Tomlinson's New Helmet/Visor

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LaDainian Tomlinson doesn’t play in preseason games. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t doing anything uni-notable — it just means most of us can’t see what he’s up to. Fortunately, reader Ryan Luz — who happens to be an a*sistant equipment manager at U. of San Diego — has been paying close attention, and he’s noticed a some interesting new developments regarding LT’s headwear:

Okay, so you know what LT’s normal facemask and visor look like — just the standard dark tint and a standard three-bar facemask, like this. Within the last week or two, however, he began wearing a new at training camp. This new visor was reflective and blue.

Then he did something I’ve never seen before — well, two things, actually. First, he wore this new facemask that’s like nothing I’ve seen before. Just very odd, very unique, something I’ve never seen in all of my football equipment managing days.

But the weirdest thing isn’t the facemask. If you look closely at this photo again, you’ll see he’s wearing TWO visors. It appears as though he’s wearing the new blue, reflective visor underneath the old standard tinted visor. This is another thing I’ve never seen before.

Since LT doesn’t play preseason games, it’s not yet clear if this is just some practice thing, or if he will use this configuration in games. Meanwhile, I’m currently scouring the internet trying to find what type of facemask that is, but neither Schutt nor Adams shows that mask on their sites, and I’m 90% sure it isn’t a Riddell, because they stick mostly with the traditional masks.

Some quick background: Wearing a tinted visor requires special permission from the NFL (in Tomlinson’s case, it’s because he has a light-sensitivity condition that can lead to migraines), but nobody is allowed to wear a colored or reflective visor. Ronnie Brown, for example, was fined for wearing this sunburst-patterned visor in 2005. So is Tomlinson’s dual-visor setup a way for him to hide the contraband visor behind the kosher one? Bizarre.

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