Why Cole Strange, Patriots rookie starting guard, wears an old-school facemask

The first time rookie Cole Strange suited up for a full-squad practice with the New England Patriots, a couple of his veteran teammates snickered. One looked at him confused. What are you wearing?

The first time rookie Cole Strange suited up for a full-squad practice with the New England Patriots, a couple of his veteran teammates snickered. One looked at him confused.

“What are you wearing?”

It was no different from what Strange had worn on the football field during his standout senior season at UT Chattanooga, a campaign that helped make him a surprise first-round pick. But he figured he was in line for a few inquires nonetheless.

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“This,” he said, “is my helmet.” And, yes, that vertical bar down the front of it, which looks like something out of the 1970s, is really the facemask he wears.

“A couple of guys are not fans of it, but I don’t care,” Strange said. “A couple of people have told me to get another facemask.”

But the retro facemask is here to stay. Whether it made a difference in him arriving here as the starting left guard for the Patriots isn’t the point. He wore it as he became a standout offensive lineman at a small school. He wore it through his impressive pre-draft showcases. He wore it through training camp and earned a starting job in New England.

“If it ain’t broke,” Strange said, “don’t fix it.”

Gotta respect Cole Strange’s facemask. Definitely looks the kind a handful of sophomores would wear in high school, because all the cool ones were taken. pic.twitter.com/MkkARyapSy

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) October 2, 2022

The idea started in the summer of 2021. Chattanooga had a veteran offensive line group that had been together for four years. The linemen wanted to do something to cap off their time playing alongside each other.

So, one suggested, let’s all wear the same facemask. They could make it something a little adventurous. You know, add some flair.

The first idea was to find a facemask like the one LaDainian Tomlinson used to wear with several bars by the chin and a half-circle around the nose. But they discovered those were no longer made. One player suggested an old-school facemask with a vertical bar. After a few laughs, they agreed to give it a shot.

“It looked old, but, hey, we’re pretty old and we’ve been together for a long time, so let’s go with it,” said McClendon Curtis, the right guard who played with Strange at Chattanooga, who is now a senior and hopes to follow in Strange’s footsteps by being selected in the NFL Draft next spring. “And we were like, if you’re going to be in the game, you have to wear it. That was a rule. Some young guys didn’t get into it, but of us core guys that played, we all wore it.”

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Early results, they admit, had them second-guessing their decision. After trying them on the first time, one joked that they were going to go cross-eyed while wearing them, stuck staring at the middle bar the whole time.

“But the bar disappears after a while unless you focus on it,” Curtis said.

Cole Strange, right, was a five-year starter for the Mocs. (Courtesy of UT Chattanooga)

On the famous 1981 Sports Illustrated cover, a vertical bar bisects John Hannah’s face. There’s a lot to look at. Yellow words over the white helmet declare the former Patriots guard the best offensive lineman of all time. His white chin guard is worn tight.

@Sarge985 @NEPAC @Patriots_Wire John Hannah was on the cover of SI on August 3, 1981 @PatsTimeMachine @hoghannah @PatsFans_News pic.twitter.com/YgW4MK9lTE

— PatsStatManBob (@PatsStatManBob) August 3, 2022

But it’s the gray bar down the middle that first stands out. Coupled with the steely glare, it makes him look intimidating.

“Oh, it wasn’t for intimidation,” Hannah said of the facemask. “It served a purpose.”

Back then, Hannah said, linemen were told to lead with their heads when blocking. That vertical bar was often the first thing to make contact with a defensive lineman.

“That’s the way we were taught to block,” Hannah said. “So it was a needed piece of equipment, otherwise you’d mash your nose into somebody.”

Blocking styles evolved quickly in those early years, but the necessity of the vertical bar didn’t. In Hannah’s pre-NFL days in the 1960s, offensive linemen were taught to put their head on one side of a defender’s helmet, then use their head to help move the player.

“Then as the game progressed, you came off and you’d plant your head somewhere in the chest and then use your hands to direct them,” Hannah said.

