When a college quarterback wearing Riddell’s smart helmet is slammed unusually hard in the head, a coach on the sideline gets an immediate warning. Now, Riddell is upgrading that system to help coaches analyze head-injury trends so they can make smarter decisions about their players and reduce the chance of injury.
Riddell introduced the InSite Impact Response System in 2014 to alert football coaches when an athlete suffered significant impacts during a game or practice. The first-generation system was meant to help coaches and trainers identify and manage potential concussions on the field as soon as they occurred.
The 2018 version, called the Riddell Insite Training Tool (ITT), will do all of that plus provide detailed head-injury analytics, such as where on the head an athlete was hit and how hard, and how that hit stacks up against the national average.
Riddell’s analysis is based on a dataset of more than five million head impacts, which the company has been collecting over the past few years. The data has been used to inform rule changes to the game, and now these millions of instances of head impact will be used to guide coaches toward safer practices by helping them quantify day-by-day hits.
The new web-based platform leads to “smarter coaching,” said Thad Ide, Riddell’s senior vice president of research and product development.
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“We’re turning the helmet into a tool that can actively reduce impact exposure to a player,” Ide said. “Football is moving into the information age and this is going to provide them with information they can use to hopefully take football to a better, safer place.”
With ITT, coaches can run reports to receive a head impact analysis for any period of time. Coaches can, for example, analyze the across-the-board impact of a practice, or look at a particular player over the course of a week, season, or perhaps their entire football career (if they’ve used Riddell’s smart helmets throughout). The system then recommends training opportunities, such as letting coaches know that a particular position or drill is tied to unusually high head injury rates, so they can tweak practice to reduce the long-term impact on athletes.
While the previous system only recorded the highest-density impacts (the top five percent), ITT manages all impacts. The data is informed by sensors in the Riddell helmet that collect data from five zones: both sides, the front, rear and crown.
The smart helmet, initially built for youth and high school levels, has expanded in use up to the collegiate level as well. Riddell now counts the University of Texas and Colgate University among its clients, with more than 35,000 student athletes across 1,000 athletic programs in total.
SportTechie Takeaway
The Riddell system is meant to help manage concussions, particularly among student athletes. It’s also a preventative tool, arming coaches with digestible data they can use to reduce the chances of future dangerous impacts.
A number of companies are working on technologies to prevent and reduce concussions in football. Riddell has made this a priority after facing scrutiny alongside the NFL for contributions to football-related concussions and head injuries. The helmet supplier was sued by ex-NFL players in 2016 amid an onslaught of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain condition that has been linked to past head trauma.
In 2016, the NFL committed $100 million towards concussion research and related technology development, with the goal being to ultimately develop safer helmets and protocols. Engineering data released by the NFL last year showed that nearly half of concussions took place on a passing play, and identified cornerbacks and wide receivers as the most susceptible positions. Earlier this month, the league released a tool kit of engineering models of helmets, including the Riddell Revolution Speed Classic, that researchers could use to help develop better designs.
While no helmet or technology can completely prevent concussions, data and analysis are crucial aids in the development of safer helmets and more preventative protocols.