NFL Preparing to Embed Processors and Accelerometers in Player Helmets

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOeRGFPOtLY

As reported here in our story about Saints quarterback Drew Brees at SC10, the NFL is on the verge of pilot-testing accelerometers in player’s mouthpieces, earpieces, and helmets in an effort to minimize concussions from game play. Hard-hitting tackles can result in forces exceeding 80-G’s, the result of which is painfully obvious from this video from earlier this season.

According to this story in the Washington Post, measuring the force of blows to the head won’t immediately lead to a concussion-prevention application, but Kevin Guskiewicz, a committee member and chairman of the department of exercise and sport science at the University of North Carolina, said the information-gathering nevertheless should begin as soon as possible.

We are currently not where we’d like to be in understanding what an 80-G impact means relative to a 40-G impact. . . . My point has been all along if we don’t start somewhere – like now – we’ll never know,” Guskiewicz said.