Today's Tidbit... Absorblo, the 1960s Helmet Exterior Padding

Recent seasons have seen a reemergence of teams wearing exterior padding on their helmets during practice. The Guardian brand, which won the NFL's HeadHealth TECH award in 2017, provides helmet covers to teams at all levels. An example of their product is below.

Of course, this is not the first rodeo for exterior helmet padding. It has been part of the game since the first winged helmets arrived in 1930. Like those that appear on Michigan's helmets today, the original wings were more than decorations. They were stylized pads added to the forehead to provide additional protection.

The ProCaps of the 1980s and 1990s also had their day. Mark Kelso of the Buffalo Bills and Steve Wallace of the San Francisco 49ers wore ProCaps in games; Kelso did so after his fourth concussion.

Still, the focus here is on exterior padding developed in the 1950s at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory. Funded by MacGregor, they wanted to create the safest helmet and investigated solutions on the inside and outside of the helmet shell. The available accounts show they developed or used new synthetic materials to create innovative helmets. Since MacGregor sponsored the research, they received first dibs on commercializing the products. Unfortunately, the helmets they put on the market were uncomfortable and did not sell well, so MacGregor designed new helmets that used some elements from the research lab and not others.