For Giants and the NFL, it's the Summer of Guardian Caps
Carter Coughlin reported to training camp last week and was surprised to see what had happened to his helmet.
Instead of the sleek and shiny blue finish and the white NY decal on the side that he had worn his first two seasons, his headgear looked as if it had been turned inside out. Strapped to the outside of it was a bloated padding that made it about an inch or so thicker in each direction and individual cubes that looked as if they were designed in a game of Minecraft.
“It’s kind of goofy,” he said, holding it and staring at it after one of the Giants’ early training camp practices.
But the Giants linebacker wasn’t the only one in the locker room who found his helmet in such condition. All of the linebackers, defensive linemen, offensive linemen and tight ends had the same weird addition.
Welcome to the Summer of Guardian Caps in the NFL, a piece of extra equipment the league has mandated to be used by players who are at or near the line of scrimmage through the first several weeks of the preseason. The league says that when worn, the Guardian Cap results in at least a 10% reduction in severity of impact if one player is wearing it and at least a 20% reduction in impact if two players are wearing them.
They don’t eliminate concussions — no helmet can do that — but the idea is that they can mitigate the long-term effects of repeated contact to the head over time. The padding is a little firmer than Nerf, but not as rigid as the plastic shell that normally coats the outside of the helmet. If you have seen any photos of players during training camps this summer you undoubtedly have spotted these additions to the safety protocols . . . because they are hard to miss.
Darnay Holmes #30, New York Giants cornerback, second from left, gets congratulated by teammates after he returned an interception for a touchdown in a scrimmage during camp at Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, NJ on Friday, July 29, 2022. Credit: James Escher
“You don’t really notice it until someone makes fun of you,” linebacker Blake Martinez said. “Everyone wants to be swagged out nowadays, and when you have this big airbag on top of your helmet, you’re a little noticeable.”
The first leather helmets probably looked “goofy” to those who had been playing football bareheaded in the earliest days of the sport. The first facemasks undoubtedly stood out and looked just as “goofy.” So, too, do these Guardian Caps. Perhaps one day they will look less so.
For now, especially when compared to the helmets we have become accustomed to seeing for most of the Super Bowl era, they are comically ugly and outrageously oversized.
But even Martinez, critical of their aesthetics, conceded there are things more important than looking good.
“Anything that can protect your brain, especially for me, because I want to prolong this thing as long as possible,” he said pointing to his head. “So I’m down with it.”
New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley (26) runs the ball against linebacker Blake Martinez (54) during training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, NJ, on Wednesday, Jul 27, 2022. Credit: Brad Penner
It’s not as if he has much choice. The players are required to wear it for all practices up until the second preseason game. That is the period when the league says it sees the greatest concentration of helmet impacts.
Coughlin said he doesn’t think the Guardian Caps will ever make it onto the field in regular season or even preseason games. They do add a few ounces of extra weight, he said, barely noticeable but enough to throw off balance from the neck up. And they don’t always stay in place. At one point in practice last week, linebacker Elerson Smith was chasing down a play and the front of his Guardian Cap lifted up and started flapping like an unglued toupee.
If they work, though, and the numbers from this training camp show a decrease in concussions and related injuries, there’s a good chance the Guardian Caps will be around for a while.
Not everyone is completely embracing the idea. Jets coach Robert Saleh said on Saturday that he thinks the “spirit of [the rule] is really good” and there are “benefits,” but he wondered aloud if using the Guardian Caps in training camp encourages players to use their heads more because of the “soft blow.” There have been some in recent years — the late John Madden among them — who suggested that the best way to teach players to protect their heads would be to practice without any helmets at all.
But Giants coach Brian Daboll said the Bills experimented with Guardian Caps when he was the offensive coordinator in Buffalo and he likes them.
Said Daboll: “Anything that can prevent injury or help prevent injury or reduce the risk of injury for players, I’m all for it.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
