--- title: Super Bowl: How to Make Football Safer description: One scientist is calling upon the community to develop new materials that could make helmets much safer. canonical: https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-01-28T20:28:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T18:52:57.000Z article:section: Health og:title: Super Bowl: How to Make Football Safer og:description: One scientist is calling upon the community to develop new materials that could make helmets much safer. og:url: https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt984cb1ad93d3ce8f/69877d340b72e37f2c6dd78f/football-safer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2363 og:image:height: 1329 og:image:alt: football-safer og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Super Bowl: How to Make Football Safer twitter:description: One scientist is calling upon the community to develop new materials that could make helmets much safer. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt984cb1ad93d3ce8f/69877d340b72e37f2c6dd78f/football-safer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Simple Way to Make Football Safer > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=76e8fa14-4f46-4134-bc4b-d28bb6799dee&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: This Is What Physics Says About Deflategate [Watch (HLS stream): This Is What Physics Says About Deflategate](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/TECrbcbF.m3u8) (1:57)  _Published 2015-01-22. Ainissa Ramirez, physicist and author of Newton's Football, talks through why weather can't explain deflate-gate_ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Updated: Dec 13, 2023 6:52 PM UTCPublished: Jan 28, 2015 8:28 PM UTC The history of how helmets arrived on the football field by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Updated: Dec 13, 2023 6:52 PM UTCPublished: Jan 28, 2015 8:28 PM UTC Football is not a safe sport, and the Super Bowl on Sunday was no exception, with one player out because of a concussion before the New England Patriots prevailed over the Seattle Seahawks. Even though players wear lots of protective gear and helmets to protect their skulls, it doesn’t stop what many are calling a “concussion epidemic” among U.S. sports. But, one scientist is calling upon the community to develop new materials that could make helmets much safer. A [new study published Wednesday](http://time.com/3686088/youth-football-brain-function/) shows former NFL players who played tackle football before age 12 were more likely to have memory and thinking problems when they’re adults. But scientist Ainissa Ramirez, author of the book _Newton’s Football: The Science Behind America’s Game_, says it doesn’t have to be this way. If helmets were made with better materials, players’ brains could be better protected. “Helmet material is too stiff, it’s not able to absorb the force,” she says. MORE: [How a Digital Football Could Have Saved Us From Deflategate](http://time.com/3687952/super-bowl-deflategate-digital-pigskin/) Ramirez and her co-author Allen St. John decided to ask the question: Why don’t other animals who hit their heads often get concussions? First, they looked at the woodpecker. “What we learned that woodpeckers don’t get concussions because they have small brains which means they can handle bigger forces,” explains Ramirez. “You know this intuitively, if your cellphone drops off your desk or your laptop drops off your desk, you’re not going to be too worried about your cell phone but you’re going to be afraid for your laptop.” Next they looked at rams, and made a promising discovery. “Rams and big horned sheep hit each other at 40 miles and hour, and seconds later they are coming back for more,” says Ramirez. “They have brains comparable to our own size. They can survive and not get concussions because of their horns.” Rams’ horns are made out of a polymer called keratin. Keratin is in our hair, our fingernails, in tortoise shells, and porcupine quills for example. Ramirez says it’s very stretchy, and for rams, it acts like a crumple zone for a car, but with the ability to recover. “We need better materials \[for helmets\] and we can borrow from nature. Maybe we need a material that’s sort of like keratin,” says Ramirez. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve borrowed from nature. Velcro, for example, was created in the 1950s when George de Mestral, a Swiss electrical engineer. After returning from a walk, he discovered his socks and his dog’s fur were covered in burs. Intrigued by how they worked, de Mestral looked at the burs under a microscope and discovered a bunch of little hooks, which became the inspiration for velcro. Ramirez isn’t positive that keratin will for sure work as a helmet material, but she’s calling on the scientific community to try it out, or at least prioritize the search for better materials. Despite the fact that in 2013 the NFL [launched](http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2013/09/04/helmets-concussions-roger-goodell/2768237/) a $10 million program to find better shock absorbent materials for helmets and other technologies to prevent concussions, there hasn’t been much of a race for finding the perfect material. One promising effort is from a [team at