Tua Tagovailoa will make his return to game action Sunday, and he’ll be doing so in his normal helmet sans a Guardian Cap.
And by opting against the Guardian Cap on top of that, Tagovailoa is forgoing what amounts to redundancy.
He wears a VICIS ZERO2 MATRIX ID QB helmet, which is a quarterback-specific modification of a VICIS helmet the league has deemed “Guardian Cap optional.”
“Now there is a subset of helmets that we tagged as Guardian Cap optional.
So adding a Guardian Cap to those helmets did not show that same 10 to 15% benefit.”
On Sunday, Tua Tagovailoa will return to tournament play, wearing his regular helmet without the Guardian Cap.
According to the NFL, Tagovailoa has worn the best quarterback gear available for lessening the severity of head impacts. Additionally, by choosing not to use the Guardian Cap, Tagovailoa is abandoning what is essentially redundancy.
Forty-five days after sustaining his third known concussion during his NFL career in Week 2 against the Bills, Tagovailoa will start against the Cardinals. He dons a VICIS ZERO2 MATRIX ID QB helmet, a quarterback-specific version of a VICIS helmet that the league has decided to make “Guardian Cap optional.”. “.”.
According to NFL chief medical physician Allen Sills, “for most helmets adding a Guardian Cap, an extra layer of padding, will reduce the force of each blow by somewhere between 10 and 15 percent,” as discussed by CBS Sports. “We have now designated a subset of helmets as Guardian Cap optional. And the explanation for this was that the helmets in the lab tests demonstrated that adding a Guardian Cap did not actually result in an additional benefit of that size.
Put another way, the helmet was reducing the force just as effectively as a standard helmet plus a guardian cap. Therefore, the 10–15% benefit of adding a Guardian Cap to those helmets was not observed. “.”.
The VICIS ZERO2-R MATRIX ID is the Guardian Cap optional helmet, technically, and the one that Tagovailoa wears is a quarterback-modified model that incorporates occipital padding to better shield a quarterback from more common blows to the back of the head.
In order to identify the best-performing helmets, researchers test the devices in labs by simulating on-field collisions that involve the kinds of force, direction, and speed observed in professional football. The league can analyze the data from RFID tags in each player’s helmet to determine the rate of force on the field and diagnosed concussions, and helmets are then ranked based on how well they reduce force.
We can go back and compare that to the lab data because we tag every helmet that each player wears, according to Sills. “We know exactly the concussion on-field rate for every single helmet.”. “And so that’s why we have a lot of confidence in that lab data. “.”.
For the first time since these devices were allowed, no quarterback has worn a Guardian Cap during play this season, regardless of the helmet they are wearing. About 0 to 8 pounds are added to the weight by the Guardian Cap alone.
Tagovailoa responded, “Personal choice,” when asked Monday why he would not wear the additional layer of protection. “.
Tagovailoa is not your average quarterback, of course. In the last five seasons, he is the only quarterback to have been placed in the concussion protocol at least three times. After practicing for the first time since being placed on injured reserve by the Dolphins, he cleared protocol this week. It’s only a technicality that he cleared protocol after almost six weeks because he had to resume practice before receiving full clearance, which he was unable to do while on IR.
Tagovailoa claims that within a day of the concussion, he had no more symptoms. Even though Dr. Dot Sills declined to discuss Tagovailoa’s case in detail, she did state that this kind of reporting is common.
“I would simply say that we do see in a significant number of cases with very transient symptoms after concussion, meaning that many players are asymptomatic by one or two days after an injury,” concludes Sill. “And I think that reflects the fact that we are very quick to diagnose concussion now in today’s system — meaning that even if someone has very transient symptoms, we’re going to ahead and diagnose them with concussion and put them through that rigorous return to play protocol because we always want to err on the side of being cautious.
As a result of our extreme conservatism, I believe that many of our players will soon lose their symptoms. Because of this, you will typically see that particular group of players who make sure not to miss a game that will take place the following week. “,”.
According to studies, athletes who sustain concussions frequently are more likely to sustain them again and may require more time to recover. None of the medical professionals Tagovailoa saw in the previous month suggested that he should retire or that he couldn’t play again.
Tagovailoa responded, “I appreciate your concern,” when asked this week what he would say to supporters worried that he might sustain another head injury. I genuinely do. I adore this game. And I will always love it. It’s that simple. “..”.
Both the NFL and Sills have maintained that the patient and medical staff would decide whether or not Tagovailoa returned. According to Sills, the league doesn’t engage in medical practice.
Sills states, “I have complete faith in the Dolphins medical staff that they are being as thorough and cautious as they can be, and that they have used all of their locally and globally recognized resources to give this player the best care possible and to ensure that all information is available for decision making.”. “,”.
