Oakley does a good job making one of the finest visors in the field. Made from a material called plutonite, Oakley visors are extremely durable, lightweight and unbreakable. You don`t have to worry about breaking this product. During the 1998 season, the NFL completely banned black face shields for players unless they had a medical exemption. While football players claim that dark shade is just a cosmetic that makes them cool, the NFL believes it can prevent fair play. In the 2018 season, only 14 players qualified for this exception. “Prizm is a light management technology. We can filter the light to take advantage of your natural visual acuity,” says Chumbley. “So we see colors – red, green and blue – of course. If you can increase your sensitivity in the areas, it can result in high color contrast, creating a better depth perception scenario for you.
So, with Prizm, it is clear that we eliminate areas of color confusion. Lindley, who spent about 30 years as a sideline athletic trainer, says visors make concussions and other injuries harder to detect. Sunglasses company Oakley began making polycarbonate and plutonite football visors in the early 1980s. These synthetic materials are chemically manufactured to provide superior strength to the traditional plastics you can find on sunglasses. Visors are often injection molded, which allows the lens to reflect glare and gives the visor its characteristic curvature. The 2013 and 2014 NCAA regulations include two specific rules for helmet visors. Visors may only bear the manufacturer`s or distributor`s label. This label must not exceed 2 and 1/4 inch.
The other rule is that eye shields should be clear, have no tint and should be made of molded material. Players who violate these rules are not allowed to play unless their equipment is modified to meet these criteria. Although the regulation states that there are no exceptions, people with special eye conditions can obtain medical clearance and NCAA approval to circumvent these rules. “There are also situations where you don`t know where the origin of the blood might be, so sometimes the helmet falls on the bridge of the nose and there is a laceration on the face. If you can`t identify where this is coming from, you can certainly understand what kind of challenge and urgency it would bring. “If you have an eye disease, talk to your doctors and trainers to decide which option is safest for you. There are many options when it comes to tinted visors. After the 1998 ban, players could still wear a visor on their helmet – but the visor could only be made of clear plastic. This year, the NFL seems to have relaxed that rule somewhat. The NFL recently signed a four-year contract with Oakley to produce their helmet visors. As part of the deal, players now have the option to wear Oakley`s Prizm Clear shields.
Back then, there was no way to remove the shield from a helmet without removing the entire helmet — and medical staff didn`t want to do it for fear of aggravating neck or head injuries. Today, only players who have received a special medical exemption from the league are allowed to wear dark visors. Migraine and/or sun sensitivity are the most common reasons for such exceptions. Black-tinted visors are an area where the NFL has been rampant since 1998. Nevertheless, we sometimes see a player with a black visor on his helmet. If you`ve ever wondered why, read on. Here, you`ll learn about the perceived benefits of tinted visors, why the league decided to regulate them, and why some players are still allowed to use them. The rules of the National Federation of State Secondary School Associations for High School Football state that eye shields or visors must be made of a transparent and rigid material. Tinted visors are not allowed.
There are no exceptions to this rule. If an athlete has a medical need for tinted eye protection, they should wear tinted glasses or sports glasses. That`s been the NFL`s position for two decades. It wasn`t just the funny police when they made the switch. The League`s rollout page on uniform inspections gives a legitimate reason to eliminate dark visors in most situations: While most visors are transparent, some offer different shades to reduce reflective glare from the sun. Over the years, some manufacturers have developed visors that offered the same benefits as regular prescription glasses. For years, the NFL banned tinted visors. Then someone had the brilliant idea to turn the visors into a lucrative sponsorship.
Now, the NFL will allow lightly tinted visors provided by Oakley. Mirror or polarized – Polarized or mirror viewfinders help block UV rays, sunlight and bright lights from night games. Many athletes, like Le`Veon Bell of the Steelers, wear polarized visors that match their team`s colors. It offers about the same protection as smoke-sized visors. While players tested the visors on the field during the Pro Bowl, the league tested the fans next to them. Asamoah says the league hired a third-party company to interview more than 400 people in three different models. The NFL has received feedback from fans about overly tinted visors and whether they look “cool.” The unique tinted lens blocks 99% of UV rays and reduces fogging inside and outside the lens. This technology allows you to focus on what`s important while improving style and performance. While most football leagues have strict rules for helmet visors, they are a little more lenient with helmet stickers. While a helmet sticker won`t protect your eyes, it looks really cool and allows you to customize your football helmet.
If you have a simple-looking helmet and are ready to customize it, check out the vast selection of custom football helmet stickers! The league banned tinted visors in 1998, with the exception of these few medical situations, for safety reasons. For example, if a player was knocked out on the field, athletic trainers or doctors would have difficulty seeing the player`s eyes through the tinted shield, and there would be too much risk of removing a player`s helmet with a possible head or neck injury. (The shields can now be removed easily and safely without removing the helmet.) Here are the long and short of it. If you want to make sure there`s no question of whether you`re legal, choose a 100% clear, colorless visor like this one from Nike or this one from UA, and then add the loot during exercise or before the game. Clear visors are the legal standard visor for playing on the field in the NFL. As of 2019, the rules have changed and players are only allowed to wear Oakley-branded visors. Before dark visors were banned, NFL players preferred them for a number of reasons. At first, the visor acts like sunglasses, reducing glare and making it easier to see even in the sunniest circumstances. However, dark visors block more than the sun. If a player suffers from migraines or is sensitive to sunlight, they will need a medical exemption to put a tinted visor on their helmet instead of the authorized clear visor. The restriction is not arbitrary; Sometimes medical staff need to see an injured player`s eyes without taking off their helmet, and tinted visors interfere with that.