when did the nfl switch from leather helmets
Football helmet In 1939, the Riddell Company of Chicago, Illinois started manufacturing plastic helmets because it felt that plastic helmets would be safer than those made of leather. Plastic was found to be more effective because it held its shape when full collision contact occurred on a play. These helmets were also much more comfortable and had more padding to cushion the head in an impact. Included with the plastic helmet came plastic face mask, which allowed the helmet to protect the entire head. By the mid-1940s, helmets were required in the NFL. They were still made of leather, but with improved manufacturing techniques had assumed their more familiar spherical shape. The NFL initially allowed either plastic or leather helmets, but in 1948 the league outlawed the plastic helmet, considering the hard-plastic material to be an injury risk. The NFL repealed this rule in 1949, and by 1950, the plastic helmet had become universal in that league.[2]
Super Bowl LII The Patriots were the designated home team for Super Bowl LII, because the AFC team is the designated home team in even-numbered years and the NFC team in odd-numbered years. As the designated home team, the Patriots chose to wear their road white jerseys with navy blue pants, becoming the sixth team to wear their white jerseys as the home team and the third team to wear white in back-to-back Super Bowls, following the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowls XII and XIII and again in Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII.[citation needed] The Eagles therefore wore their standard home uniform of midnight green jerseys with white pants.[42] Twelve of the previous 13 Super Bowls had been won by teams wearing white jerseys. The last team to win a Super Bowl while wearing their home uniforms was the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XLV (who, coincidentally, had also worn green jerseys).[43]