In 2011, husband and wife duo Erin and Lee Hanson had the idea to take their 25 years of experience with the material science business and use it to innovate athletic technology. They created Guardian Caps, soft shell covers engineered to provide better protection from head trauma for football players. Rather than increase padding inside the helmet, Guardian Caps are a flexible layer of urethane covered with a layer of spandex. They slip over the outside of the helmet and dampen impact to the head by softening the amount of force hitting the plastic on the actual helmet. Athletic Physician, Cincere Freeman-Jones, explained the concept.
“The idea is to take the force of the impact on the soft shell so less damage goes to the head, we’re seeing a lot more players wear them in the NFL and the more you see it there the more you see it in college and high school,” Freeman-Jones said.
James Daniels, a guard for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was the first player to wear a Guardian Cap in a regular season NFL game in 2024. After the game Daniels said to reporters that he didn’t care how it looked, and that his head was more important. Some UA football players agree with Daniels.
“Yeah I like them, you know when I put the helmet on I’m not thinking about the injuries I’m going out there to hit and I definitely feel less impact,” Junior UA football player Drake Dorsey explained.
Guardian Cap’s usage in high school football has seemed to increase safety and decrease the risk and injuries associated with football, Upper Arlington players have noticed a significant difference after the mandate for practices.
”Yeah they’re nice, I feel more confident and safe, we’ve had a lot less concussions than last year so far,” UA junior football player Tyler Witten said.
The Guardian Cap website claims that the product has reduced NFL concussions by 52%, saying that the NFL had recorded its lowest number of concussions since 2015. However, a 2024 study by the National Institute of Health using impact sensors and video footage found that Guardian Caps did not reduce the force impacting the players’ heads, and that impacts from further than five yards became severe. Further inspection by Stanford Health led to significant findings. David Camarillo, PhD found that the force that was being reduced in lab experiments didn’t transfer to hits on the field.
“[They] found that in the real-life football practices, the cap failed to show a significant reduction in the impact from blows that didn’t cause concussion. Researchers believe such head banging, even in the absence of concussion, can contribute to the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy,” his study said.
This suggests that even if there’s reduction in force, it may not be as significant as some believe. While Ohio doesn’t require schools to mandate Guardian Cap usage, many districts have chosen to require players to wear them during practice. Another risk of Guardian Caps that Freeman-Jones explained is the risk of overconfident players going for dangerous hits because they feel completely protected.
“Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE, is basically when [someone] suffers repetitive hits to the head and over time it degenerates [their] brain,” Freeman-Jones explained.
Many athletic trainers and physicians feel that with the lack of resounding proof that Guardian Caps alone reduce concussions, that we shouldn’t push players to wear them. However some feel that if students want to wear them, we should make them available.
“If we have the means for it and people want to wear them, we can. I don’t think we should push and tell people you have to get this or you can’t play, but I think it’s okay to say if you want to wear this and you feel like you’re safer or you feel more secure and firm in yourself as a player, feel free to wear it,” Freeman-Jones commented.
