"I Want to Inspire Kids To Think That Health & Safety is Also Cool," Colts' Kylen Granson Will Be Wearing a Concussion Resistant Guardian Cap During Games This Season
The Athletic — Indianapolis Colts tight end Kylen Granson wore a Guardian Cap over his helmet during the preseason and plans to continue doing so in the regular season to further protect his brain from long-term damage.
“At one point people thought seatbelts were f—ing stupid,” Granson told The Athletic on Thursday. “Why wouldn’t I (wear it)? Just because it looks silly? I feel like health and safety is more important than aesthetics.”
“There’s no amount of aesthetic that could outweigh what a TBI (traumatic brain injury) could do to you,” Granson said via Instagram. “And one of the more unknown things is that not only is it the big hits that you have to worry about, it’s the culmination of a bunch of little hits.”
“I want to inspire kids to think that health and safety is also cool,” Granson said on Instagram. “You can do cool things out on the football field and still wear a Guardian Cap. I want my (future) children to wear helmets when they ride a bike. … Because there’s no amount of cool that would be worth walking into a hospital room and your child’s in a vegetative state because they weren’t wearing a helmet. Because they didn’t want to look dumb.”
As a red-blooded fan of American football, the sight of a Guardian Cap being worn on the field during an NFL game is inherently off-putting. It's like there's something very stupid and primal engrained into me that makes it so my gut reaction to seeing a Guardian Cap being worn during a game will always be, "Haha.. pussy.."
It's a big time hardo take. And once I think about it for more than half-a-second, I don't actually believe it. If I had a family member who I cared about playing in the NFL I would want him to wear one. There's really no reason a player exercising his option to wear something on his head to protect his brain should even illicit a reaction. If it doesn't affect the gameplay whatsoever, which I'm certain it doesn't, then why should anyone give a shit. Assuming the Guardian Caps work, they should be nothing but good for the game. They should theoretically help players stay on the field longer, which would result in better quality football. It should be win-win for everyone involved.
But if I were to play Devil's advocate, I suppose you could make the same argument they make with headgear in boxing. That the Guardian Cap could give a player a false sense of security and they won't protect themselves as well. So in turn they'll take more blows to the head. Maybe there's something to that.
Or if you want to say that a player wearing a Guardian Cap is a red flag, because you want your team to be full of dawgs who care only about winning and inflicting as much pain onto their opponent as humanly possible. You don't want a player who's worried about their safety during a game. There's probably something to that as well. At least at some positions. But that's a different argument entirely.
Or imagine a player like Gronk with a Guardian Cap. He was already wearing that big bulky brace on his left arm which was basically a weapon he could use to bat off defensive backs like houseflies.
Brett Carlsen. Getty Images.If you put a big old mushroom cap on Gronk's helmet, he's basically a full-blown robot. That's just too much Gronk for anybody to have to deal with. That one's a stretch, but at a certain point you can't just keep adding armor or eventually football will turn into something like this.
Sorry, I'm just rambling at this point. Just trying to play devil's advocate with possible anti-Guardian Cap arguments other than yelling, "Man up you pussy" at the television. In reality, I can't imagine actually being angry about this. They're going to take a minute to get used to. Especially if we ever get to a point where half the league is wearing them. Or the first time we see a tiny player like Kyler Murray wear one and turn into a real life version of the tiny Kyler Murray meme.
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But we'll get used to them eventually. We're not going to have a choice. It doesn't matter what NFL players wear. The entire Kansas City Chiefs' roster could walk out onto the field this Thursday night with big black dildos stuck on the front of their helmets and we'd still watch.
By Week 3 Arrowhead Stadium will be handing out dildo's to the first 1,000 kids who enter the stadium. They'll be waving them in circles around their heads like a sailor waving his hat as his ship returns home from war.
So I'm not going to begrudge any player who wears a Guardian Cap. More power to you Kyler Granson. And to every NFL player who will be looking kinda funny on the field in the name of brain health. You're an inspiration to kids everywhere. Perhaps your decision will be the difference between you being able to enjoy your son's graduation pain free (i.e. Derrick Rose), or using that time to hijack the valedictorian's microphone and announce the release date of you and Le'Veon Bell's upcoming rap album. The one you spent your son's entire trust fund on to get cool features that nobody will ever listen to.
