OREGON DUCK FOOTBALL MISSION

via myabccoolpix.com

Win The Game And Win The Hearts And Minds. Mostly The Minds.

Oregon Duck football left Arizona with a triple overtime win last night.

This is a team recognized in the past five years as a fashion trendsetter. Add two appearances in the college football finals, BCS and otherwise, and the Ducks come away looking good.

How many colleges would love to have the Ducks records?

But they need one more accessory to their uniform: an across the team use of anti-concussion helmets, the one with the hexagonal plate in front.

Other helmets have anti-concussion elements, but one has the plate to show what it is. The Riddell SpeedFlex tells fans you’re on top of your anti-concussion game.

With the attention Oregon Duck football gets for uniform changes, make the helmet change right away.

When you’ve got the platform, use it. And here’s why.

Are head trauma and brain trauma the new normal in football.

With CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, outed as part of the game, it’s time for change.

ESPN is leading the change with their College Football logo, a hexagon like the concussion plate on the SpeedFlex helmet.

The ESPN logo is more than a reminder of which channel you’re watching, it’s a subliminal message that swing into the TV screen at a dizzying pace. It flashes on in some kind of 3D expansion magnifier that jumps into the camera lens before and after every replay in some sort of mind altering Clockwork Orange calculation.

Not saying it’s a bad thing, and I hope it’s working. We’ll know how well it works when all players wear anti-concussion helmets. Doesn’t it make sense to wear the latest anti-concussion technology?

Let’s hope a rule change happens so ESPN can stop flashing their concussion plate logo so often it feels like recruitment for the Manchurian Candidate. Save players brains instead of brainwashing fans on TV.

We get it even if football doesn’t.

So how do you make it easier for players to use the safety helmets on the market?

First explain the evolution of hockey safety. It’s hard to imagine those guys not wearing helmets or goalies wearing face masks, but they saw the light. And it didn’t ruin the NHL.

Baseball helmets changed until they started looking like Little League gear, and no one called them sissies. The story of Tony Conigliaro had to help.

Change football health by giving incentives to change hats. For example, donate anti-concussion helmets to the smart schools. All Ivy League schools, along with Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Rice get new hats.

In football factory schools everyone with a GPA above 3.4 gets a free safety helmet. Protect their brains for them.

A team like the Oregon Ducks could push that pile.

Younger players watch their heroes and Saturdays and Sundays and do their best to copy them. Copy the safety helmet and they have a better chance of playing up.

Would it help if all the NFL skill position guys, you know the ones on camera after a score, showed up with the hexagonal plate on their helmet? Looking at you, Tom Brady.

While the Ducks took Arizona State to three overtimes, the Patriots were busy pounding the Dolphins with a blunt object, as in LeGarrette Blount. No safety helmet there.

Tommy Football didn’t have the hex helmet, Miami QB Ryan Tannehill did. Who would you pick in your fantasy draft?

Outfit the role model guys with the best anti-concussion helmets on the market. Go ahead and skip Cowboy DT Greg Hardy. He needs more than a new helmet.

If brain trauma is accumulative like hearing loss, players need to gear up sooner than later.

Comments and feedback welcome.