NFL Facemask Impacts Cause Most Severe Head Collisions
Author: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Published: 2024/09/12 - Updated: 2026/02/10
Publication Type: Randomized Trial
Category Topic: Football - Related Publications
Contents: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Insights, Updates
Synopsis: This research is a study published at the International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury conference that provides critical data on helmet safety for professional and amateur football players. Using instrumented mouthpieces worn by 98 NFL players across three seasons, researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia documented 5,104 head acceleration events and found that facemask impacts represented 59% of the most severe collisions, with linemen experiencing the highest rate at 66%. The findings are particularly valuable for athletes with disabilities who participate in adaptive football programs, as well as parents, coaches, and equipment manufacturers seeking evidence-based approaches to reduce concussion risk and traumatic brain injuries across all levels of play through targeted helmet redesign - Disabled World (DW).
Introduction
Face Masks Linked to More Severe Impacts in NFL Players - Kinematics of Facemask Impacts in Professional American Football
Nearly one third of concussions in professional American football are due to impacts from the facemask, a part of the helmet that has remained mostly unchanged in the last decade. In a new study presented at the International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury conference today, researchers used data collected from instrumented mouthpieces worn by players in the National Football League (NFL) that measured head motion and found that facemasks are the most frequent location of impact on a player's helmet in a subset of high severity impacts.
The study findings suggest that facemask enhancements could help protect players and minimize injury risk.
Main Content
In recent years, there has been a concerted effort to reduce the number of concussions sustained by professional American football players, with one important strategy involving engineering research to redesign helmets to better protect these athletes.
By integrating new equipment into a broader strategy that includes improved play techniques, new rules and better education, there was a 23% reduction in concussions from the 2015-2017 seasons to the 2018-2019 season. However, concussions still occur, and almost all concussions involve direct contact to a player's helmet. Further, there is a secondary goal to reduce high severity head impacts, irrespective of injury, to reduce head impact exposure.
In this study, researchers used instrumented mouthpieces among select teams in the NFL to objectively measure the kinematics of head impacts they sustain during play. The data from these sensors, along with player tracking data and detailed video review to obtain contextual information for the impacts, allowed the researchers to create a unique integrated data set that summarized these scenarios.
"Our field has rapidly improved research tools and approaches, allowing us to produce the data to advance equipment, rules of the game and player technique in ways that have been shown to reduce concussion among professional athletes," said Kristy Arbogast, PhD, scientific director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention and Co-Director of Minds Matter Concussion Program at CHOP and first author of this study.
"These findings, based on instrumented mouthpieces, suggest that facemask redesign should be the focus of future innovation that can continue to improve the safety of football players at all skill levels."
The data were collected during the 2019-2022 NFL seasons, during which 98 players were equipped with instrumented mouthpieces that measured the six degrees-of-freedom head kinematics, which consist of three translational and three rotational accelerations. A total of 5,104 head acceleration events were collected during this period. The researchers focused on the most severe (above the 90th percentile) head acceleration events.
The study found that facemask impacts represented 59% of the impacts in this most severe dataset, with the proportion varying between player positions. Impacts to the facemask were most common among linemen (66%), followed by hybrid players (56%) and speed players (46%).
Facemask impacts to lineman were particularly prominent in this dataset when considering angular motion of the head, which is thought to be causal in the mechanism of brain injury. The facemask impacts were primarily due to contact with the helmet shell of the other player involved in the collision. For speed players, however, the proportion of facemask impacts attributed to impact to the helmet shell of the opposing player was lower, offset by increased impacts to the shoulder of the opposing player.
"The sophisticated and specific data collection from sensor technologies like instrumented mouthguards are providing a deeper understanding about the nature of impacts players experience on the field," Allen Sills, MD, the NFL's Chief Medical Officer. "This information is helping us to develop more effective interventions to reduce the frequency and severity head impacts and keep players healthy."
"This study underscores the importance of using data and ongoing research efforts to continually self-assess and innovate as our research identifies new approaches that may help make the game safer not just for our professional athletes but ultimately for how the game is played at all levels," said Thom Mayer, MD, Medical Director of the NFL Players Association.
This study was supported by Football Research, Inc., the NFL and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) through joint contribution to research.
Arbogast et al, "Kinematics of Facemask Impacts in Professional American Football." International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury. September 2024. Stockholm, Sweden.
Insights, Analysis, and Developments
Editorial Note: The data collected through instrumented mouthpiece technology represents a significant advancement in understanding the biomechanics of football-related head trauma, moving beyond anecdotal evidence to quantifiable measurements that can drive meaningful equipment innovations. While helmet shell improvements have received considerable attention in recent years, this study's revelation that facemask contact accounts for nearly six in ten severe impacts among professional players shifts the focus to a component that has remained largely unchanged for decades. The implications extend well beyond the NFL - youth leagues, collegiate programs, and adaptive sports organizations can all benefit from facemask redesigns that address the specific collision patterns identified in this research, potentially reducing the 23% of concussions attributed to facemask impacts and lowering overall head impact exposure for players at every skill level and physical ability - Disabled World (DW).Attribution/Source(s): This quality-reviewed publication was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World (DW) due to its relevance to the disability community. Originally authored by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and published on 2024/09/12, this content may have been edited for style, clarity, or brevity.