Football can be made significantly safer through a combination of better equipment, smarter rules, improved tackling technique, limits on contact during practice, and stronger attention to what happens between a player’s ears after a hit. No single change eliminates the risk, but layered together, these strategies have already started reducing injury rates at every level of the sport.
Helmets That Actually Perform
Not all helmets protect equally. Virginia Tech’s independent helmet rating system has tested 38 varsity football helmets using a standardized impact protocol, and the performance gap between the best and worst models is enormous. The top-rated helmet, the LIGHT Apache, scored a 0.46 on their impact scale, while lower-rated models scored five or six times higher (lower scores mean better protection).
Seven helmets currently earn a five-star rating: the LIGHT Apache, VICIS ZERO2 Trench, Xenith Orbit PRO, LIGHT Gladiator ATK, VICIS ZERO2, Schutt F7 LTD, and Riddell Axiom. Prices range from around $760 for the VICIS ZERO2 to $950 for the Riddell Axiom. If you’re a parent buying a helmet or a coach outfitting a team, choosing a four- or five-star rated helmet is one of the simplest upgrades available. You can check current ratings at Virginia Tech’s helmet lab website, which updates as new models are tested.
Guardian Caps Cut Concussions in Half
The soft-shell covers worn over helmets during NFL practices look unusual, but the data behind them is hard to argue with. After the NFL required Guardian Cap NXT covers for certain positions during preseason practices, the concussion rate among those players dropped 54% in a straightforward comparison and 62% after adjusting for other variables. That’s a substantial reduction from a relatively simple add-on.
Interestingly, the study found that the decrease couldn’t be explained purely by the cap’s ability to absorb energy on the helmet shell. The covers may also be changing player behavior, making athletes less willing to lead with their heads when they can feel the bulky cap. Whatever the mechanism, the results have been strong enough that the NFL has continued expanding their use.
Rugby-Style Tackling Reduces Impact Force
One of the most promising technique changes borrows directly from rugby: tackling with the shoulder while keeping the head to the side of the ball carrier rather than leading with the crown of the helmet. A study from Marshall University measured head impacts during spring practices for both football and rugby players. Football players averaged 63 g-force per impact. Rugby players averaged 21 g-force, roughly one-third as much.
The difference in total exposure was just as striking. Football players accumulated 3,921 head impacts over 12 practices, while rugby players recorded 1,868 impacts over nine practices. Even accounting for the different number of sessions, rugby players experienced fewer hits per practice at far lower forces. Programs like Heads Up Football and Seattle’s Hawk Tackling system teach this shoulder-first approach, and youth leagues that adopt these methods can meaningfully reduce the forces young players absorb.
Limiting Contact in Practice
Most head impacts in football happen during practice, not games. That’s why restricting full-contact practice time is one of the highest-impact safety measures available. The NCAA now caps live-contact practices (full-speed tackling and blocking) at specific limits throughout the year: no more than four per week during preseason with a maximum of 12 total, no more than two per week during the regular season, and only eight live-contact sessions allowed across the entire 15-session spring practice window.
These limits matter because cumulative exposure to repetitive head impacts, even those below the threshold of a diagnosable concussion, has been linked to cognitive and brain structural changes over time. Every hit counts, so reducing the total number of hits across a season is protective even when no single hit causes obvious symptoms. Youth and high school programs should apply similar or stricter limits. If your child’s team is running full-contact drills five days a week, that’s a red flag worth raising with the coaching staff.
Rule Changes That Reduce Collisions
The NFL’s 2024 overhaul of kickoff rules is a case study in how rule design can improve safety. Kickoffs had long been the most dangerous play in football because coverage and return players sprinted toward each other at full speed across 40 or 50 yards of open field. The new “dynamic kickoff” keeps the kicker at the 35-yard line but positions all other coverage players at the opponent’s 40, just five yards from the return team’s blockers. No one on either side can move until the ball is touched or hits the ground.
This dramatically compresses the space between the two units and eliminates the long, high-speed runway that made traditional kickoffs so dangerous. The design resembles a play from scrimmage, where collisions happen at shorter distances and lower relative speeds. The league had watched its kickoff return rate fall to just 22.1% the previous season as kickers routinely booted the ball out of the end zone. During the 2024 preseason, 70.5% of kickoffs were returned under the new format, meaning the play became both safer and more entertaining.
At other levels of the sport, similar principles apply. Banning blindside blocks, penalizing helmet-to-helmet contact, and moving kickoff touchback lines forward all reduce the most violent collisions without fundamentally changing the game.
Playing Surfaces Matter
The ground beneath players’ feet affects injury risk, particularly for knees and ankles. An analysis of NFL games across the 2020 through 2022 seasons found that season-ending lower extremity injuries occurred at a rate of 0.242 per game on artificial turf compared to 0.199 per game on natural grass. That’s about 22% more frequent on turf, though the difference didn’t reach statistical significance in this particular study due to sample size.
Earlier research has shown a more pronounced gap specifically for non-contact injuries like ACL tears, which occur when a player’s foot catches or sticks on the surface during a cut. Artificial turf tends to grip cleats more aggressively than grass, creating higher rotational forces on the knee. Several NFL teams have switched from turf to grass in recent years, and the NFL Players Association has consistently pushed for natural surfaces. If you’re involved in decisions about field surfaces for a school or league, grass is the safer choice when maintenance is feasible.
Neck Strength and Conditioning
A stronger neck helps stabilize the head during contact, reducing how much the brain accelerates inside the skull. The relationship between neck strength and lower concussion risk has been supported across multiple studies. In adolescent soccer players, those who performed targeted neck exercises showed measurably reduced head acceleration during heading compared to those who didn’t train their necks.
What matters isn’t just raw strength but neuromuscular responsiveness: the ability to tense neck muscles quickly enough to brace before or during impact. Exercises that train rapid muscle activation, not just slow resistance, are most relevant. This is especially important for younger players and female athletes, who tend to have less neck mass relative to head size. Simple resistance exercises using bands or manual pressure, performed consistently throughout the season, can build this protective capacity.
Wearable Sensors and Impact Tracking
One of the newer tools in football safety is the instrumented mouthguard, a custom-fitted mouthpiece containing accelerometers and gyroscopes that measure how the head moves during every impact. Unlike helmet-based sensors, which can shift and produce false readings, mouthguards sit against the upper jaw and track skull motion more accurately.
These devices record both the severity of individual hits and the cumulative total across a practice or season. That second number may be more important. Research has found that repetitive head impact exposure is associated with cognitive and brain changes even in players who were never diagnosed with a concussion. By tracking total impact load, coaching staffs can identify players who are absorbing too many hits and adjust their practice roles or playing time accordingly. The technology is still evolving, but several college programs and the NFL already use mouthguard sensors to monitor exposure in real time.
Age-Appropriate Contact for Youth Players
Most neurodevelopment experts recommend that children avoid full-contact football until at least age 14. The developing brain is more vulnerable to repeated impacts, and younger players haven’t developed the neck strength, body control, or tackling technique to manage collisions safely. Flag football provides the same skill development in throwing, catching, route running, and field awareness without the head impact exposure.
This doesn’t mean young athletes need to avoid football entirely. It means delaying the tackling component while building the sport-specific skills that will actually make them better, and safer, players when they do transition to contact. Programs that introduce proper tackling technique through controlled, progressive drills before allowing live full-speed contact give young players a foundation that reduces risk once they’re physically ready.