Tom Brady Will Have No Antonio Brown-Like Helmet Drama This Season
BOSTON (CBS) -- All-Pro wideout Antonio Brown is one of a group of veteran NFL players that is being forced to wear a different helmet for this season. He's not happy about it, to the point where he's petitioned the league and is reportedly threatening to not play football again.
Tom Brady is also in that group of players, and though he's not happy about the forced change, he said he's just going to have to deal with the rules.
"Yeah, it's kind of, they kind of spoke to me last year about it, and I've been experimenting with a couple different ones," Brady said on The Greg Hill Show on WEEI on Monday morning. "And I don't really love the one that I'm in, but I don't really have much of a choice. So I'm just trying to do the best that I can to work with it."
Prior to last season, the NFL announced the rule change that added several helmets -- Brady's and Brown's among them -- to a list of banned equipment. The change was made in the name of safety, as some of the older helmet models don't pass the modern testing standards.
Players were given one last year to remain in the older helmets, but Brady tried to make the switch for the 2018 season. Brady started the season with that new model:
In Week 2 in Jacksonville, Brady wore the old model for warmups ...
... before switching to the new model for the game:
Brady switched back to the old model for Week 3 in Detroit ...
... before going back to the new helmet for several weeks. But in Week 12 against the Jets, Brady was back in his comfortable, old helmet. And he kept wearing it right on through the Patriots' Super Bowl victory in February.
This year, Brady won't have the same luxury of switching back and forth. He said he will miss his old trustworthy helmet.
"I mean, you get used to the same helmet for a long period of time, and I did that. My last helmet, I wore it in the last four Super Bowls. So it's a pretty great helmet for me," Brady said. "And I hated to put it on the shelf, but that was what they kind of said to do, so that's kind of what I'm dealing with, and I'm kind of working with something else."
