Why Do Football Helmets Hide Who Gets Hurt?

A no-helmet idea holds that without helmets, players would be a lot more cautious with hits. They would not lead with the head. The first hit would break a nose and put stitches in the face, and players would start keeping the head. One grim benefit is that fans would see injuries play out in real time. Football helmets hide players' faces and make it possible for fans to disconnect from the consequences of violent hits. Fans thrill to the exploits, but they do not know the faces. Roman Mars says he thinks there is less appreciation for the full humanity of the athletes, because the eyes are the window to the soul.

Defenders of football say that today players know what they are getting into. They take a risk with eyes open and they are well paid for it. Roman Mars says the defense ignores a fundamental truth about the sport. Over a million children play tackle football in the United States. Less than one percent of football players in the United States are NFL players. More than 95 percent of football players are kids, because most people do not play as adults and most people do not end up in the NFL. From Roman Mars's point of view, the big public health issue is injury and safety in youth sports.

Football helmets are designed to keep players safe. They also give a permission structure to keep playing a game that is fundamentally unsafe. The helmets make fans care about specific teams with colorful branding, and they help fans ignore the human beings underneath the helmets, the people sometimes bearing terrible consequences for everyone else's amusement.