Erin Hanson was leading a revolution. For years, only she and her husband Lee knew it. Their company, the Hanson Group, was a chemical engineering firm that had provided materials for everything from the Atlas 5 booster rocket to the coatings for Max Fli golf balls.
But this side project — this revolution — was going to be big. Really big. All it took was convincing the sport of football to fundamentally alter its most crucial piece of equipment, the helmet.
The Guardian Cap was born 14 years ago out of innovation and necessity. Both the NFL and NCAA had lagged at times in protecting its players’ heads. At least the mounting lawsuits said as much.
“Critics would say, ‘They’re making money out of scare tactics,” Erin Hanson said. “We were somebody who just truly has a mission … and then they’re like, ‘You’re trying to make money off of kids. You’re trying to scare parents.'”
You’ve probably seen the Guardian Cap, worn mostly in practice in college and the NFL until recently, where it has slowly broken through to gameday. It is a soft shell cap attachment made of foam padding that attaches to the helmet and disperses impact. Its price per unit is $55.
The NFL recently gave players the option of wearing them in games, citing research that has shown a 46% reduction in concussions.
Quietly, the NCAA has essentially allowed their use as well. Virginia Tech lawyers met with NCAA lawyers before the 2023 season to hammer out a solution when coach Brent Pry’s football program wanted to use a version of them in games, CBS Sports has learned.
At the high school level, the safety of the sport came again came into focus when eight teenagers who played football in the U.S. died in August, including three from suspected brain injuries.
So far a total of 10 players — eight in the NFL this season, two at Virginia Tech last season — have worn what are called “add ons” in the industry to their helmets in games. Virginia Tech is believed to be the first FBS program to use them in games.
Perhaps a small revolution, but still a revolution.
That’s where a dichotomy emerges. The Guardian is either the ugliest accessory since nose rings or about to start that player safety revolution.
If those concussion studies are accurate, that would raise two issues:
1) Guardian Caps have been used at all levels of football practice for at least a decade. If they were good enough practice, why weren’t they good enough for games until recently?
2) The research would suggest a sea change, a breakthrough in head trauma prevention. If so, why isn’t everyone wearing the protection that claims to cut the chance of concussion in half?
The answers are as complicated as diagnosing concussions in the first place. Erin Hanson is a 45-year-old ball of energy who raised five children while Lee, her husband, developed their main business, the Hanson Group, which manufacturers high performance coating systems.
Four years ago Guardian Sports, the company, began making money. It is now the industry standard for add-ons.
“My goal at 45 after raising five children was not to start a business,” Erin Hanson said. “But the reality was, nobody was going to do it if we weren’t going to do it. There was a spiritual aspect, a calling to us.”
The couple was inspired to create Guardian Caps when son Jake, now Guardian Sports COO, played goalie for Georgia Tech’s field hockey team.
“We didn’t like he creamed with a ball that got hard as a rock at 190 mph,” Erin Hanson said. “So Lee went back to the lab and made a urethane ball that never hardens … Now it’s the official ball of NCAA tournaments.”
Guardian Sports had expanded to manufacture not only lacrosse balls but climbing holds, golf balls and artificial turf infill.
Critics say the reason Guardian Caps aren’t more widespread is that they are ugly. The bulbous element makes its wearers resemble the Great Gazoo from the old Flintstones cartoon. The look good/feel good, feel good/play good culture in sports — not just football — faces an uphill battle of getting players to opt into diminishing their on-field aesthetic.
“I can send you about 5,000 memes that really aren’t flattering,” Erin Hanson said of her product.
She recalled the derogatory nicknames that have been attached to Guardian Caps – “Condom Cap,” “Bubble Head,” “Bobble Head”.
“You go to South Texas and you talk to a [high school] coach who says, ‘I got my bell rung why would I need this sissy cap on?’ ” Jake Hanson said.
There is also reasonable doubt about the research itself. There is no peer-reviewed, published study in a major medical or training publication regarding add-ons. The closest thing might be the NFL, which went through an exhaustive three-year study during which it measured the Guardian Caps’ effectiveness.
