IT WAS A throwaway comment from a friend while watching Redzone during week one of the NFL season: “No player wearing a Guardian Cap will ever get into the Hall of Fame.” And yet, it makes perfect sense.
If you have even a passing interest in the NFL, you’ll have noticed an increase in the number of players wearing Guardian Caps, the oversized padded cover that straps onto the outside of a traditional hard-shell football helmet.
First introduced at the beginning of the 2024 season, around 25 players wore one at various points that year. That number has increased to nearly 40 already this season, with Chris Olave of the Saints among the most high-profile.
“I’ve got kids now,” Olave told reporters from the podium after he was asked about wearing one in New Orleans’ season opener against Detroit.
I love my kids to death. So, I don’t really care how it looks no more. I just got to throw it on.”
Olave: "I want to live a regular life after I'm done with football." Gerald Herbert / AP Photo/ / Alamy
Gerald Herbert / AP Photo/ / Alamy / AP Photo/ / Alamy
Aesthetics aside – it’s often remarked that it makes players look like real-life bobbleheads – the Guardian Cap is intended to reduce the danger of concussion in American football. The manufacturers say it does this by spreading the force of contact over a wider area and for a longer period, instead of concentrating it into a single sharp impact.
And the initial numbers seemed to back up the NFL’s belief in this product. During the 2022 preseason, the position groups subject to the mandated wearing of Guardian Caps in practice sessions recorded a decrease of more than 50% in concussions compared with the average across the previous three preseason periods.
Better still for the NFL, a 2025 study published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, based on the NFL’s injury surveillance system, found a 54%-62% reduction in the concussion rate during preseason training.
However, and it’s a pretty big however, when the researchers isolated concussions caused by a direct impact to the helmet — the area the Guardian Cap is designed to protect — there was no longer a statistically significant reduction in concussions.
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Separately, a study of college players found that wearing a Guardian Cap made no significant difference to the linear or rotational accelerations of the brain — the movements that cause concussions — during training. Another study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that followed 2,610 high school football players found an almost identical number of concussions — 33 v 31 — in those wearing and not wearing the Guardian Cap.
It should also be noted, when looking at the results of these studies, that NFL players use a heavier model of Guardian Cap (approximately 340g) compared to youth and college players (approximately 200g). So while it’s not quite comparing apples with oranges, it is comparing them with slightly smaller apples.
Why is all of this important? Because lives are on the line. A study released last month had the terrifying headline figure that at least one in four former NFL players suffered from the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
But diving into the weeds of the study is even more startling. Of the 878 former players who died during the timeframe of the study, 235 donated their brains for examination. 215 of those brains, 91%, were found to have CTE.
Dr Bennet Omalu is the pioneering researcher on CTE brain injuries. Eduardo Contreras / U-T San Diego / ZUMA / Alamy
Eduardo Contreras / U-T San Diego / ZUMA / Alamy / U-T San Diego / ZUMA / Alamy
CTE has been a talking point in the NFL since 2002, when Mike Webster, a four-time Super Bowl winner with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died homeless at the age of 50 having spent years blaming the NFL for his post-career ill health. After studying Webster’s brain, Dr Bennet Omalu, of the Will Smith Concussion movie fame, found high levels of CTE. It was the first time it had been observed in a non-combat sports athlete.
CTE is impossible to fully diagnose while a person is alive, but symptoms include mood disorders, headaches and difficulty with memory. It has been cited as playing a role in the deaths of many high-profile former NFL players who took their own lives – including Junior Seau and Aaron Hernandez.
While the debate over the effectiveness of the Guardian Cap continues, some high-profile player advocates are ready to move on, including Chris Nowinski, a former college football player, WWE superstar, and neuroscientist who is also the co-founder of the Concussion & CTE Foundation
“More padding is not the answer,” Nowinski recently told journalist Pablo Torre.
