OPINION:
I worked in precision manufacturing for 42 years. We worked with industrial designers for new products. About 25 years ago one Buffalo, N.Y.-based designer I knew spent time with a neurosurgeon, a Buffalo Bills trainer, and a physics professor at Syracuse University. They came up with the idea that two hard items, crashing together like two NFL helmets, had nothing to absorb the energy (in the same way that car manufacturers learned that soft vinyl/rubber car bumpers caused less damage to each other than the old, hard, steel or chrome bumpers).
So they took a standard helmet and “over-molded” about a one-inch-thick soft foam material over the entire outside of the helmet. They found a way to paint it and put the Bills logo on it so it looked like the existing helmets, only a little bigger. The addition added very little weight.
In physics, two soft objects smashing together absorb the impact energy and keep it from transmitting to the head of the player. A couple of the Bills player used the helmet for a couple of years but then the entire project faded away.
I’m sure Riddell and other helmet manufacturers have had this idea, but for some reason we only hear talk of attempting to stop the players from crashing together (“LOVERRO: Band-aids won’t fix NFL’s wounds,” Web, April 1). Why has there been no talk of making the helmets better?
BARRY GOUGHNOUR
Woodbine, Md.
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