NFL: National Football Luddites?

theodp writes "The National Football League has been brainstorming with tech and communications companies on how to bring the NFL into the 21st century. Major-league sports are famously technophobic — the NFL outlaws computers and PDAs on the sidelines, in the locker room and in press-box coaching booths within 90 minutes of kickoff. But that may be about to change, which the WSJ's Matthew Futterman speculates could mean: 'Coaches selecting plays from tablet computers. Quarterbacks and defensive captains wired to every player on the field and calling plays without a huddle. Digital video on the sidelines so coaches can review plays instantly. Officials carrying hand-held screens for replays. Computer chips embedded in the ball and in the shoulder pads (or mouth guards) that track every move players make and measure their speed, the impact of their hits, even their rate of fatigue.' Part of the impetus for the changes is the chance for a windfall — the NFL's sponsorship deals with Motorola and IBM will expire after this season, and the NFL will be seeking more technology (and presumably cash) from its next technology partner(s)."

Comments

the pro in pro sports

[goombah99]

I don't watch pro sports because I can't relate to it. It's not interesting. Now college and lower are really interesting. There are huge differences in the athletes and you can see it. Mistakes happen so you can compare perfection to imperfection. Coaches matter too. And everyone is having fun. Pro just kills it. If they are going to go pro I'd like to see them go all the way and allow super modified cyborg humans compete.

Re:the pro in pro sports

[rotide]

I can't watch pro sport due to multiple reasons. First, it's basically nothing but a bunch of prima donnas complaining all the time. Everyone thinks they are gods gift. News flash, it's a game. Yes you get paid, but you're throwing a ball around a field, get over yourselves. Second, the fact that they are nothing but commodities in and of themselves now. Hell, the teams themselves are practically traded like baseball cards. Not to mention the non-stop and constant advertising. But what really gets me is the sheer fanaticism about it. People get so offended if you bash their quarterback, or root for the rival. There is nothing fun about it. Just a bunch of prima donnas on TV and people who idolize them for no reason. All the while you're being sold everything from beer, to deodorant, to cars. Hell, the Super Bowl is almost better known for it's advertisements!

Re:the pro in pro sports

[cos(0)]

Yes you get paid, but you're throwing a ball around a field, get over yourselves

It's possible to trivialize any career if you try. I bet you get paid for simply pushing bits around, so get over yourself.

Re:the pro in pro sports

[rotide]

I wasn't trying to trivialize it. People just take the art (yes art, I'll give you that) and skill of throwing a ball and turn it into a holier than thou profession. It's sickening. You're a professional ball thrower and personality on TV. The problem is, it seems as though most of them see themselves as the latter. Everyone just needs to realize they are nothing more than professional kids in the sense that they play the same game kids do, just with more rules and structure. Not to mention multimillion dollar contracts.

Re:the pro in pro sports

[Silentknyght]

I don't watch pro sports because I can't relate to it. It's not interesting. Now college and lower are really interesting. There are huge differences in the athletes and you can see it. Mistakes happen so you can compare perfection to imperfection. Coaches matter too. And everyone is having fun. Pro just kills it. If they are going to go pro I'd like to see them go all the way and allow super modified cyborg humans compete.

I don't know why this was moderated "off-topic", it's relevant, albeit a bit of an "end game" perspective... At some level, the "purity" of a sport comes into play, and this "technological" decision is directly tied to that. Right now, we have human beings playing sports and human beings coaching sports. We disallow unfair augmentation of players (i.e., performance-enhancing drugs), not only because it would become a race-to-the-bottom for player health, but also because it removes that sense of fairness we currently perceive by "limiting" the players to the gifts with which you were born.

If coaching introduced technology without limits, it'd end up like Wall Street: a massive technological arms race to compute the "right" outcome faster than the opponents, and humans would be eliminated from the picture. YMMV, but I'm not interested in watching a sporting contest like that.

Re:the pro in pro sports

[sexconker]

Yes you get paid, but you're throwing a ball around a field, get over yourselves

It's possible to trivialize any career if you try. I bet you get paid for simply pushing bits around, so get over yourself.

Go ahead and try to trivialize a surgeon, firefighter, or coast guard rescue swimmer without looking like a moron.

