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The football-equipment business is the body-protection business. The point is to build protective gear that is both effective and comfortable; jousting in full body armor just won't cut it on the gridiron.
Take a look at a team picture of the 1940 Chicago Cardinals. Now look at a picture of the 1998 Chicago Bears. Sure, they both stunk out the joint, but at least the '98 Chicagoans were well protected as they slogged onto the field to receive their butt-whipping.
The images underscore just how dramatically football equipment has changed over the decades, especially the helmet.
Football helmets have come a long way since the days of crude leather and brittle plastic, because they've had to. It's the helmet's job to protect against fractured skulls, concussions, and compressed vertebrae, and it has to do this without impeding a player's mobility.
That's a tall order in a sport where the big hit is as glorified as the perfect catch. Even with all the advances in helmet design, head injuries still occur. Ask big-name quarterbacks like Steve Young and Troy Aikman, who have sustained repeated concussions following bone-to-helmet or helmet-to-helmet collisions.
"I don't know that we can totally prevent concussions, given the nature of the business we're in," said Brad Brown, head trainer for the Tennessee Titans (née Oilers). But Brown says "prevention" remains the watchword for helmet designers.
Football helmets are built to lessen the impact of two major types of hits. There's the direct hit -- or "translational impact," in industry parlance -- which delivers a strong blow to a specific area of the skull. Then there's the "spinning injury," or sudden rotation of the player's head, that results from a glancing blow from an opponent.
