Author: Mike Lutz

NFL Forces Toyota Commercial Edit

Mike Lutz10 Comments

Via Deadspin and Reuters, the NFL forced Toyota to edit a car commercial which depicted a helmet-to-helmet hit.  Toyota is running an advertising campaign depicting how their technology can be put to good use in other fields.  This particular commercial explains how Toyota’s technology in studying head injuries of crash victims can be used by researchers to develop better football helmets.

The NFL told Toyota it could no longer air during games, but Toyota simply edited out that particular hit.  It’s at the 0:17 mark of the video:

So, I guess the moral of the story is to just pretend these things don’t happen.

 

 

NFL Trying Techonology?

Mike Lutz5 Comments

This post come via Senior Researcher and Editor, Mike Lutz

Mark Maske of the Washington Post ran a story recently about the happenings in the NFL in terms of technology.

“We see impacts with an enormous amount of energy and the player is not concussed,” said Richard Ellenbogen, co-chairman of the NFL’s head, neck and spine committee. “And then we see a hit with less energy and the player
is concussed. We have not been able to match the two. . . The goal is to see if we can correlate the impacts with the outcome in terms of concussion.” That goal will soon lead to placements of devices known as accelerometers in players’ helmets to measure the force of hits to the head they absorb. The NFL committee plans to test three types of the devices – versions used in helmets, earpieces and mouthpieces – for possible use by players beginning next season.

This is a good goal to have, and as Kevin Guzkiewicz noted there is no better time than now to begin the data collection.  There simply is not any useful information Continue reading →