Re:the pro in pro sports

[dward90]

Please cite examples of this. I think you're factually incorrect. There might be a small number (single digits) of players in all of American professional sports who act the way you are describing. The vast majority act (shockingly) *professional*. They say things like "We've worked hard and we're going to try to get better every day. I'm happy to do what I do for a living." I would put my foot in mouth and consider myself humbled if you could cite one example of a players acting like "a bunch of prima donnas" without finding a dozen where they act like (again, shocking) professionals.

And you choose the NFL as your example?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say the NFL is probably one of the least "luddite" of the major sports--compare them to soccer or basketball for example...

Re:And you choose the NFL as your example?

[Rhodri Mawr]

The only part of Association Football (soccer in your parlance) that is luddite is the use of action replays to allow the referee to make a better decision. Even that is on the agenda for change. On the contrary, Technology is being used widely in soccer, Rugby Union and Rugby League to measure the performance of players both on the pitch and off it in training.

Technologies like Prozone http://www.prozonesports.com/index.html and opta http://www.optasports.com/sports/football.html provide detailed statistics to the Management/Coaching staff. Almost none of the top league European Soccer sides do not use some variant of these technologies, and if they don't, they won't be top league for much longer. Almost every successful side owes a fair part of their recent success to video analysis both on and off the pitch.

In Wales we have grown used to seeing our Rugby Union coaches sat infront of laptops during matches, watching the laptops almost as much as the game. Players are biometrically monitored during training to ensure that they are neither slacking off nor overdoing it and risking injury during training.

Rugby League has led the way in the use of action replays for the referees to watch in order to review infringements and borderline decisions, typically during the act of scoring a try.

Cricket and tennis have championed the use of Hawk-eye http://www.hawkeyeinnovations.co.uk/ to decide whether a ball would have hit the wicket or was in or out respectively.

So, no, soccer is not luddite, and the NFL could certainly be doing and allowing more technological innovation.

They do allow non-humans to compete

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

substance abuse in professional sports is so high that it is not entirely accurate to consider the sports a display of human skill--although not super-modified-cyborg-humans, they're as close as they can be without being detected by drug screenings

Re:They do allow non-humans to compete

[guanxi]

Could someone explain to a non-sports person why steroids (which is what I assume you are talking about) is any different from taking vitamin supplements, diets planned by professional nutritionists, sports drink, specially designed running shoes, etc. Who cares? If it's not "fair" just allow everyone to take steroids.

A good question that's been discussed by many in sports. Here's my understanding and take:

First, technically there are other drugs besides steriods; Human Growth Hormone (HGH), for example. I think the proper all-encompassing term is performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).

1) The non-PEDs that you mention haven't significantly altered performance. Take baseball for example: Before PEDs, in the 75 year modern history of the home run, once someone hit 61 HRs (Roger Maris in 1961) and once someone hit 60 (Babe Ruth, 1927). Nobody else hit 60 in all those seasons by all those players. In the 4 years from 1998 to 2001, players hit 63, 64, 65, 66, 70, and 73 home runs! Look at this list and note how many top HR single seasons occurred during the PED-era, and note that the trend stopped when drug testing began. (Many other records were set during the PED-era, HRs are just an easy example; the greatest individual hitting season ever and greatest individual pitching season ever both occurred (if you ignore the cheating) during the PED era).

2) Sports are interesting as a contest of physical ability and effort, not of chemistry. That may be arbitrary, and maybe the Chemistry Olympics would be more interesting to Slashdotters, but physical competition is what is being advertised.

3) PEDs involve health risks. Athletes are highly competitive by nature, and the difference between a good and bad season can be a multi-million dollar contract or the end of a career, being a minor-leaguer or making the big time. Unless PEDs are regulated, athletes are put in a position where they have to take greater and greater health risks, or lose.

Re:They do allow non-humans to compete

[nitehawk214]

you realize how dangerous and punishing on the human body football itself is, right?

Exactly, now add a very body abusing steroid regime, and you wont see a retired football player above the age of 50.

Re:They do allow non-humans to compete

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think drugs are the only reason for the contiunous record breaking we're seeing across practically all sports. Players now are "professional".

