Broken arm be damned, Thomas Davis will play in the Super Bowl. How effective he will be is the real question.
News has come out about how the linebacker is planning to combat his broken forearm. The Panthers have been working with Whiteclouds, a large 3-D printing outfit, to come up with a design for a sleek brace that Davis could wear for the big game. Check it out:
The clock was ticking so the company made a quick model of Davis’ arm and began working on their first cast. More from Wired:
Whiteclouds has a whole design methodology, which it promptly tossed out the window. “If you were doing this brace,” (Whiteclouds CEO Jerry) Ropelato says, “you might have a whole team of experts doing their various testing, and math calculations from an engineering perspective. A lot of this was just bypassed, it was just quickly, dive in and get this thing done.”
Despite not knowing what they were getting themselves into, they were able to design and print the brace in time to get it to Davis. There were reports of him finding tough surfaces and banging his arm as hard as he could to test the strength of the brace. So far so good and it appears that Davis will go with the first ever 3-D printed brace worn in the Super Bowl.
The biggest advantage over the traditional club, many others have worn is, he mobility of the arm. With the slick brace, interceptions are still a possibility.
Duke orthopedic Surgeon Ned Amendola on the risk Davis has playing just weeks after breaking his forearm:
“Since the bone’s not completely healed, it’s a risk of breaking the hardware.”
Davis will be an interesting storyline to watch, especially early in the game as we see how the star linebacker plays and how this new fangled brace holds up.