The Evolution of Football Helmets
Before all the nice helmets that we have now in the NFL we had helmet that looked like leather caps. In the 1900s the leather caps where an optional headgear to wear by players, but in the 1920s hardened leather helmets were worn with more protection than the last helmets.
as more time passed the leather helmets kept on making new versions of it and then in 1939 John T. Riddel introduced the first ever plastic helmet. Helmet became more scarce because they used the plastic during World War II, but after the war the helmet went back into production. When there was an issue with the plastic mix the helmets started to break and then because of that the faulty plastic they were banned form the NFL. Within a year the problem was corrected and the plastic they re-introduced them and then they had created the padded helmets. When this was all going on there was still a problem and that was that the helmets were still opened face, and that caused bloody noses, Black eyes, and swollen lips. The changes all happened in 1955 when a single face bar (plastic) was added to the helmets.
The invention on the single bar face mask was from Paul Brown. After one of the Cleveland’s starting quarterback got hit in his face, Brown and a equipment manager quickly made up crossbar and sent him back out there to win the game. When the game was over they made up a better design of the crossbar they had made every Cleveland player wear a crossbar on there helmets and then more and more teams started to wear them . Riddel, made the official helmet of the National Football league and the facemasks where worn by every football player. After 0the invention of the face protection they started to make different styles of face protection masks, the last crossbar worn on the field was in 2007.
During the 60s and the 70s they manufactures started to develop thicker foam and padding for the inside of helmet. More time passes and they are still trying to make the inside of the helmets safer with the padding, with testing on dummies with the helmets on and seeing on how much the head would be damaged and how they can improve that design or the padding.
This leads to our time now and they have made the helmets more and more advanced and made the more safe for the professional player, even though that they are not perfectly safe still they are way more advanced then they used to be and way safer as well. The more and more that time goes on the more safer that the helmets will get and the less injures that would be caused.
