With uncertainty abound with regards to the 2020 football season, the NFL has unveiled a new Oakley Mouth Shield which doctors and engineers hope will mitigate the spread of COVID-19 during the season.
Oakley Mouth Shield
The Oakley Prizm Lens Technology has been used by skiers, military personnel and, most recently, NFL players for enhanced color and contrast in their visors, is featured in the new design.
Plastic sheets extend down and attach to the faceguard. There are airways and openings on the mouth shield but none that allow the direct transmission of droplets, according to the chair of the NFL’s engineering committee, Dr. Jeff Crandall.
Some players, namely J.J. Watt, are not in favor of it.
“My second year in the league I thought it’d be cool, I put a visor on my helmet,” Watt said, via Pro Football Talk. “I was like, ‘It looks so cool, I wanna put a visor on.’ I had it on for about three periods of practice and I said, ‘Take this sucker off I’m gonna die out here.’ . . . So now you’re gonna put something around my mouth? You can keep that. If that comes into play, I don’t think you’re gonna see me on the field.”
