Former Georgia Bulldogs star makes unique Super Bowl history as New England Patriots rookie on Sunday
Rookie offensive lineman Jared Wilson, a former Georgia Bulldogs great, will be the first to wear a protective Guardian Cap on his helmet in Super Bowl history
There is always some sort of history to be made in sports. Records broken. Unprecedented on-field accomplishments. Other times it’s just a step in the right direction for player safety. That’s the kind of history that Jared Wilson, a former Georgia Bulldogs star, and current rookie New England Patriots offensive lineman, will be making on Sunday in Super Bowl LX.
Jared Wilson makes history as the first to wear a Guardian Cap in a Super Bowl
Wilson will be the first player to ever wear a Guardian Cap in a Super Bowl. If you’re unfamiliar with what a Guardian Cap is, it’s the soft-shell cover you may have seen NFL players begin to wear throughout training camps and in game action over the past couple seasons (you can see Wilson wearing his in the post below).
Players around the league began introducing Guardian Caps a handful of years ago as a way to protect themselves from the intensity of every single helmet to helmet impact. At first, it was just something that the NFL allowed in OTAs, practices, and training camp. However, the league approved the innovative protective gear for in-game play back in 2024. Since then, more and more players have began to utilize them, especially those coming off of concussion protocol.
That was the case with Jared Wilson this season. Wilson unfortunately missed the last couple games of the 2025 regular season due to a concussion, so he chose to begin wearing the Guardian Cap to help better protect his head.
It’s important to emphasize that the company who created the Guardian Caps does not claim that their soft-shell protective covers “prevent” concussions. Rather, the idea is that they protect players marginally better on every single collision. Over time, that should lessen the overall impact of hundreds of physical clashes to the head that professional football players endure — ideally limiting potential long-term brain damage.
Right now, Guardian Caps are still completely voluntary, and that may always be the case. However, Wilson, a rising star rookie NFL player choosing to wear one in the Super Bowl will certainly shine a light on something that may be a long-term solution for — or at least a small step in the right direction of — player safety.
A to Z Sports spoke with Guardian Cap staff this week briefly, and here’s a piece of what they had to share about their tech being utilized in the Super Bowl:
“At Guardian, our mission has always been focused on athlete safety. Seeing our technology on the field during the Super Bowl is an honor and powerful moment for our team. It shows how far the conversation of player safety and protection has come and reinforces our mission to continue to support athletes at every level of the game.”
Companies like Guardian, and the technology they create, will certainly continue to impact the future of player safety in football. It has to if the sport wants to remain sustainable for many decades to come, as experts continue trying to make the sport safer for athletes of all ages.
Wilson’s choice to wear his Guardian Cap is just one small step forward in the larger picture of the player safety movement, but momentum has been building toward this for some time. Over the last few years, college football programs, high school football teams, and even youth football have all begun looking into and utilizing the technology. Hopefully more and more join the movement to improve player safety technology as well.
We’ll be back with more Georgia Bulldogs coverage here at A to Z Sports soon! Follow me (@FF_TravisM) and A to Z Sports (@AtoZSportsNFL) on X for all the latest football news.