As recently as the late 1980s my mother worked with a bloke who was a international cricketer. But he wasn't actually paid - he had to take time off from work to compete. When he ran out of leave, then he had to take leave without pay. Since 70s to now we've seen professional sports really take off - as in, it's the player's full-time and only job and the player makes a living from his pay or sponsorship.

Now in many sports (gymanstics, swimming) professional players are picked as national level players in their early teens. Everything for these kids practically goes on hold - school, family, relationships - everything.

When you're able to dedicate that level of full time committment to a sport then records are going to get broken.

Statstical analysis

[Myria]

If computers were allowed, it might have far-reaching effects. A computer could know the entire state of the game, and look through every game in history to determine the outcomes of each choice a coach has at a particular moment. It could present to the coach a list of choices along with the expected outcomes given the probabilities in the past. In a way, it would eliminate some choices of the coach.

I think baseball would be affected much more than football. Baseball has ten times the games per year as the NFL, so statistical analysis would be more effective.

Easiest new tech for football: RFID in balls

[Nidi62]

There is a huge focus now on scoring plays. Every time there is a scoring play, the play is reviewed to make sure the player wasn't down and that the ball actually crossed to goal line. I've always thought they could make it a lot easier on the referees, for both scoring and spotting the ball, if they put RFID or similar chips inside the balls, then put sensors at every yard line to determine where the ball was at a given point. As a football official myself, let me tell you, there is a lot of inaccuracies regarding ball spotting. A lot of the time, especially if it is an out of bounds play, they will simply spot the ball on the closest yard line (unless of course it is right by the other team's bench, then they have to be much or accurate".

More information = better sport

[nixed3]

This would be so great for the sport. I am a huge football fan, and for the most part, I feel that NFL referees do a decent job of officiating the game considering the phenomenal pace at which these athletes are moving (flying) around the field. Use of HD-Replay allows them to "get it right" with a rather high percentage.

Think of the potential for this: With just a few modifications, a football can have a chip to detect where it is on the field, at any given timestamp. This can be used to practically guarantee correct calls on scoring plays. Why not take it a step further and have the ship calculate how much pressure is being exerted on the ball from the player holding it (to determine if someone has "possession")?

However, while I feel that technological advances for the sport in general are good (sensors in the ball and on the field, referees with better access to information), I am concerned about what happens if each TEAM gets to use increasingly complex technology because then the league has to provide the same tech to every team in every game. Obviously, if one team has access to superior information/technology that the others don't it is game-breaking. You can't give one coach a live, continuous HD feed from the sky viewing all players on each player (the coveted "All 22" shot) if every coach doesn't have it.

(I just feel the need to soap box here and point out that NBA is a completely different story, as I'm almost certain that [playoff] NBA officiating is absolutely rigged and has been for the last decade.)

Battle School

[kEnder242]

Anderson talking to Graff about his new job.

"Though after years of watching those children flying, football is like watching slugs bash into each other."
    - Ender's Game

Re:Meatheads and Tech

[zbobet2012]

I was going to mod the parent down, but instead I will reply.

Nascar intentionally limits the data that may be sent to the announcers, as much of the data coming from the cars is considered proprietary information for each team, this is mostly done in the interest of perserving competition. The actual teams put sensors on the cars that collect a simply amazing amount of data, from tire forces, suspension forces, engine sensors, frame torque, and etc. Last I talked to the software companies that do this high end race teams in NASCAR and Forumla 1 collect over 1000 data points once every microsecond or so. It is common place practice now for teams to "tune in" there cars by doing an actual test run in the car and then placing the data into a CVD (computation vehicle dynamics) program like Optimum-G and perform tweaks to the car several times and simulate the actual test run as its much cheaper and quicker to do it that way.

Hell, a few years ago Formula 1 placed limitations on transmissions as there was a serious concern that the engineers where automating the transmissions for the drivers based on test runs around the track. If you think that the engineers and people involved in racing in a multi-billion dollar business where winning can mean tens of millions of dollars for the team are "meatheads" you are at such a level of ignorance its astounding.

Re:NFL--not what you think

[WrongMonkey]

Only one of the Clay Millennium prize has been solved and that was by a reclusive Russian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems