do I think the guardian cap would have helped prevent Tua concussion on Thursday night what is the guardian cap and what is the data let's get into it it's a soft shell attachment that goes over the helmet and weighs less than 7 oz the cap itself was actually invented in 2010 and introduced into NFL training camps in 2022 in 2023 the league actually required in training camps in certain positions that had the most head contact including running backs linebackers and linemen the NFL reported that due to the mandated use they saw a 50% reduction in concussions in those positions therefore in 2024 they mandated the use of Guardian caps for all positions with the exclusion of quarterbacks and Specialists this was just in training camp and they now are allowing the use in regular season games six players use them during the preseason game including five from the Indianapolis Colts so what's the data a concussion happens when there's head impact that dissipates Force throughout the brain and it causes it to jostle around BR inside of the skull I've talked about this in many videos and concussions have long-term side effects including CTE whatever we can do to reduce or mitigate this risk should be very important information the real question is do Guardian caps work should football players be mandated to wear these this is a really polarizing topic the NFL claims this 50% reduction and concussion rate but that data has not been released or published so we're taking this information at face V value on its website Guardian states that the XT model reduces the impact by up to 33% and the beefier model used in the NFL by up to 40% there have been four published studies on this topic so I'm going to go through each study explain the results and so we can decide if the data is there there have been two bench tests and two clinical tests regarding use of the Guardian cap and its abilities to protect against concussion this is the 2017 study that showed no significant difference in drop impact testing with the guardian cap this 2021 laboratory study compared the guardian cap to the Protech cap and showed that the guardian cap reduced the impact forces by 10% compared to the Protek of 5% does that translate to real life and does it reduce the amount of concussions there have been two published papers on real life impact of if the guarding cap helps prevent concussions and in this 2023 study on 14 players it did not show a statistic difference in the amount of concussions this study published this year implemented the use of Guardian cap and used instrumented mouth guards to help gather head impact data and calculate whether or not the reduction of forces is significant and it showed no difference so we have claims by the NFL showing a reduction in concussions but none of this data has actually been released or published we have zero studies that show a reduction in the amount of concussions during the game therefore what we know is that we don't know if it actually does reduce the amount of concussion do I think that the guardian cap would have necessarily have prevented Tua concussion on Thursday I don't think so because he had an axial load followed by a rotation followed by a strike on the back of his head and I think the combination of all three of those motions is what caused his concussion and I'm not so sure that the guardian cap would have necessarily have reduced those forces enough based on the data that I just said that may have prevented this exact concussion and that begs the question what do you think do you think our players should be wearing them if you're a player will you be wearing one let me know what your thoughts are I'm really anxious to see how all this data will pan out