Football Equipment
American football is known to the world as a contact sport, but that contact is not meant to be chaos and anything goes, it is controlled contact that is guided by very specific rules and by fair play and sportsmanship type morals. If you accidentally or unintentionally break the rules your team gets penalized, but if you intentionally break the rules with the goal of causing harm or injury, then both your team and you personally can be penalized.
Why all of the padding and helmets? Unlike in other sports, in football there are collisions on every play, these collisions can be very violent and still be completely consistent with the rules of the game and the guidelines of fair play. In fact, these tremendous collisions are considered by most people the very thing that separates American football from all others. It is not that there is the possibility that two players may collide, it is that every play is designed such that eleven men from one team will be violently colliding with eleven men from the opposing team.
Without some form of padding, it would be difficult to play the game for any length of time due to the amount of bruising and soft tissue damage that would result. Even with the pads, the main reason that teams only play games once per week is that it takes several days for the bruises and cuts that players receive, even with the pads, to heal. The human body can only take so much abuse, then it requires time to rest and recover. That is also why you are not likely to see football seasons lengthened much more than they already have been, during a normal season an athlete will receive several minor injuries, some of which take more than a week to heal. During the season these injuries just continue to take abuse and they may never get enough time to completely heal. The long gap between seasons allows these injuries to heal and for a football players body to receive some reprieve to fully recuperate.
Helmet
Everyone who has ever bumped heads with another person knows that this can be very painful, but in football where two grown men or young boys are colliding on purpose, the probability exists that there will be both intentional head butts and accidental head to head contact. You can imagine the types of injuries that were seen early on and you can already see the beginnings of additions to try and counteract these injuries. Notice that this is not just a thick leather cap to cover the crown of the head, but you also can see extra padding over the forehead area and you can clearly see how ear protection has been incorporated. How many concussions do you think that it took, or how many ears were partially torn away before these changes were made? This then is the theme for the addition of padding and the changes that have been incurred over the years of American football. When the injuries begin to pile up, then adjustments are made to the rules and changes are made to the equipment that is worn in an attempt to reduce the injury rate while still retaining the integrity of the sport.
<grammarly-btn>As you can see from the photo above the football helmet has changed drastically since the 1930's and they continue to improve as new technology and data from injury reports are incorporated into the following year's designs. Before the face mask was added players often suffered a broken nose, busted and torn lips and lost teeth. As you can see in the current designs players can opt to use a shield to protect their eyes, it is not unheard of for unscrupulous players to jam their fingers inside an opposing players facemask in an attempt to cause minor eye damage and ruin a players concentration. Receivers, Quarterbacks and other ball handlers are especially vulnerable, so you most often see them wearing these shields.
Also, notice that the hull of the helmet is a hard shell now and the inside is lined with the latest in deceleration and shock absorbing materials. The two most common serious injuries are concussions due to rapid deceleration from head to head contact causing the brain to impact against the skull bone and cervical injuries that are caused when a player dips his head down and hits with the crown of the helmet. Our neck muscles and ligaments are some of the strongest in our body and they will absorb almost all of the shock from a collision if a Player keeps his head up during contact, but dropping the head down redirects most of the force from an impact directly onto the spine with the connections at the base of the skull becoming most vulnerable.
Shoulder Pads
Tackles are made primarily by leading with the shoulder and the aiming point is midbody (center of gravity or center mass), but since we are talking about to bodies in motion the point of contact can end up being a helmet, a knee or some other bony region of the opponent's body. So the shoulder pads are designed to absorb and spread out the force of the blow. But as you can see these pads protect more than just the shoulder, they also come down far enough to protect most of the ribs and solar plexus. They also cover the heart which prevents a direct strike over the heart from temporarily stopping it and possibly causing a heart attack. Since the usual aim for a tackle is midbody the shoulder pads can help prevent broken ribs, or more common, having the breath knocked out of a player. There are also extensions pads that can be attached to the shoulder pads to provide more complete protection for the ribs and vertebrae. These extensions are often worn by Quarterbacks and Wide Receivers who sometimes have their arms raised up in the air to throw a football or receive a pass. Raising the arms up will also raise these pads up higher and expose the player's body leaving him vulnerable to serious injury from a hard hit by a defender.
Pants
There are different styles of football pants today and some have built-in padding or new ways of changing and interchanging different types of pads. But the traditional and most common football pants are made with pockets so that pads can be inserted before going out on the field and removed before washing.
Hip pads protect the pelvic area where the bone juts out, a sharp blow in this area can cause severe bruising due to the covering flesh being smashed against a relatively inflexible bone. It is like the difference between tapping your thumb with a hammer and striking a muscular area on your body with the same hammer using the same force. This area of the hip is often used when blocking an opponent and thus needs the extra protection. The padding actually sticks up above the hipbone to add some protection for the connecting tissue between the ribs, back, and hip where there is little room for giving and stretching during an impact.
Thigh pads are used because both blocks and tackles are often aimed for the lower extremities and if you have ever had a deep thigh bruise then you know how painful and debilitating they can be. Knee pads (Pettella) and Butt Pads (Coccyx) are considered by most players to be optional. I have suffered injuries to both of these areas in the past and I can say without hesitation that for me they would be a must and I would not even consider playing without them. Although the risk of injury to either area is low, the pain endured and the length of time until full recovery is enough for me to warrant the extra inconvenience of having to wear them.
Football shoes (Cleats) come in a wide variety of shapes and styles that are best suited for certain positions on the team and for a different playing surfaces. The type of cleat that is best suited for a sod field may be unsuited or less functional on artificial turf. The type of grass used can also make a difference in what style is best suited for play. Another consideration is wet versus dry conditions.
Most amateur athletes just use a standard shoe with a cleat design that will work in any condition, specialization is left more for the more serious players that need every advantage that they can get.
There are many other optional items and tools that I could cover here like forearm pads, gloves, and kicking tees. But this gives you a basic idea of the equipment that every football player uses and their purpose.
I can not begin to explain how violent football can be in a highly contested game between rivals, it is hard to imagine if you have never experienced it first hand. What I can tell you is that football requires a lot of practice and both the mental and physical adoption of counterintuitive techniques in order for a body to be able to withstand the punishment that can be meted out in a typical game. Padding only goes so far to protect a player, each person that dons a uniform and steps out onto a football field must always be conscious of his surroundings and be in a physical position to protect himself from a punishing blow. From the time the whistle is blown to signify the start of play until it is blown once more to end the play, every person in a football uniform is fair game and subject to receiving a hit from the opposition. It is for this reason that Kickers and Quarterbacks are protected by threat of severe penalties when, because of their job function, they must leave themselves defenseless.
When you play the game of football you must understand and accept the fact that the very real threat of serious injury or death exists.
I'll leave you with this video to give you something to think about. You may have to watch it on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-1MQ0Cnbhs&t=3s
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