In football, there's an expression: "put a Riddell on him." It means put a hit on someone, with Riddell being a big manufacturer of helmets.

A new study suggests there might be another reaosn to put a Riddell on someone. Fewer concussions.

A three-year study involving more than 2,000 players at 17 Western Pennsylvania high schools determined that newer helmet technology and design might reduce the number of concussions among football players.

The study, conducted by UPMC's Sports Medicine Concussion Program and published next month in the scientific journal, Neurosurgery, showed that annual concussion rates in players who wore the Riddell Revolution helmet was 5.4 percent, and those wearing standard models designed earlier by Riddell and others was 7.6 percent.

In terms of relative risk, those who wore the Revolution were 31 percent less likely to get a concussion than those who wore standard helmets.

In general it's good to be skeptical of studies like this. For example, one thing we know from the history of technology is that technologies can bite back. New technologies set in motion adaptive behavior, which can lead to unforseen changes. For example, what if these helmets lead a player to feel safer so he hits people harder than he otherwise would. I'm not saying that will necessarily happen, but it's probably too early to tell what the long-term consequences of improved helmet technologies might be.