The NFL provided the first research update of its Engineering Roadmap, offering data from its video review of every concussion-inducing play from the past two seasons in hopes the work can “galvanize new ideas,” said Jeff Miller, the league executive charged with overseeing health and safety.
One early espoused proposal by Jeff Crandall, the Ph.D. director of the Center for Applied Biomechanics at the University of Virginia and chairman of the NFL Engineering Committee, is to “refine and modify the helmets to be somewhat position-specific.” No helmet, as yet, has been scientifically shown to prevent a concussion, but this committee has been infused with a $60 million budget as part of the Play Smart, Play Safe initiative to find a solution that does prevent concussions.
Crandall oversaw the analysis of all 459 documented concussions from the 2015 and 2016 NFL pre-, regular and postseasons. After identifying those head injuries that clearly occurred on a single play with a clear primary trauma, his team was left with 325 concussions which they categorized with more than 100 parameters.
Among the key findings:
*Nearly half of concussions took place on a passing play (resulting in either a throw or a sack), 30 percent on rushing plays and nearly a quarter on special teams.
*Cornerbacks and wide receivers were the most susceptible positions.
*Greater than 90 percent of concussions were, as expected, the result of either tackling or blocking, although more striking was that the player tackling was almost twice as likely to be concussed than the player being tackled, 41 percent of concussions compared to 22. Relatedly, 19 percent of concussions were suffered by the player blocking compared to 11 percent by the player being blocked.
*Nearly three-quarters of helmet blows originated from other helmets (36 percent), the ground (19 percent) or shoulder (17 percent).
“That tells us that if we’re going to prioritize, it’s really the big three: helmet to helmet, helmet to ground and helmet to shoulder,” Crandall said, estimating that the helmet-to-helmet contact rate would have been doubled some 15-to-20 years ago before the implementation of protective rule changes.
Some of the more granular data provides an opportunity to move away from universal helmet structures into equipment tailored to the particular demands of each position — what Crandall called “position-specific injury countermeasures.”
One such clear-cut example is that 40 percent of quarterback concussions resulted from blows in which the upper-rear section of the helmet collides with the ground, typically when the quarterback is sacked or otherwise hit. Perhaps quarterback helmets can be reinforced in that area. On the webinar slide, a few diagrams were posted, including a lacrosse helmet, which has an elongated rear segment, and a similar idea could be adapted with energy-attenuating materials. Another example was a motorcycle helmet with an internal airbag that could be deployed.
The NFL engineering team is intent on exploring innovative ideas from all sectors, releasing the specific data to crowdsource good ideas to combat the major issues of concussion and CTE onset. The league is also again sponsoring the fourth edition of the HeadHealthTECH Challenges spearheaded by researchers from Duke University.
The league is also planning to revamp some of its testing procedures as a product of this research. Crandall noted that roughly half of all concussions include blows to the side of the helmet, yet he showed a diagram noting where sensors are typically embedded in the lab environment, and there was only one location on the side. That doesn’t provide enough specificity in coverage of the forces. There is some thought to crafting helmets and shoulder pads not only to protect the wearer but also colliding partners, given the frequency of those types of protective gear delivering concussive blows.
As part of its holistic approach to remedying these problems, the league won’t restrict the findings of this research to engineering alone and will consider policy changes as well.
“If we look at a broader perspective — a sort of comprehensive injury-prevention strategy — not only can we look for changes in protective equipment but I think, if you look, there may be opportunities for rules and enforcement,” Crandall said.