NFL looks to player safety with helmet study, possible rule changes

[Stephenie]

As the NFL moves into the playoffs, the league is searching for a safer helmet and considering offseason rule changes to provide more protection from concussions.

Congress is still on the NFL's case, too, and will examine head injuries in football again Monday, one day after the regular season ended and Miami Dolphins quarterback Pat White was carted off the field because of a helmet-to-helmet collision in a game.

One researcher who recently conducted crash-dummy tests on five manufacturers' helmets for the NFL worries about what good will come of efforts to measure how much safer players are than they were a decade ago and understand where improvements could be made.

"There's some really frightening potential for how this data is used," David Halstead, of the Southern Impact Research Center, said in a telephone interview. "In other words -- and the NFL, I'm sure, wouldn't like me saying this -- my concern is that somebody makes a direct comparison and says, 'This helmet performed 40 percent better, so you're 40 percent less likely to be injured.' That's absolutely incorrect."

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