Green Bay - A Packers spokesman had already doused the hot rumor that QB Aaron Rodgers played with a crack in his helmet during the Jacksonville game Sunday, but being the "investigative" reporter that I am, I asked to see the helmet to make sure he had not.

Some background: A video circulating on the internet showed a network feed that had a closeup of Rodgers and showed what appeared to be a crack on the back left side of his helmet. Since you could see no symmetrical line on the other side, it did look like a little bit like a crack.

However, as the Packers explained, and a few others with knowledge of how the stripes on an NFL helmet are pasted on confirmed on Twitter, the "crack" is merely an outline of the decal secured to the surface of the helmet. The sticker widens at two places on the helmet and the outline that was evident on the video, actually exists on the left and right of the stripe down the middle.

For some reason, the lighting was such that the outline on the right wasn't visible.

Part of the reason the sticker widens, I was told, is so that it can cover holes on the top of the helmet and prevent the little rubber pellets that are at the base of Field Turf surfaces from getting inside the helmet.. It also probably assures that the stripe across the top of the helmet stays affixed.

Quarterback Graham Harrell's helmet had the exact same pattern on both sides of the stripe that Rodgers' helmet had.

So there you have it. Controversy avoided. Case closed.

When I looked at the Jones one, and then back at the others including the Matthews one) it looks like a plastic shield protecting the helmet strip stickers from coming off.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw ESPN play a video (of a non-Packers game) where a guy was hit so hard his helmet stickers game off. Maybe NFL made a big deal about this and forced teams to find a way to keep them on?

In the Matthews pic it looks like the plastic goes to the whole in the helmet and connects there, holding the plastic in, which holds the strip in. And clearly looks like plastic in the Jones one.

oh look now people are searching through and circling every little mark on a helmet. Looks like a scratch/paint swap to me. Doesn't really matter what it looks like though, because on tv there is no way for us to be sure what we're seeing. Could be a scratch, could be paint swap, could be a crack. Cracked helmets seems like the most unlikely case.

What was with Rodgers setting down one helmet and putting on another as he went in for the kneel down? Did anyone else catch that?