EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection®ion=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/마스크 — Justin Tuck’s customized confront mask has inspired not less than three Bogus Twitter accounts, one Facebook lover webpage along with a likeness while in the Madden thirteen soccer video recreation.
But in early August, Tuck, a Giants defensive conclude, needed to petition the N.File.L. to maintain his fearsome face mask, with a grille of additional horizontal and diagonal bars. He had to encourage the league that it had been not just aesthetically pleasing, but additionally a professional medical requirement.
The N.File.L. has cracked down around the intense and funky experience masks various players connected to their helmets to generate them glimpse tougher or cooler. Gamers and not using a legit professional medical reason for an accessorized helmet are viewed as in violation with the league’s uniform policy, the N.F.L. spokesman Brian McCarthy explained.
Gone is Brian Orakpo’s corrugated headgear, modeled following the Batman villain Bane, and Darnell Dockett’s sq.-bottomed mask, which looked oddly similar to a panini grill.
Tuck’s facial area mask supporters, even so, can rest quickly. He supplied N.F.L. officers with documentation, signed from the group physician and head athletic trainer, certifying that his mask guarded his neck by preventing opponents from grabbing it.
“Mine wasn’t a manner assertion,” Tuck mentioned past 7 days. “I did mine like a requirement. So I believe as of today, I’ll even now be donning that deal with mask.”
His teammate Will Beatty, the Denver Broncos’ Terrance Knighton and also the Baltimore Ravens’ Chris Canty have been also granted exceptions. Canty was one of the to start with to don a detailed mask although While using the Giants in 2011, to guard an eye injuries and prevent opponents from poking fingers into his encounter, inadvertently or not.
McCarthy reported no N.File.L. rule outlawed specialised experience masks; relatively, they fell underneath the league’s coverage relating to game-day apparel.
“Lovers be expecting our gamers to costume at the best amount of professionalism,” McCarthy explained Thursday inside of a phone interview. “We’ve experienced this uniform and devices coverage as a replacement for the final several many years. And it spells out what is required of our gamers.”
All obvious items players use on game working day needs to be issued via the club or the league, or from outside the house resources with approval from the league Business.
Tuck declined to comment when asked his feeling on the regulation. But McCarthy explained safety was also a difficulty.
The league’s consulting committee on head, neck and backbone accidents expressed problem that the included pounds of personalized encounter masks would have an affect on the security furnished by the helmets, McCarthy said. Moreover, more bars from the grilles could catch players’ 마스크 fingers.
Dean Blandino, the N.File.L.’s new vice president for officiating, told “The Dan Patrick Demonstrate” on Wednesday that he thought players carrying oversize masks could possibly be extra inclined to initiate headfirst Get hold of. McCarthy did not disagree.
“In broad strokes, it arrives right down to potential security fears and our uniform policy,” he mentioned.
The Countrywide Working Committee on Standards for Athletic Devices, a nonprofit Firm often known as Nocsae that certifies all N.F.L. helmets before use, could not endorse the dozens of unique helmet amendments. In a statement, Nocsae resolved personalized deal with masks, saying the “addition of the item(s) to a helmet Earlier Licensed without having that item(s) produces a new untested model.”
By final period, Tuck was between A few N.F.L. stars with modern helmet grilles, using the darkish visor development popularized by LaDainian Tomlinson and Michael Vick a phase more. The Indianapolis Colts’ Robert Mathis wore a cage that lined pretty much every thing down below his eyelids. Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, by having an oversize black grille beneath a reflective black visor, appeared similar to a warrior from Yet another World.
This summer time, the Dallas Cowboys’ DeMarcus Ware joined in, sporting a mask with 8 crossbars, four in excess of the league’s limit.
But with no good allowance, the flowery headgear will include a fine.
“The league says I'm able to’t dress in my deal with mask,” Mathis wrote on Twitter. “I'll return to my operate in the mill grill.”
Tuck beefed up his encounter mask in October 2011, immediately after neck injuries derailed his season. He and the Giants’ products director, Joe Skiba, devised a person with 5 horizontal and 12 diagonal bars; Tuck reported he modeled the glance once the entrance guards, or pilots, on old-fashioned locomotives.
His deal with mask remains being an scary outlier.