Facemask impacts are leading source of higher severity impacts in professional American football

Nearly one third of concussions in professional American football are due to impacts from the facemask, a part of the helmet that has remained mostly unchanged in the last decade. In a new study, researchers used data collected from instrumented mouthpieces worn by players in the National Football League (NFL) that measured head motion and found that facemasks are the most frequent location of impact on a player's helmet in a subset of high severity impacts. The study findings suggest that facemask enhancements could help protect players and minimize injury risk.