That research showed that wearing them in practice had reduced concussions by almost half. The league made news in the offseason when it allowed the use of Guardian Caps in games. Their use is optional.
“It really surprised us because we didn’t primarily introduce the caps to prevent concussions,” NFL chief medical officer Allen Sills told CBS. “Caps were really introduced to reduce the force anytime the helmet was contacted.
“It wasn’t, ‘Let’s prevent concussions. It was really, ‘Let’s really reduce force anytime the helmet is contacted.’ I’d say we were very pleasantly surprised to see that magnitude of a drop in concussions.”
Sills said the process is deep into a peer review of the NFL research that will lead to publication.
“Its [claims] shouldn’t be accepted until it’s published,” said former head Oklahoma trainer Scott Anderson, who retired in 2022. Anderson was inducted into the National Association of Athletic Trainers’ Hall of Fame in 2022.
All of it is significant with player safety and head trauma never being far from the headlines. Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered his third career concussion in mid-September. There are questions whether Tagovailoa should retire given the dangers of his continuing to play as concussions mount, as outlined:
The research into the long-term impact of concussions is fairly recent, detailing associated increases with dementia and repeated concussions being associated with developing a degenerative disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which has Alzheimer-like symptoms and was discovered in the early 2000s.
The College Football Playoff this fall expands to a 12-team bracket which means that at least one team each season could be playing 17 games in a season, equal to the NFL regular season.
Tennessee Titans tight end Josh Whyle is one of those eight NFL players using Guardian Caps.
“Just for my own safety,” he told Titans.com. “Can’t afford to get another [concussion] and I want to be out there playing on Saturdays.”
The New York Times quoted Indianapolis Colts tight end Kylen Granson, who planned to wear an add-on this season.
“I’m going to get married this coming year. I want to be able to remember our first dance 30 years from now,” he said.
The long term impact of head trauma is one of the game’s biggest concerns. The NCAA continues getting its arms around the head trauma issue. As a result of the landmark Arrington vs. NCAA settlement in 2019, schools are required to monitor, catalog and report concussions. It is not known if all schools have adhered to the requirements or if any violators have been penalized by the NCAA.
The Medical Monitoring Program commenced in 2020 and will last 70 years per the settlement agreement. As part of that settlement, players who participated prior to July 15 of 2016 can receive free medical testing and monitoring up to two times over the next 50 years beginning in 2020.
As part of that settlement, all three NCAA divisions adopted rules requiring schools to collect and report concussions diagnosed after May 18, 2020.
“Who the heck is the NCAA to tell somebody not to wear something that they think might help them,” Egdorf, the lawyer, said.
NCAA stats show a general decrease in targeting fouls. That rule was put in in 2008. Disqualifications were added in 2013. But all of it goes to Anderson’s point. In 2022, the Baton Rouge Advocate pointed out the NCAA spends more 1,000 words in the rulebook defining targeting. The next most explained rule is 350 words.
But targeting remains difficult to legislate on the field and remains in the eye of the beholder – that is, the official.
“The NFL has maybe done a better job of reducing some of the gratuitous contact,” Anderson said. “The answer isn’t better technology for protecting equipment. The answer is taking out the head.
“Make the rule simple … contact with the helmet is a foul. If in doubt, it’s a foul. It’s not consistently enforced … The head is at risk.”
Guardian Caps’ sole competition is a company called SAFR helmet covers (Scientifically Advanced Force Reduction) out of Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. It differs from Guardian in that its product attaches to the helmet permanently. SAFR caps are less noticeable than the Guardian.
The Virginia Tech Helmet Lab is the leader in the industry. It annually tests helmets on the market and rates them. The lab tested both the Guardian caps and SAFR add-ons. It found “average decreases in concussion risk” by 15% to 34%.
The lab said there are “notable differences” between Guardian and SAFR. The effectiveness of add-ons can vary from helmet to helmet. The lab also concluded add-ons “can enhance” helmet safety but there are “a lot of variables to consider.”
The speed of two forces on any given collision, plus the angle and torque of the head and neck, are uncontrolled variables.