“We already know your brain is Jell-O floating in fluid. Putting more padding outside will help in some situations, but it’s going to hurt in other situations, especially rotation.
“Bigger, heavier helmet, bigger radius, more rotation.”
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More NFL players are wearing 'bobblehead' Guardian Caps to protect their brains – but does the science check out?
IT WAS A throwaway comment from a friend while watching Redzone during week one of the NFL season: “No player wearing a Guardian Cap will ever get into the Hall of Fame.” And yet, it makes perfect sense.
If you have even a passing interest in the NFL, you’ll have noticed an increase in the number of players wearing Guardian Caps, the oversized padded cover that straps onto the outside of a traditional hard-shell football helmet.
First introduced at the beginning of the 2024 season, around 25 players wore one at various points that year. That number has increased to nearly 40 already this season, with Chris Olave of the Saints among the most high-profile.
“I’ve got kids now,” Olave told reporters from the podium after he was asked about wearing one in New Orleans’ season opener against Detroit.
I love my kids to death. So, I don’t really care how it looks no more. I just got to throw it on.”
Aesthetics aside – it’s often remarked that it makes players look like real-life bobbleheads – the Guardian Cap is intended to reduce the danger of concussion in American football. The manufacturers say it does this by spreading the force of contact over a wider area and for a longer period, instead of concentrating it into a single sharp impact.
And the initial numbers seemed to back up the NFL’s belief in this product. During the 2022 preseason, the position groups subject to the mandated wearing of Guardian Caps in practice sessions recorded a decrease of more than 50% in concussions compared with the average across the previous three preseason periods.
Better still for the NFL, a 2025 study published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, based on the NFL’s injury surveillance system, found a 54%-62% reduction in the concussion rate during preseason training.
However, and it’s a pretty big however, when the researchers isolated concussions caused by a direct impact to the helmet — the area the Guardian Cap is designed to protect — there was no longer a statistically significant reduction in concussions.
Separately, a study of college players found that wearing a Guardian Cap made no significant difference to the linear or rotational accelerations of the brain — the movements that cause concussions — during training. Another study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that followed 2,610 high school football players found an almost identical number of concussions — 33 v 31 — in those wearing and not wearing the Guardian Cap.
It should also be noted, when looking at the results of these studies, that NFL players use a heavier model of Guardian Cap (approximately 340g) compared to youth and college players (approximately 200g). So while it’s not quite comparing apples with oranges, it is comparing them with slightly smaller apples.
Why is all of this important? Because lives are on the line. A study released last month had the terrifying headline figure that at least one in four former NFL players suffered from the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
But diving into the weeds of the study is even more startling. Of the 878 former players who died during the timeframe of the study, 235 donated their brains for examination. 215 of those brains, 91%, were found to have CTE.
CTE has been a talking point in the NFL since 2002, when Mike Webster, a four-time Super Bowl winner with the Pittsburgh Steelers, died homeless at the age of 50 having spent years blaming the NFL for his post-career ill health. After studying Webster’s brain, Dr Bennet Omalu, of the Will Smith Concussion movie fame, found high levels of CTE. It was the first time it had been observed in a non-combat sports athlete.
CTE is impossible to fully diagnose while a person is alive, but symptoms include mood disorders, headaches and difficulty with memory. It has been cited as playing a role in the deaths of many high-profile former NFL players who took their own lives – including Junior Seau and Aaron Hernandez.
While the debate over the effectiveness of the Guardian Cap continues, some high-profile player advocates are ready to move on, including Chris Nowinski, a former college football player, WWE superstar, and neuroscientist who is also the co-founder of the Concussion & CTE Foundation
“More padding is not the answer,” Nowinski recently told journalist Pablo Torre.
“We already know your brain is Jell-O floating in fluid. Putting more padding outside will help in some situations, but it’s going to hurt in other situations, especially rotation.
“Bigger, heavier helmet, bigger radius, more rotation.”
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American Football concussions CTE guardian caps NFL player safety