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Engineers to assist NFL with injury prevention

The NFL has formed its first outside committee of engineers, a group tasked with finding new medical approaches and equipment to protect players from concussions and other injuries.

The eight-member committee met in person for the first time last week during the NFL combine in Indianapolis. Among its considerations, the group is studying whether there should be different helmets for players at different positions. The committee also aims to study helmet sensors, even as the NFL has discontinued its program that was once expected to go leaguewide this year (see related story).

“We have leading people in the field, with [Department of Defense], with the Army, looking at helmets, looking at video monitoring, looking at sensors, looking at anatomic video reconstruction of these injuries,” said Richard Ellenbogen, chairman of the NFL’s head, neck and spine committee. The engineering group is a subcommittee of that NFL committee, which advises the league on medical issues and oversees studies and research.

The engineering subcommittee is led by Jeff Crandall, a professor at the University of Virginia and the director of the school’s Center for Applied Biomechanics. MIT is also represented on the committee.

The NFL Players Association chose two of the group’s eight members; the NFL selected six.

Jeff Miller, the NFL’s senior vice president of player health and safety policy, cautioned not to look at the new engineering group as a helmet committee. Instead, it will consider an array of applied materials, from energy-absorbing elements to sensors. In particular, he added, the committee will be looking at video reconstruction of injuries. Analysis of the video may lead to a different safety approach by player position, he said.

To date, the league’s scientific committees, which date to 1994, have been populated largely by medical professors and doctors. The move to an engineering subcommittee goes beyond that stage. Ellenbogen said studying different helmets by position is not a new idea but one that will continue to receive focus. The league has found that the head injuries suffered by a defensive lineman, for example, are different than those suffered by a defensive back, he said.

The first meeting of the new engineering committee, which lasted four hours, attracted a lot of attention internally within the sport. In addition to the eight committee members, about 12 other league, union and medical advisers attended the meeting.

In addition to the eight engineers on the committee, Ellenbogen said, there are 20 consultants to which the committee and league have access, as well.

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