to continue to be new play types. There are going to continue to be risky behavior we want to eliminate from the game,” he stresses. “(We must look at) drills too in practice. Maybe there are certain things we can do without.”
The NFL is getting a lot of applause for its proactive approach to reduce head and neck injuries and improve player health. But it wasn’t always that way.
After Dr. Bennet Omalu, discovered a preponderance of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in NFL players in the early 2000s, the NFL took a lot of heat for being slow to react.
More recently, the NFL and Miami Dolphins have been under fire for its handling of injured quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who stumbled while trying to get up from a big hit in a Sept. 25 game, but was let back in the contest. And then he was knocked out and taken off the field on a stretcher in a game four days later.
The late racing safety expert Bill Simpson, who designed helmets for 27 Indianapolis 500 winners and has been inducted into five motorsports halls of fame, said in 2010 that he could design a football helmet 10 times safer than anything used in the NFL. He also complained that the NFL was unwilling to work to make things safer for players with any helmet maker that was not an official league supplier or sponsor.
Nevertheless, Simpson did design and make helmets for several NFL players, including former Indianapolis Colts all-pro center Jeff Saturday.
Simpson, who died in 2019, partnered with IndyCar Series team owner Chip Ganassi to form Brownsburg-based SG Helmets, with a focus on high school and college markets. He also said he was intent on making helmets safer for players in youth leagues.
Simpson agreed with Miller that technological advances in helmets might radically change the look.
“It’s real Buck Rogers stuff,” Simpson said of his youth football helmet prototype. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
By 2018, high schools including Ben Davis and Center Grove had adopted Simpson’s helmets along with a handful of colleges including Virginia Tech, who gave SG Helmets a five-star rating.
Some football insiders say the push by Simpson and others – along with the publicity generated by Omalu’s work, which included a movie starring Will Smith – spurred NFL officials to get more serious about football helmet safety technology. Shortly before Simpson died, SG Helmets was re-branded to Light Helmets, a brand that lives on.
