Tear Away Face Masks?

[BOSSHOG]

My pragmatic wife was watching a game yesterday and a QB was about to have his head ripped off his shoulders with a face masking penalty and she said, hey they should use tear away face masks for safety reasons and the guilty party would be easy to identify, he's be holding the evidence in his hands. From the mouths of pragmatists.

[El Supremo]

1. Maybe tear-away pants!

Didn't they try tear-away jerseys for a few years?

[Auggie]

2. Wonder how you implement it...

without them coming off in regular play.

[BOSSHOG]

3. I think if the idea

was introduced to some savvy geeks they'd come up with a workable product. I cringe everytime I see a ballcarriers head spin like the girl on the Exorcist.

[ProfessorGAC]

10. SuperVelcro?

They use a special kind of velcro to hold the wings on small planes, so they can be stored in little cubicles rather than a full width hangar.

The velcro holds against all shearing forces and only releases when turned a certain way and tugged on.

There's a guy at work that has one of these planes, and he's had it for several years. (More than 10, i'm pretty sure.)

I originally saw this technology on a show similar to "Beyond Tomorrow" back in the early 90's.

Seems that might work for this application, at least with some research and design.
GAC

[joeybee12]

4. And have CSI there so if the mask goes on the ground, instant fingerprints! n/t

[flvegan]

5. What happens to his face when he gets hit *after* that facemask tears away?

[JonLP24]

6. My thoughts exactly

Face masks are designed to protect players and not come off.

[flvegan]

7. I'm amazed at the number of chin-strap failures I've seen this year.

Both in the NFL and in college/high school games.

[Chan790]

9. That's because people, WR in particular, don't button them...

a fact that makes the entire helmet more or less useless as it won't stay positioned correctly on the head and not move around unless the chinstrap is fastened.

A few years ago the conference my brother played in CT made it a sideline penalty...amazingly I think there was 1 incident after that. When your helmet comes off, play is whistled dead and you're penalized 10 yards for it, costing your team the game...coaches tend to be irate.

[petronius]

8. How about two facemasks? A grill to tear away, then a shield underneath...

:silly:

[PVnRT]

11. I vote for the power armor option