NFL to allow players to wear protective Guardian Caps in games beginning with 2024 season

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

In a continuing effort to improve player safety, the NFL is allowing a piece of hardware to move from the practice field to regular game play.

On Thursday, the NFL released video of a recent health and safety webinar in which a league executive revealed that players would be allowed to wear padded Guardian Caps during games this upcoming season.

"There is the option for a player to wear it in a game if he so chooses," said Dawn Aponte, the league's chief football administration officer. "There were a number of clubs that had already required all of their players to wear those. And last year, we had also expanded it to include regular-season practices, helmeted practices and postseason."

As Aponte mentioned, the NFL mandated wearing Guardian Caps during early training camp practices for all players except quarterbacks, kickers and punters. Last season, that requirement was also applied to regular-season contact practices.

Link to tweet

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-allow-players-wear-protective-guardian-caps-games-beginning-with-2024-season-190842381.html

[Silent Type]

1. Will be interesting to see which players don't wear the extra protection. It'll probably become a political issue.

[hlthe2b]

2. Interesting. I'm all for anything that improves safety against CTE and I assume these are lightweight

Admittedly they look bulky so that my kneejerk reaction was a little alarm that they might be putting more stress (and less protection) on the neck. But the video makes it pretty clear that these are exceedingly lightweight.

They will probably take a little getting used to for fans, but the priority is player safety so

[Brother Buzz]

3. We've come a long way, Baby!

[Marcuse]

4. Thirty years ago players who wore an extra brain bucket were widely mocked.