Not too long ago, trauma suffered by NFL stars has raised recent considerations in regards to the league’s ongoing points with head accidents — and raised questions on whether or not there may be extra the NFL may do to guard its gamers.
In early September, Tua Tagovailoa, a quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, suffered a daunting third (recognized) concussion, prompting some followers and former gamers to induce his retirement. Within the wake of that damage, former Inexperienced Bay Packers star quarterback Brett Favre disclosed a prognosis of Parkinson’s illness throughout congressional testimony on Tuesday, noting that repeated head trauma was seemingly a significant component. And on Thursday, Malik Nabers, a rookie vast receiver for the New York Giants, set a receiving file earlier than leaving the sport with a concussion.
It isn’t information that skilled soccer will be harmful: The NFL first admitted the connection between soccer and CTE — continual traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative mind situation — in 2016. CTE is most frequently present in athletes who are suffering repeated hits to the pinnacle and members of the army who’re uncovered to explosive blasts, and has been tied to the deaths of well-known soccer gamers, together with Andre Waters and Mike Webster. Greater than 300 former soccer gamers have been recognized with CTE following their deaths. (The situation requires a mind post-mortem to precisely diagnose.)
As a consequence of considerations about CTE and different circumstances associated to mind trauma, the league has invested in enhancing the gear that gamers put on, modified guidelines for apply and recreation day, and promoted strategies meant to cut back head contact. This season, these modifications embody permitting gamers to put on new headgear meant to raised defend gamers’ brains. This week, nonetheless, was a reminder that main issues stay for America’s hottest sport.
The NFL is engaged on protections. It’s not clear they’re sufficient.
In recent times, the NFL has made main modifications to helmets and protecting gear, in addition to shifts to in-game guidelines aimed toward lowering collisions, NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills instructed Vox.
Maybe one of the noticeable this season is the introduction of a brand new kind of headgear known as “Guardian Caps” — layers of froth padding worn over a helmet — throughout video games. The caps, which most gamers have been required to put on when practising since 2022, are meant to cut back the impression that gamers expertise in the event that they get hit within the head, doubtlessly by about 10 %, based on the NFL.
There are a couple of points with the caps, nonetheless. One, gamers aren’t required to put on them throughout video games, and comparatively few gamers have chosen to take action up to now, limiting their impression.
And impartial research additionally haven’t confirmed whether or not they’re efficient. Regardless of the NFL’s findings, separate groups of researchers from the College of North Carolina and the College of Nevada-Reno each discovered restricted reductions in power for gamers sporting the caps, whereas a 3rd examine, from Stanford, noticed power reductions within the lab however not when athletes wore them on the sector. Sills argues this variability comes from variations within the researchers’ methodology and the NFL’s, and notes that the NFL intends to publish its analysis throughout the subsequent few months.
The NFL additionally claims its researchers discovered that Guardian Caps decreased concussions by roughly 50 % when worn in apply, a discovering that some physicians have been skeptical of.
One foremost subject, docs instructed the New York Occasions, is that higher helmets and Guardian Caps defend the pinnacle, however they don’t defend the neck — which will be essential for stopping concussions. Hits and twisting of the neck play a serious function in inflicting concussions, they notice.
As Jamshid Ghajar, a neurosurgeon, instructed the Occasions, race automotive drivers’ helmets, like these utilized in Method 1 racing, are simpler at stopping concussions as a result of they stabilize the neck even in instances of a crash. The NFL has disputed the Occasions’s characterization of concussions, and Sills argued that concussions aren’t predominantly attributable to what he characterised as “neck forces.”
The NFL has additionally touted its use of 12 new helmet fashions this season, that are supposed to guard gamers from position-specific blows, and a brand new rule meant to make kickoffs — part of the sport through which gamers run towards each other, usually at excessive speeds — safer. The effectiveness of those modifications continues to be unclear, and it’s vital to notice that even with these modifications, the basic subject of soccer involving bodily collisions and head contact stays.
As Julie Stamm, a neuroscientist on the College of Wisconsin Madison, notes, “one of the simplest ways to stop [head trauma] is to not have impacts.”