In those days, the padding inside the helmets wasn’t great either, and the exterior wasn’t nearly as strong. So the facemasks served another purpose, one Hannah discovered in a painful, probably concussion-inducing way.

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The Patriots were playing in Green Bay. Hannah was in the wedge on the kickoff return team and ran toward a Packers defender.

“I hit him and thought my helmet felt funny,” Hannah said. “It felt like I knocked myself silly. Anyway, I came to the sideline after we got through with the series, and when I unsnapped my headgear, the plastic (of the helmet) had broken in two. The only thing holding it together was the facemask.”

Still, don’t expect Hannah to gush about how cool it is to see a modern lineman rocking the retro mask.

“It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other what they want to wear,” he said.

Curtis wasn’t surprised that Strange was still wearing the old-school facemask in the NFL. That was burying the lede, he said. The real surprise was seeing his old teammate wear gloves during the last several games for the Patriots.

“He hates gloves,” Curtis said. “Every year, the gloves would get a one-day trial from him. But I’m telling you, if one small thing went wrong, he was like, ‘I’m taking these off.’”

That couldn’t be right, could it? Linemen deal with some of the gnarliest hand injuries, and many are left with fingers permanently bent sideways. Did Strange really hate gloves that much?

Faced with that question, Strange opened a small drawer in his locker meant to hold a player’s valuables.

“Check this out,” he said.

Strange held up a fingernail, then showed off the pinky to which it previously belonged. On the first day of training camp, his finger had gotten stuck under an opponent’s pads and the nail had been ripped clean off.

“So I did wear them the next day,” Strange said of his gloves.

For the most part, though, he opts against them. The longer he makes it in a season before putting gloves on, the better. But at some point, his fingers get too sore to go without them. So don’t expect him to be bare-handed in Week 18.

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“If we get to that point and I’m not wearing gloves, that means they’re pristine,” Strange said. “But I’d be surprised if they get to that point.”

In a lot of ways, that mentality fits his demeanor.

Strange didn’t come to the Patriots insisting that he’d never wear gloves or that he’d wear the same facemask he did in college. In fact, he was nervous about meeting with the team’s equipment department for the first time. He thought they might tell him he couldn’t wear his facemask with the vertical bar.

“I thought it was kind of cool in college, but I was cognizant of how it is with rookies sometimes,” Strange said. “’Just do what you’re told.’ So, I was like, ‘Well, if they give me a regular facemask, I don’t give a s—.’”

But when Strange brought it up, the Pats equipment department was on board.

Teammates made fun of it early. One opponent so far has mocked him for it, but it was such a minor quip that he doesn’t even remember who said it. Someone joked that he should put a visor on it to really make it look absurd.

While there is no league-wide record of players’ facemasks, there are only two other NFL regulars who have a vertical bar in their facemask: 49ers offensive lineman Mike McGlinchey and Commanders defensive lineman Jonathan Allen.

Whatever the equipment situation, it seems to be working for Strange. When the Patriots needed positive plays in the running game Sunday in Green Bay, they ran to the left side, where Strange plays next to Trent Brown. And his first month in the NFL has drawn praise from his coach.

“Cole’s given us a good level of play all year,” Bill Belichick said. “He gets better every week, gets better every day. (He’s a) smart kid, has learned a lot and is able to process a lot more on a weekly basis and certainly over the couple months that we’ve been here, August and September. That’s a lot of snaps, a lot of days, a lot of meetings, a lot of practices. He’s absorbed a lot of information and processed it well. Like every young player, (he) has a long way to go, but he’s gaining ground.”

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As he does, don’t expect his equipment to change. The old-school, I-don’t-give-a-damn-what-I-wear mentality is part of who he is.

After Strange and the other Chattanooga seniors left, the offensive line stopped wearing those facemasks. If Curtis does reach the NFL next year, he won’t be bringing it back, either.

“I feel like that’s just Cole’s thing,” Curtis said. “I’ll give that to him. He has all the marketing ability with that stuff — the facemask, the No. 69, ‘Strange’ on the back, no gloves — all of that just fits his vibe.”

(Top photo: Fred Kfoury III / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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