Riddell rolled out the new Axiom football helmets for the first time during the 2022 college football season. More and more players are wearing the funky-looking lids on both the amateur and professional levels, and this season has seen a significant increase over last.
What are Axiom helmets?
Riddell’s Axiom football helmet has a lot of new features that are intended to put the players first. They are designed to be the most advanced, personalized football helmet on the market.
The biggest aspect of the helmet is the smart technology that is connected to Riddell’s new InSite Analytics software. The software allows teams to view head impact date on individual players and position group analysis.
Web-based, the analytics platform show as the quantity of team and individual head collisions increases or decreases on both a daily and weekly basis. It also includes charts that show the frequency of impact to specific locations, such as the back, front, left, right, or top of the head.
The technology is a huge breakthrough in the space and could see a significant increase in how head injuries and hits to the head are documented, treated, and perhaps most importantly, viewed.
They also offer personalized protection.
Rather than trying to find the best fit, Axiom finds the perfect fit. Players are fitted for their helmets through Riddell’s Verifyt app. It scans thickness, shape and contour of an athlete’s head, and Riddell takes that date to add interior liner pads to the helmet that properly fit the athlete in terms of comfort and protection.
The helmet also includes flex system panels to improve impact response and a new facemask that is intended to better manage and respond to the energy of an impact. Riddell also installed a panoramic visor that strengthens the facemask structure and provides a better view of the field.
Axiom helmets are a great advancement in on-field technology. Riddell’s entire goal is to protect the players and their new lids are focused on decreasing the amount of head injuries in football.
That is a great thing and they are working.
However, the helmets are ugly.
How the Axiom helmets look ultimately does not matter at all, but they’re an eyesore.
Especially with throwback uniforms.
Another issue with the helmets were the facemasks. When Riddell first released the Axiom helmets, the facemasks did not include a top bar.
That was an issue for three reasons:
- Style: it changed the look of the tradition helmet and it was rather jarring.
- Visor: athletes could only use an Axiom-specific visor that was Oakley-branded. That won’t work for programs that do not use the Oakley visor.
- Gap: The gap between the Axiom helmet facemask and a standard helmet facemask caused them to get stuck together easily. For example:
As a result, Riddell rolled out a new Axiom facemask with a top bar in 2023.
The launch did not go entirely according to plan. Illinois tight end Tip Reiman‘s top bar did not cooperate during Saturday’s game against Penn State.
Perhaps the top bar of the facemask is designed to dip in such a manner. Perhaps it was an equipment issue. It certainly seems more like the latter than the former, because it didn’t look that way against Kansas!
Either way, if Reiman’s facemask is the solution to the Axiom top bar issue, don’t expect many players to make the move any time soon. It looks terrible, which is whatever, but the vision cannot be ideal!