October 04, 2024
NFL players suffered fewer concussions in the 2024 preseason than in any prior year, an improvement attributed to improved helmet technology, mandated use of the Guardian Caps and the adoption of new rule changes. NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills and EVP/Player Health & Safety Jeff Miller shared the findings during a media briefing this morning.
In all, there were 44 documented concussions in the preseason, a 24% year-over-year decrease and fewer than half as many as the 91 reported as recently as 2017. Players wearing Guardian Caps — a soft padded shell worn over the helmet — had a nearly 50% reduction in concussions.
“We’re seeing a culture change that safety — and particularly safety around head impacts — continues to evolve and continues to be important to our players in the game,” said Sills, a practicing neurosurgeon.
More than 250 players are also wearing one of five helmet types for which a Guardian Cap is optional. That’s because their laboratory testing performance indicated they offer at least equal the protection of a lesser helmet worn together with a Guardian Cap.
Sills re-emphasized the efficacy of the Guardian Caps, calling them “an unqualified success” and stating that when a player is wearing one, it reduces 10-15% of the force transmitted through the helmet to the brain. When both players are wearing them, the effect is additive and reduces the force 20-30%.
“When we first introduced Guardian Caps, it was not with the idea of reducing concussions. That might sound a little counterintuitive, but what we were trying to accomplish was a reduction of force,” Sills said.
“The first season that we did this, which was 2022 preseason, we were quite surprised to see the concussions actually went down as well,” he added. “That was not, again, the primary goal of introducing the caps. But that magnitude of reduction in medicine is pretty hard to ignore, and so we further expanded that. Last year in 2023, we saw the same results again — about a 50% reduction in concussion for those players wearing the cap compared to their three-year average.”
All these changes have been implemented with full NFL and NFLPA collaboration. Usage of position-specific helmets rose dramatically, from about 20 OLs and eight QBs in 2023 to about 200 OLs and 28 QBs.