Due to the limitation of in vivo studies on human brain, finite element modelling is an important tool to study brain injury. Although head finite element models are developed to mimic brain responses to impact conditions, there is a need to consider how closely these models simulate actual brain. In this work, the effect of brain material models, geometry of the head and the brain‐skull connection is investigated for a mild deceleration of the head by comparing the strain response of brain models with the strains measured using magnetic resonance imaging. The comparison considered the SIMon, THUMS, and GHBMC finite element head models. The simulated strain responses from all the models agreed with the experimental peak strain locations, but were lower in magnitude. While the brain model and brain‐skull connection of the SIMon model was different from the THUMS and the GHBMC models, the strain response of all the models was similar. For the simulated impacts considered here (~40 ms duration), the neck contributed measurably to the rotational acceleration of the head and, in turn, brain strain.