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This week, Chiefs Wire's Ed Easton Jr. spoke with Guardian Sports Chief Operating Officer Jake Hanson.
In his interview with Easton Jr., Hanson discussed Guardian Sports' ongoing innovations to improve player safety. He shared more insight on the company's Guardian FLEX Chinstrap, which is already having an early impact in the NFL.
"So one of the things that the NFL found while they were doing all this testing over the last couple of years is that face mask to face mask concussions represent about 40. I believe it's about 44% of in-game concussions in the last season overall, when they were studying the total impacts that an athlete takes, about 50% of them are face mask to face mask." said Hanson, "Well, the Guardian cap, the shell of the helmet, the interior of the helmet really doesn't do a lot when you're colliding face masks to face masks. The NFL created the HeadHealthTech Challenge 2. What we've seen is that this data has held over the last two years, and we've been working on a solution since then."
With over 20 NFL players from different teams wearing Guardian Caps in games during the 2025 season, along with its debut in Super Bowl LX, the Guardian Cap NXT 2.0 is expected to be adopted by players, along with Guardian's FLEX chinstraps, for the upcoming 2026 season.
"We partner with a group of researchers at Stanford University to create a new chin strap that actually helps reduce face mask-to-face mask impact by about 50%, or, sorry, by about 35%, so it's this chin strap right here. You'll start to see it on different NFL fields. Kyle Juszczyk for the San Francisco 49ers wore it last season. Elijah Higgins from the Arizona Cardinals, Chris Olave for the New Orleans Saints," said Hanson, "It's a little hydraulic cup on the interior of the chin strap, and what it does is, as soon as that face mask is impacted, none of the shell goes into your padding, none of that matters. All the force is allocated directly into this chin cup area, and this acts almost like a shock absorber, like for your tires, or, sorry for your car, that helps reduce all of that impact and disperse it throughout the straps and throughout the chin cup itself."
The Kansas City Chiefs, along with the rest of the league, continue to embrace new measures to protect players. Similar to the Guardian Cap, it will take some time for the entire league to be on board.
"It was a pilot last season that we ran with certain NFL players and certain teams. But this season, many NFL teams are picking it up. We'll hopefully see more and more of them out on the field right now. I know Notre Dame has its entire offensive and defensive line in it right now. Indiana, obviously, the national champions, has a lot of different athletes out there wearing it." Said Hanson, "We're super proud of this, this new development, and again, our entire mission is, how do we help athletes play the sports that they love without the repercussions? So this is just the next step along that path."
Trusted by athletes nationwide, Guardian continues to lead in safety-driven innovation. To learn more about the Guardian Cap NXT 2.0, please visit guardiansports.com.
This article originally appeared on Chiefs Wire: NFL players utilized the Guardian FLEX Chinstrap in 2025
Continue reading...
In his interview with Easton Jr., Hanson discussed Guardian Sports' ongoing innovations to improve player safety. He shared more insight on the company's Guardian FLEX Chinstrap, which is already having an early impact in the NFL.
"So one of the things that the NFL found while they were doing all this testing over the last couple of years is that face mask to face mask concussions represent about 40. I believe it's about 44% of in-game concussions in the last season overall, when they were studying the total impacts that an athlete takes, about 50% of them are face mask to face mask." said Hanson, "Well, the Guardian cap, the shell of the helmet, the interior of the helmet really doesn't do a lot when you're colliding face masks to face masks. The NFL created the HeadHealthTech Challenge 2. What we've seen is that this data has held over the last two years, and we've been working on a solution since then."
With over 20 NFL players from different teams wearing Guardian Caps in games during the 2025 season, along with its debut in Super Bowl LX, the Guardian Cap NXT 2.0 is expected to be adopted by players, along with Guardian's FLEX chinstraps, for the upcoming 2026 season.
"We partner with a group of researchers at Stanford University to create a new chin strap that actually helps reduce face mask-to-face mask impact by about 50%, or, sorry, by about 35%, so it's this chin strap right here. You'll start to see it on different NFL fields. Kyle Juszczyk for the San Francisco 49ers wore it last season. Elijah Higgins from the Arizona Cardinals, Chris Olave for the New Orleans Saints," said Hanson, "It's a little hydraulic cup on the interior of the chin strap, and what it does is, as soon as that face mask is impacted, none of the shell goes into your padding, none of that matters. All the force is allocated directly into this chin cup area, and this acts almost like a shock absorber, like for your tires, or, sorry for your car, that helps reduce all of that impact and disperse it throughout the straps and throughout the chin cup itself."
The Kansas City Chiefs, along with the rest of the league, continue to embrace new measures to protect players. Similar to the Guardian Cap, it will take some time for the entire league to be on board.
"It was a pilot last season that we ran with certain NFL players and certain teams. But this season, many NFL teams are picking it up. We'll hopefully see more and more of them out on the field right now. I know Notre Dame has its entire offensive and defensive line in it right now. Indiana, obviously, the national champions, has a lot of different athletes out there wearing it." Said Hanson, "We're super proud of this, this new development, and again, our entire mission is, how do we help athletes play the sports that they love without the repercussions? So this is just the next step along that path."
Trusted by athletes nationwide, Guardian continues to lead in safety-driven innovation. To learn more about the Guardian Cap NXT 2.0, please visit guardiansports.com.
This article originally appeared on Chiefs Wire: NFL players utilized the Guardian FLEX Chinstrap in 2025
Continue reading...