“I would look at this [add-ons] as kind of the second big step,” said Stefan Duma. Duma is a Virginia Tech professor of engineering and helps run the Virginia Tech Helmet Lab.
“Around 2011, 2012 we saw the same thing when we first started rating helmets,” Duma said. “We recorded over a 50% drop in concussions. We tracked eight universities for several years. That was the first step to kind of push everybody into these new modern helmets.”
SAFR advertises on its website a 77% reduction in concussions when wearing the add-on. Taken together those NFL and SAFR studies would indicate on a breakthrough in helmet safety.
“They [NFL] took the Guardian Caps and they had to study them. Sounds like a great idea,” said Catherine O’Neal, chief medical officer of the SEC. “There are lots of things in medicine that sound like a great idea and they end up having other things that happen along the way. What the NFL has just put out for us is sort of the evidence that we absolutely know if you wear a Guardian Cap you take a lesser force with each hit.
“Does that mean if I wear a Guardian Cap I’m going to have less concussions? Not necessarily. Their concussions are down, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s entirely linked to the Guardian Caps.”
Even though the NFL and Guardians’ research is soon expected to be published, the lack of a peer-reviewed journal to weigh in on the subject remains a concern.
“Let’s say the data really shows it prevents concussions,” said Gene Egdorf, a veteran Houston-based attorney who has litigated player safety cases since 2009. “There’s also all other factors out there. There are less plays [these days]. If I want to play Devil’s Advocate, it’s the same problem we have with helmets to begin with. They provide a false sense of security.”
Egdorf then sounded like he was arguing in front of a jury. That should concern anyone involved in this discussion. Since 2014, the Concussion Legacy Foundation has urged that only flag football should be played under the age of 14. The CLF is linked to Boston University’s CTE Center that tracks the frequency of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in brains donated by former NFL players.
“Picture making you a bowl of Jello,” Egdorf added. “Picture that Jello in a Tupperware bowl and you shake it around. Your brain is basically the same consistency as that Jello.
“When you get hit in the head or you slap the side of that Tupperware bowl, that bowl doesn’t break does it? What happens with repetitive impacts is your brain slamming into the side of your skull. How does something on the outside keep your brain from taking that blow? It doesn’t.”
We got to this place with different levels of certainty. The NFL has a players’ association that had to sign off on the use of Guardian Caps.
The NCAA involvement is more complicated. When CBS Sports began researching this story several months ago, Steve Shaw, secretary-rules editor of the NCAA Football Rules Committee, was asked if there was interest in college football adopting add-ons for games.
“If we received a request we would strongly consider that request,” Shaw said in February. “We’ve just not gotten any requests but if we do it will be strongly considered.”
Turns out, the NCAA had gotten a request. Before the 2023 season Virginia Tech reached out to the NCAA to use the SAFR technology in games, according to Duma.
At issue was the NOCSAE label that appears on every helmet. The disclaimer from the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment states a piece of sports equipment meets the latest science, technology and medicine criteria.
If that label is covered it can void a helmet warranty. NCAA rules state helmets must “carry a warning label regarding the risk of injury” and a NOCSAE sticker.
The SAFR technology used by Virginia Tech covered up the NOCSAE label, Duma said.
“The NCAA … was not going to allow [SAFR],” he added. “We made the decision if our players wanted to wear them, we were going to let them and we did that … There has not been a problem. There has been a lot of discussion around liability. People don’t understand and what we implored to the NCAA, is that if you say you’re voiding the warranty, the only warranty is for the quality of the integrity of the helmet … There is no warranty for injury or anything like that … We went round and round with our lawyers and NCAA. We said, ‘That’s not a concern for us.’ “
A Virginia Tech spokesman said SAFR “is at the forefront of innovation of college football safety and that it meets NOCSAE safety standards.” In “collaboration” with the NCAA, ACC and Virginia Tech, a pair of football players wore them during the 2023 season. No players have worn them to date this season, the school said.
Virginia Tech had no concussions while wearing SAFR technology in spring practice from 2021-2024, Duma said.