UCLA](http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-led-team-wins-grant-to-tackle-concussions-among-football-players) that’s researching the use of a energy-absorbing microlattice material that could replace the foam in helmets. You can watch a video of UCLA’s material below: Ramirez says she thinks there are not many academics taking on helmet materials because the field isn’t “sexy.” “Scientists have egos like everyone else and if you’re sitting at the table working on helmet material, people think, ‘well what’s wrong with that person?’” says Ramirez. “It’s also hard to get an audience with the NFL. There are a lot of barriers.” Still, the hope is that more priority and funding from the NFL and medical community will spur greater innovation for new helmet materials. We might see new technologies to prevent concussions in the near future, though not in time for the Super Bowl this weekend. ## Transcript [00:02] Deflate game. What does science say about it? The [00:04] question I had is can the weather affect the ball? And [00:08] yeah, the weather can affect the ball. See, there's this [00:11] expression in science called the Ideal Gas Law. All [00:14] right, don't get, don't get too scared about that. All it's [00:17] saying is that the pressure and the temperature are [00:19] related. Think of it this way. Blow up a balloon, and [00:23] make sure that it's, you know, nice and tight. And then [00:25] put that balloon into the freezer. And then, come back [00:28] in a couple hours. That balloon will be deflated. Now, [00:32] if you pull that balloon out, it will start to inflate. So you [00:34] see there is this relationship between pressure. And [00:37] temperature. One thing that could happen is that you [00:40] could inflate a football at room temperature and then [00:43] take that football to a colder environment. Like when [00:46] the game is played. And it can deflate. I did that [00:49] calculation for the temperature for room temperature, [00:52] for the temperature that the game is played. It does [00:54] deflate but it doesn't account for the two pounds that [00:57] we're seeing that's missing for the eleven balls. But, [01:01] who does it benefit to have a deflated ball? It benefits [01:04] most of the players. It benefits the quarterback [01:06] because it's easier to grip. It benefits the receiver cuz [01:10] it's easy to catch. It benefits the kicker because there's [01:12] more contact area and so when your foot hits that ball, [01:15] it's able to sail further out. So most player, players [01:19] benefit from having a ball that's under inflated. That's, [01:22] that's definitely incentive to do it. And have people try [01:25] to alter situations before, particularly the ball, and the [01:28] answer is absolutely yes. We found that kickers were [01:31] notorious for doing all kinds of crazy things to the ball. [01:34] So they would microwave it. They would put it in [01:37] Gatorade. Milk, lemonade, put it in the dryer, steam [01:41] bath, do all kinds of some strange things. Inflated, [01:44] deflated, hit it with a hammer, brush it with a wire. So, [01:47] you know, players have been known to do all they can [01:50] to make this ball a little squishier so that they can [01:53] either have a better grip or more contact area. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/"},"headline":"The Simple Way to Make Football Safer","datePublished":"2015-01-28T20:28:16.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T18:52:57.000Z","description":"Better materials could mean fewer concussions","url":"https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/","keywords":["Super Bowl","concussions","NFL","Super Bowl","Research"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt984cb1ad93d3ce8f/69877d340b72e37f2c6dd78f/football-safer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt984cb1ad93d3ce8f/69877d340b72e37f2c6dd78f/football-safer.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"football-safer","caption":"during Super Bowl XLIX at University of Phoenix Stadium on February 1, 2015 in Glendale, Arizona.","creditText":"Christian Petersen—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/super-bowl/","name":"Super Bowl"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/","name":"The Simple Way to Make Football Safer"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Wearing a Weapon: The Football Helmet's Dangerous Evolution","description":"The history of how helmets arrived on the football field","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ArcR8sPL/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-01-28T20:10:52.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ArcR8sPL.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/","duration":"PT2M19S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"This Is What Physics Says About Deflategate","description":"Ainissa Ramirez, physicist and author of Newton's Football, talks through why weather can't explain deflate-gate","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/TECrbcbF/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-01-22T23:26:06.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/TECrbcbF.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/","duration":"PT1M57S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/3686040/super-bowl-nfl-helmets/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```