Late in your In the team’s game against the Green Bay Packers on September 15, Indianapolis Colts tight end Kylen Granson caught a short pass down the middle of the field, charged forward and lowered his body to prepare for contact. The side of his helmet hit linebacker Quay Walker’s mask, and the back of his helmet hit the ground as Walker tackled him. Granson stood up after the 9-yard gain, tossed the ball to an official and returned to the line of scrimmage for the next snap.
Aside from being his first catch of the 2024 National Football League season, this otherwise unremarkable play was only noteworthy for what Granson was wearing at the time of the hit: a 12-inch foam-padded protective helmet cover. ounces called Guardian. Cover.
Already required for most positions in all NFL preseason practices, as well as regular-season and postseason contact practices, these soft shells received another vote of confidence this year when the league gave them the green light to its optional use in games. citing a roughly 50 percent drop in concussions in training camp since its official debut in 2022. Through six weeks of action this fall, only 10 NFL players had taken the field with one, according to a league spokesperson. But the decision was easy for Granson, who tested his game-day Guardian Cap, covered by a 1-ounce pinnie with the Colts logo to simulate the helmet design underneath, in preseason games before committing to wearing it for real. .
“I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t affect me at all,” the 26-year-old told WIRED a few days before facing the Packers in Week 2. “I thought, even though it sounds a little silly, it’s worth it.”
You can’t ignore the ridiculous aesthetic of the bloated, bubble-filled Guardian Caps. The product’s parent company, Guardian Sports, even has t-shirts for staff that say: LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, PLAY GOOD, with LOOK GOOD crossed out. “Condom caps, mushroom heads—we’ve heard them all,” says Erin Hanson, co-founder of Guardian Sports with her husband, Lee Hanson. “We just laugh because we agree.”
It may be difficult to accept the reality that the apparent future of football helmets seems like something out of a 1960s sci-fi movie. But the fact that Guardian Caps are now allowed at NFL games (a well-known league for monitoring every inch of players’ equipment to protect their image) not only speaks to its laboratory-proven usefulness (even if published, field-reviewed data is still missing). It also reflects the urgency of the moment for football in general.
The dangers of wearing a helmet have never been clearer. given the link between repeated blows to the head, whether they cause a concussion or not, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (also known as CTE, a brain disorder associated with cognitive problems such as depression and progressive dementia that can only be diagnosed posthumously). It’s no coincidence that the race to find answers has become faster and more lucrative than ever, between the NFL’s funding for private research efforts and a rapidly innovating football helmet industry.
And at the center of it all, on sport’s biggest stage, is a family-run store that, less than a decade and a half ago, was struggling to find a foothold in football as anything more than a joke.