Every player should have a mouthpiece in and a neck guard regardless of position. As a former hockey coach, my biggest pet peeve was a kid not wearing the neck guard that his parents bought him, since it wasn’t mandatory.
If there is protective gear available, buy it and make sure your kid wears it. Now for foam over helmets? unfortunately concussions are part of any sport. I would severely penalize intentional hits to hurt a player. Like a season ban the first time and a lifetime ban the second time. I get there is the heat of battle, but these are no longer children.
“football is a contact sport”...no, dancing is a contact sport...football is a “COLLISION” sport.
If you look at NFL players today most of them don’t wear gear that fully protects them, look at how many WRs and DBs wear thigh and knee pads, virtually none of them, in fact most of them only wear a helmet and shoulder pads and nothing else.