Hits/Tackles
If you have ever
seen a football game then you know that they have some
brutal hits on each other nearly every game. If not here's
an example:
(Since hits like Kam Chancellor's of the Seahakes on Vernon Davis of the 49ers are fairly common occurrences today, the NFL has tried to give players the best equipment and enforce strict rules so they can avoid as many injuries as possible.
Pads
(When football was first started people didn't wear any padding unlike the suit of armor style padding wore by today's professionals. The athletes today wear everything from tailbone, elbow and hip padding to neck roles and mouth guards without forgetting the most important besides helmet, the shoulder pads. All these pads are meant to protect the players individual areas but in reality they all do the same basic thing. They cushion the impacts the player receives by making the impact last longer. Basically what this does is that it allows the object giving the impact to kind of slow down/loose some momentum before it actually hits the player which in turn means less force put into the actual player. According to a study down by the University of Tennessee Knoxville, "If a pad doubles the collision time, it deceases the force by a factor of 2."(9)
Helmets
A football helmet is much different than most other types of helmets that everyone else is used to. Unlike say a bike helmet or a snowboard helmet, football helmet needs to be able to take multiple hits and keep on working. In order to do that football helmets needed a better way than just using a hard styrofoam that disperses the energy of an impact throughout the helmet and letting it fail on the other side. The best way found so far but hasn't been put into place yet has been to put shock absorbers around the inside of the helmet so that they can absorb most of the force put into the helmet without failing so that it can go and do it again on the next play.
(10) This helmet would
likely help player get less concussions during play
because distinct from the helmets they use now, this
helmet would provide more individual pads to the helmets
that would also absorb more force.
Rules
Unfortunately for players pads can't always fully protect them during a hit.
Even though that was a college game it still shows one of the many ways players have an opportunity to take an easy shot at another player. This is why leagues put in rules that are supposed to protect players from dirty hits like these. The main rules put into place to protect players are the helmet to helmet rules. Those rules prevent the ball carrier and the defender from using their helmet in efforts to tackle or stop a tackle. They are very important because without them more and more players would be getting concussions and start suffering more long term damage to because no pads can protect them from having that much force put into their heads/bodies.
Rules
Unfortunately for players pads can't always fully protect them during a hit.
(Even though that was a college game it still shows one of the many ways players have an opportunity to take an easy shot at another player. This is why leagues put in rules that are supposed to protect players from dirty hits like these. The main rules put into place to protect players are the helmet to helmet rules. Those rules prevent the ball carrier and the defender from using their helmet in efforts to tackle or stop a tackle. They are very important because without them more and more players would be getting concussions and start suffering more long term damage to because no pads can protect them from having that much force put into their heads/bodies.