So Long to Tom Brady’s old helmet.

So Long to Tom Brady’s old helmet.

    Actually, there are 32 players around the league who had their helmets banned overnight but Tom Brady’s is the most famous of them. The reason being is that the Riddell VSR-4 represents a link to the old guard of the National Football League. There was a time when this was the helmet in football, for the better part of a quarter century.

    Brady wears the helmet out of comfort. There have been plenty of times when I saw him walk out with a new helmet, only to see him resort to his old helmet come playoff time. He’s been wearing the same helmet for the last 19 years, the NFL really couldn’t grandfather Brady in?

    No, they couldn’t.

    I understand the need for player safety but has the NFL ever considered that maybe there’s nothing that can be done to knock down on head injuries? Part of the reason there are so many issues with the helmets has to do with the facemask, which is made out of titanium metal.

    If the likes of Von Miller or JJ Watt goes charging toward the likes of Andrew Luck or Derek Carr and smacks them with the helmet, the majority of the force is going to come from the facemask itself. Watt and/or Miller might get a flag, tossed or whatever but nothing will seem good enough when they’re quarterbacks out for two months with a concussion.

    I recall Mike Ditka suggesting the league should do away with facemasks, maybe they should.

    They won’t though. The NFL, despite not practicing medicine or going through years and years of medical school, appears to know the best way to prevent head injuries. Brett Favre said the one way to not get injured in football was to not play. Making players update their helmets are not going to make things safer, no matter what the experts say.

    They’ve even gone as far as to penalize teams who wear old-school helmets. That means if Sean Landeta or Joe Theismann or whoever else wants to come out of retirement and play one more game, they can’t wear the same helmets they did taking hits from LT or the 85 Bears. It’s 2019, the NFL knows best and that’s the way it is!

    So I wanted to take the opportunity to kiss goodbye the old-school NFL helmets. I’m not talking about the helmet worn by the likes of Jim Brown or Johnny Unitas. I’m talking about the helmets that were everywhere when I was a kid. It wasn’t broke for Brady, so he didn’t fix it. The league decided to fix it for him and I hope this doesn’t bite them in the ass. When’s the last time a rule change brought about something like that?

   In any event, a great helmet that was worn by the likes of Kurt Warner, Barry Sanders and of course, Tom Brady is now a thing of the past. I know Brady’s too driven to be thinking about retirement but I’m sure he’s not too happy about the change. I wonder how the helmet change will affect his game, will the magic finally go away? I doubt it but you never know.

I mean, Lil Bow Wow was kicking ass until the shoe tore so…

-By: Thomas P. Braun Jr.