{"id":873751,"date":"2026-08-30T10:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T10:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873751\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T10:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T10:46:10","slug":"how-to-build-a-better-nfl-helmet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/873751\/","title":{"rendered":"How to build a better NFL helmet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-fb1753dc-8 gxkDGG\">There\u2019s a reason why Patrick Mahomes\u2019s helmet looks like that. The nearly $700 piece of headgear protecting the Kansas City Chiefs star quarterback sits high atop his dome in part because of a crowning discovery from decades of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/content\/article\/inside-quest-make-safer-football-helmet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">testing<\/a>: Distance makes the head blow softer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-fb1753dc-8 gxkDGG\">In other words, the more space and time between shell contact and head contact, the better\u2014similar to car crash safety techniques. That\u2019s why today\u2019s helmets are bigger and less rigid than their predecessors. Inside, 3D-printed, collapsible liners compress better than foam to absorb more impact.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-fb1753dc-8 gxkDGG\">Modern progress happened quickly:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve seen more change in roughly the last 14 years than we probably did in the previous 40,\u201d the director of the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab\u2014the leading authority in football helmet safety\u2014told the publication Science.When the lab started rating headgear in 2011, helmets received top marks (five stars) if they were projected to expose wearers to zero to 10 concussive hits in a season. That cutoff is now zero to 1.86 hits, reflecting how much helmet manufacturers have raised the bar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-fb1753dc-8 gxkDGG\">Progress can\u2019t come soon enough: At least one in four former NFL players <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/health\/cte-prevalence-nfl-players-9.7318799\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">developed<\/a> CTE, a brain disease caused by repeated head trauma, a new study suggested last week. A New York Giants\u2019 long snapper told Science that he feels the impact of head-to-head collisions less in newer helmets, but\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__StyledText-sc-fb1753dc-8 gxkDGG\">Their impact on injury prevention is hard to gauge, partially because CTE can only be diagnosed post-mortem. Concussions are down 35% in the NFL since a 2017 peak, but that may also be due in part to league rule changes\u2014including mandatory <a href=\"https:\/\/985thesportshub.com\/2026\/04\/08\/new-look-guardian-caps-are-coming-to-the-nfl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">bubble-like<\/a> helmet caps during practice. Plus, the league reportedly still averages 0.5 concussions per game.\u2014ML<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a reason why Patrick Mahomes\u2019s helmet looks like that. The nearly $700 piece of headgear protecting the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-873751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}