When watching a football game you may notice a “fanny pack” located around the waist of quarterbacks receivers, running backs and tight ends.
These “fanny packs” are actually hand-warming pouches that these players use in order to keep their hands working efficiently through the game.
Why Keeping Your Hands Warm Is Important
The reason that receivers, running backs, tight ends, and quarterbacks keep their hands warm is because these players all receive or throw passes.
When in cold weather it is the extremities of the body that get cold first. This means if you are out on a cold football field the first things getting cold will be your feet and hands.
Catching and throwing the ball requires your hands to be working to their best ability. If they are cold you will begin to lose feeling in them. You may also find that colder hands are more difficult to move and lack flexibility.
All of these factors add up when playing football. As the saying goes football is a game of inches meaning the smallest factors can change the outcome of the game.
This is why football players opt to use these fanny packs in-game, some players even go as far to pee their pants in order to stay warm in cold football games. . As it allows them to play at their highest level despite the elements.
How Do These “Fanny Packs” Work?
Though these fanny packs are referred to as hand warmers there is no actual heat being created by the hand warmer itself.
When skiing or snowboarding most hand warmers are going to feature some sort of heating device that keep you warm. A football hand warmer is simply an additionally sleeve a player can slip his hands into in order to warm up.
Once the player’s hands are in the sleeve the heat coming off his body will be retained. This makes the sleeve warm and ultimately warms up the player’s hands.
Though there are some heated quarterback hand warmers the vast majority are warmed simply through body heat.
Why Don’t Quarterbacks Just Wear Gloves
Since many other positions in football wear gloves, many fans wonder why quarterbacks don’t wear those intead of a fanny pack. There are two main reasons for this.
First off wearing gloves as a quarterback can significantly affect your ability to throw the ball. Though some quarterbacks have managed to play in the NFL while wearing gloves it is quite uncommon.
The tackiness of most football gloves creates a much different result than throwing with a bare hand. Since most quarterbacks have thrown with a bare hand for their entire life, it becomes their preferred method.
For this reason, they play gloveless and use a hand-warming sleeve during cold games.
The second reason quarterbacks don’t wear gloves to stay warm is because football gloves are not really meant for warmth.
You may have noticed that the other positions which often have “fanny pack” hand warmers are receivers, tight ends, and running backs.
All of these positions tend to wear gloves. The reason they still have the hand warmers is that these gloves aren’t very warm.
In order to be built for football use gloves don’t use materials meant to keep in body heat. Instead, these gloves are built to have the tackiness to catch balls and the durability to make it through a football game.
That’s all on fanny packs, learn why players wear flack jackets or why some teams don’t wear knee pads in college football.
