NFL to allow Guardian Caps during games. Will it trickle down to high school football?

As football coaches at all levels look to improve player safety, a new technology has risen to prominence.

After two years of players wearing Guardian Caps, an extra shell of padding that goes around helmets, during training camp, the NFL announced in April that it will permit players to wear the helmet add-on during games. With data mounting that the caps significantly decrease the incidence of concussions, Ohio high schools are taking note.

Though the Ohio High School Athletic Association permits players to wear them in games, that has been relatively uncommon. However, several schools have taken to wearing the caps in practice.

Andrew Skeels, the head football coach at Toledo Christian, explained that linemen and linebackers on his team have worn the Guardian Caps during practice for the past five years, and parent donations allowed the team to buy caps for the rest of the varsity team last year.

“When all the research came out about head injuries and concussions, I talked to a guy from Guardian and he was just explaining to me that these are to help prevent those,” Skeels said. “In the first year we had them, we didn’t see any concussions happen at practice, which was great.”

To date, most schools that use Guardian Caps rely on donors or parents to help pay for them, as equipping a whole team creates a significant cost burden for schools. A single cap costs around $70.

Chuck Jaco, the athletic director at Perrysburg High School, explained that between purchasing new helmets due to wear and tear and spending thousands of dollars to get helmets inspected, most football fans are unaware of the equipment costs associated with the sport. While Perrysburg’s donors paid for Guardian Caps to wear during practice, Jaco explained that, if OHSAA decides to require the caps in the future, figuring out the finances was a secondary priority to player safety.

“If that became a mandate, you would find a way to build that in and make that work within your budget,” he said. “Between the athletic department, the school district, and the football fund-raising account, you’d be able to make that work. You’d just have to get a little creative. I don’t think that would be too big of an obstacle.”

Any questions about an OHSAA mandate, however, seem wildly premature. While player safety is a priority, the organization still needs much more data before they require new gear. Beau Rugg, the director of officiating and sports management for the OHSAA, pointed to several reasons for skepticism.

First, helmet manufacturers can void any warranties if players add on the Guardian Caps, making it even more expensive to replace helmets as they break down. Second, new protocols about contact in practice and tackling technique have already slashed concussion rates. And third, there is still not sufficient data about potential side effects of Guardian Caps.

For example, Rugg, who is the OHSAA’s football administrator, discussed the danger of shifting the brunt of the impact from the head to the neck, potentially increasing the likelihood of a spinal injury. He also added that helmets are designed to skid off each other, while the padding diminishes some of that slipperiness.

When contemplating a rule change, he highlighted that safety is the only real thing he considers.

“Price doesn’t really enter into it,” Rugg said. “The whole issue is what’s the value of them, and there’s not a lot of data out there. They add weight to the helmet. How does that affect people? The testing that’s been done on them is impact, and does it lessen the impact? It may. But a concussion is not about impact, it’s about shaking of the head. But until a lot of data comes out, you can’t make a decision about them.”

Although all the evidence from practices and impact testing in labs has shown that the caps reduce impact by up to 33 percent, decrease the likelihood of brain injuries, and also reduce blows from helmets to other parts of the body, this data is still new, and has not been shown at full game speed.

Dr. Ryan Szepiela, a sports medicine doctor at ProMedica who works with several sports teams in the area, was cautiously optimistic about the technology. The cushion and padding are obvious protections against impact, and he found that the mechanism action made sense. He explained that it would take a few years of game data, however, to rule out potential unintended negative effects.

Beyond first-order effects, he also pointed to a concern about misuse, where increased padding could incentivize players to lower their heads even more, a dangerous practice that the game has tried to legislate away.

“If it reduces even the 10 percent or the 20 percent that the early studies show of reduction in concussions without side effects, then it’s obviously something you want to do,” Dr. Szepiela said. “Who wouldn’t want to be safer and who wouldn’t want to reduce risk of injury now and later in life?”

Bob Spaite, president of the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association, was quite skeptical about the need for additional rule changes or Guardian Cap mandates. Between improvements in helmet technology and tackling techniques, Spaite did not think football posed a much higher risk of injury than other sports.

He added that if parents truly were concerned about their children’s safety, they would not let them get in a car driven by a teenager, as that is more dangerous than any sport they could play.

“The game’s safer than it’s ever been,” Spaite said. “Just me personally, I think it’s a little overkill. But again, you’re never going to win an argument when they talk about the safety of the players.”

“There’s an inherent risk taken in anything you do, and I mean anything, and I think you’ve got to accept that if you want to enjoy life. I think the positives of football and the positives of athletic competition so far outweigh any possibility of a catastrophic injury that I hope we always keep that in mind.”

The debate over Guardian Caps still has a long way to go before the state is likely to change its policies, as the science and financials remain unresolved. If the NFL sticks with the caps and continues to integrate them into the game, however, it feels almost inevitable that they will trickle down to Ohio high schools at some point in the future.