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By Jeré Longman
Terrance Knighton, a 6-foot-3, 335-pound defensive tackle for the Denver Broncos, has the sumptuous nickname of Pot Roast. Perched on such a massive frame, his shoulder pads appear almost decorative, as if they were tassels on a drum major.
If they turn on the Super Bowl on Sunday, casual football fans who have not watched a game in a few years might wonder, “Who shrank the shoulder pads?” As players have grown heavier in the N.F.L., shoulder pads have become lighter by as much as 50 percent over the past 10 to 15 years, manufacturers said. Gone the way of other fashion excesses of the 1980s are enormous pads that once cantilevered out from the shoulders and seemed to engulf a player like a treehouse for the head.
A number of factors have contributed to more streamlined shoulder pads: advances in the technology and design of the plastic and foam harnesses; a shift in linemen’s blocking technique toward more permissive use of the hands and a perceived decrease in shoulder-to-shoulder collisions; an ever-increasing emphasis on speed and athleticism; an attempt by players to avoid being grabbed.
“It’s like the sleek fast car now rather than the big dump truck — nothing to grab on to and hang on to,” said Tom Cable, the offensive line coach for the Seattle Seahawks.
In the Super Bowl on Sunday, Knighton said he would use double-sided carpet tape to keep his jersey and shoulder pads tightly together as he prepares to engage in a lineman’s brutal ballet.
“I think that’s what the league has moved to — guys want smaller pads,” Knighton said. “Some guys don’t even want to wear them.” He added: “The game is more about speed now and making plays.”
Seeking to enhance player safety, the N.F.L. this season mandated the use of thigh pads and kneepads. And concussions remain a serious issue. With shoulder pads, many players said they sought a balance between protection and comfort, preferring those that allow greater range of motion and provide a sensation of lightness and increased speed.
“I just want them to sit on top of my shoulders,” Knighton said. “I don’t really need it to protect anything.”
The N.F.L. said it had seen no change in the rate of shoulder injuries with the smaller pads, and manufacturers said they had maintained the same commitment to safety. Nic Gay, a founder ofSimpleTherapyand an orthopedic surgeon based in Oakland, conducted an independent survey, based on N.F.L. injury reports published weekly this season, that indicated 116 shoulder injuries had occurred, or 8.6 percent of the more than 1,300 total injuries sustained on the field.
Over all, shoulder injuries have caused much less public concern in the league than concussions and knee injuries. Max Unger, Seattle’s starting center, said players straddled the line between nimbleness and well-being in choosing smaller shoulder pads.
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“You want something you can move in, and players are willing to sacrifice the condition of their body for performance on the field,” Unger said.
Shoulder pads, which weigh less than four pounds today, weighed six to eight pounds about 15 years ago, according to Riddell, a top N.F.L. supplier. They are now thinner, flatter, more flexible and more resistant to becoming waterlogged with sweat.
Players sometimes do their own customizing, trimming or removing some of the flaps and cushioning. Some defensive ends and linebackers prefer shoulder pads that appear not much bigger than the ones receivers and cornerbacks wear.
“It started out, in Little League and stuff, the bigger the better,” said Champ Bailey, the All-Pro Denver cornerback who is playing in his first Super Bowl after 15 seasons in the league. “High school, the bigger the better. Now it’s the smaller the better. You want to be as light as possible.”
Few players, if any, wear hip pads anymore, Bailey said. And referring to a protective cup, he added, “I haven’t seen a cup since I’ve been playing football in the ’80s.”
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David Bruton, a safety for the Broncos, said that when he saw video of players wearing cumbersome shoulder pads from earlier decades, he wondered how they could move well with such restricting gear.
Shoulder pads first appeared in the late 1800s, manufacturers said, and early rudimentary models were made of leather with felt padding.
By the 1980s, plastic and foam pads protruded, not unlike a backyard deck. Herschel Walker, the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner who had a durable if peripatetic professional career as a running back, might have needed a building permit if his pads had jutted out any more.
“He was well padded up and needed to be,” said Vince Dooley, who coached Walker at the University of Georgia, where he averaged 30.1 carries per game for three seasons. “He took on a lot of punishment.”
Cliff Avril, a defensive end for Seattle, said he appreciated that players once wore more padding because they often played on more unforgiving artificial turf than today’s players.
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“Guys in the ’80s, they were playing basically on cement,” Avril said. “So I would wear big pads for that, too.”
Eventually, bulk became less important than mobility for some players. Tony Boselli, considered the N.F.L.’s top offensive tackle in the late 1990s with the Jacksonville Jaguars, wore shoulder pads so small that they were once described as being made of “a couple of sponges and duct tape.”
Ed McCaffrey, a receiver who won a Super Bowl with the San Francisco 49ers and two with Denver in the 1990s, wore tiny, obsolete shoulder pads and famously went to extremes by trimming even his athletic supporter to make it more lightweight.
“It was like a G-string,” said Mark Schlereth, a former teammate of McCaffrey’s in Denver.
When Boselli retired in 2003, much speculation appeared in the news media that the small size of his shoulder pads had contributed to chronic shoulder injuries. He has said he does not believe that was the cause.
Last October, Larry Foote, a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, said that players were becoming more vulnerable to shoulder injuries now that helmet-to-helmet contact was restricted in an attempt to reduce the number of concussions.
Pete Carroll, the Seattle coach, said, “I’m sure pads today are safer than they were.”
Whatever the case, smaller shoulder pads seem unlikely to disappear anytime soon from the N.F.L. About to enter the league is Johnny Manziel, the quarterback and 2012 Heisman Trophy winner from Texas A&M, who is expected to be a high pick in the May draft.
“He looks like he’s playing peewee football,” Dooley, the former Georgia coach, said admiringly of Manziel.
“He’s got the smallest shoulder pads I’ve ever seen. He looks like a mouse among men.”
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