Why Did Plastic Football Helmets Make Football More Violent?
Roman Mars says early leather football helmets were hard and rigid like a shoe. They beat a bare head, but multiple players still died when a hit caved the skull in. The leather was not strong enough, the skull broke, and bone poked into the brain. Bone in the brain could be almost instantly fatal, so leather was not a permanent solution and the plastic helmet entered the picture.
The first plastic helmets came in the late 1930s from a company called Riddell. Founder John Riddell fabricated helmets for the American military during World War II. When the war ended, the company went back to football helmets made from a plastic compound called Tenite: a round, hard dome with a chin strap. They