The NCAA did not immediately make available legal staff to discuss the situation with Virginia Tech.
But rules have consequences, or should. That’s the point of the 258-page NCAA Football Rulebook: Penalties are called for on-field violations. In this case the NCAA has essentially handed off responsibility to the schools who assume liability.
“There was no way I was going to say I don’t approve this,” Shaw added. “That’s when I went and got our attorneys. We said, ‘As long as you follow the rules.’ It says specifically that [the helmet] is NOCSEA-certified then we’re OK. That is up to you.”
But if that sticker is covered up, doesn’t that void the certification? Yes, said Mike Oliver, NOCSAE executive director and legal counsel.
“If they want to make that call it’s up to them,” Oliver told CBS Sports. “It’s still a violation. We’ve maintained that position pretty well.”
So what are the consequences of a violation?
“The penalty is that in order to maintain a valid certification those labels have to be visible,” Oliver said. “The visibility of the label is for the benefit of the user.
“Technically what [a violation] does, is the helmet no longer meets the standard. The penalty for that is if [NCAA] wants to enforce it, it’s a player using illegal equipment.”
That circular argument masks the real concern. It’s a matter of who has liability in these situations. The Guardian Sports website states: “No helmet, practice apparatus or helmet pad can prevent or eliminate the risk of concussions … Researchers have not reached an agreement on how the results of … tests relate to concussions.”
Example: A Pittsburgh-area high school player was hospitalized with a brain bleed after being hit in a game last weekend. The player, an 18-year-old, was wearing a Guardian Cap in the game, according to news accounts. His mother told WPXI that her son suffered his fourth concussion Friday after being cleared by doctors two months ago.
“Regardless of the helmet add-on … any player can still sustain a concussion,” Duma said. “Our results represent average risks across the football player population … and should not be interpreted as absolute risk measurements for individual players.”
Shaw told CBS Sports it doesn’t necessarily matter if the NOCSAE sticker is visible as long as it is there somewhere on the helmet.
“There is typically an external NOCSAE sticker and there’s an internal one,” Shaw said. “As long as it has the NOCSAE sticker [it’s good].”
“Nothing happens if you cover up the sticker,” Anderson said. “You get a letter saying, ‘Do don’t that.'”
There was a similar legal philosophy when helmet communications debuted at the college level this season. Helmet manufacturers commonly maintain that any alteration of the helmet voids the warranty. Those communication devices had to be installed into existing helmets.
Schools were told by the NCAA to make their own decisions regarding the communication devices. Unlike add-ons, those devices are not noticeable.
Guardian Caps sell for approximately $55 per unit and weigh seven ounces. The more enhanced NXT model, weighing more than 11 ounces, are worn by the NFL and have been ordered by a handful of schools such as Georgia, Colorado and Tennessee, according to Erin Hanson.
In fact, because Guardian Caps look so bulky it was imperative that “GameDay Covers” were developed. Those are stretchable covers that matched the helmet logos and colors.
“Aesthetics are a huge part of the game …,” Erin Hanson said. “We’re not an aesthetics company but we’re starting to become one.”
The components are relatively simple: foam forming an extra layer of padding that dispersed the impact.
“You work up all this street cred within an industry [Hanson Group] and then you decide to go into the sports equipment industry and all the sudden you’re a snake oil salesman,” Erin Hanson said. “It does not translate. Everybody wants somebody to step up and do something. And then you do and they go, ‘Not that. Not that cap. Please not that cap.'”
There is an ongoing struggle to deal with the sport’s basic equation. Force = mass X acceleration. Lessening the force, or at least distributing it over the area of the head, became a way for the NFL and colleges to protect themselves, physically and legally.
Several sources told CBS Sports they expect the issue to one day lead to position-specific helmets. There is a long way to go when only eight of 1,700 NFL players on active rosters and two out of 11,000 FBS players, and none this season, are using add-ons.
“I think we’re all very surprised at the magnitude of concussion reduction,” Sills said. “But we’re all about doing what we can to make the game safer. The magnitude of that finding was too significant to ignore.”
