Buffalo Bills safety Taylor Rapp was forced to miss Week 5’s game after a suffering a concussion the week prior. Rapp has since been cleared to play and will make his return in Week 6 against the New York Jets on “Monday Night Football.”
Rapp will be wearing some new headgear in the prime-time matchup.
On Monday night, Rapp will be the first Bills player to wear the Guardian cap in a game.
“For sure, I’m wearing it,” Rapp told The Buffalo News on Thursday. “I liked wearing [the cap] during training camp and I switched to the new helmet [as well]. It was definitely something I was [already] considering.”
According to Fox Sports, this is the fourth concussion of Rapp’s career. He suffered three concussions in 2021 alone.
The Guardian cap, invented by Guardian Sports in 2010, is backed by science in a similar way that airbags work in a vehicle.
Here is a direct quote from the Guardian Sports website regarding the Guardian caps:
Physics say that an outer “soft” material of the proper density, stiffness and energy absorbing properties reduces the initial severity of the impact. The hard shell then has lower forces transmitted to it, and in turn conveys lower forces to the interior soft helmet padding and then lower forces to the head. Very similar to a NASCAR driver and the soft wall technology that tracks have adopted or even automobiles and the soft bumpers and airbags that are now required. The Guardian Cap serves the same purpose for an athlete’s head—a soft shell barrier between it and impact.
Given Rapp’s past head injuries and his downhill style play, the cap makes a lot of sense as he recovers from his most recent concussion.
The NFL has only seen a handful of players wear the cap through six weeks. That number should continue to rise as more players see its benefit. The Bills and Rapp using them as a post-concussion precaution seems like a good idea for the player and team. Perhaps that is a trend we will see going forward.
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