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Patriots Coach Bill Belichick on Microsoft Surface: 'I Just Can't Take It Anymore' (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the firsthand-experience dept.

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is not happy with the Surface tablet provided to him via a deal between Microsoft and the NFL. Not only has he physically thrown the tablets at things, but he has verbally expressed his negative opinions of them. TechCrunch reports: When asked about the Patriots' headsets malfunctioning during last weeks game, Belichick instead took the time to let everyone know he's "done with the tablets." While he didn't go into too much detail on the tablets, Belichick essentially said that Microsoft's surface tablets are too "undependable," and there "isn't enough consistency in their performance." In terms of the rest of the sideline technology like headsets, Belichick is essentially fed up with the fact that everything always malfunctions and is impossible to fix during games. So why is the sideline technology so hard to get right? The tablets (as well as the headphones and all other sideline technology) are owned and maintained by the NFL. That means it gets delivered to teams literally hours before the game and taken away when it ends. This makes it hard for teams to test for issues before a game and to troubleshoot when something goes wrong. Belichick's full rant can be read here, which reads in part: "As you probably noticed, I'm done with the tablets. They're just too undependable for me. I'm going to stick with (paper) pictures, which several of our other coaches do, as well, because there just isn't enough consistency in the performance of the tablets. I just can't take it anymore..."

6 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Hilarious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How much did Microsoft pay the NFL to force them to use Surface tablets? And how many times have they malfunctioned and been insulted by players and coaches? A LOT.

    To top it off, the first year of the deal before all the negative press, the announcers (and players/coaches) kept calling them iPads.

    This is one of the worst deals ever, for both parties.

    1. Re: Hilarious by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But why? Why use something other than a grease pen on a white board?

      At a minimum, a football team at least also needs a Xerox machine.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re: Hilarious by PsychoSlashDot · · Score: 3, Interesting

      When you have a tablet, you can do things like punch in what defense the other team just used to provide statistical analysis of what the next best play is, or what kind of defense to run if your opponent is doing X often. These are things a coach can know, or have on paper, but the ability to quickly look things up for an effective response or plan is probably very beneficial.

      What I just heard is "coaches shouldn't be allowed tablets". Or binders.

      Seriously, it's game/sport. Chess grandmasters aren't allowed to consult Watson in between moves. The players play the games. The role of coach mid-game should be more or less limited to deciding when to swap players, and arguing with referees over decisions. Coaching should be happening in between games. During the games it's time for playing.

      But that's just my opinion.

      --
      "Oh no... he found the .sig setting."
    3. Re:Hilarious by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My aunt went on a long rant about how much slower her ipad ran after Windows 10 updated. To be clear... she is actually talking about her Apple iPad. But everything wrong in the world, including her slow iPad is because of the windows 10 update.

      I agree with your sentiment, it's almost certainly a wifi issue. Because Wifi sucks... a lot. I developed a wireless device that delivered wifi video to devices and it was a huge pain in the ass. You just had to accept that reliability and range would be shit, especially in a busy environment. How many times has Steve Jobs chastised the audience that they wouldn't get to see a demo if they didn't turn off their wifi?

  2. I want to love the Surface, but... by TomGreenhaw · · Score: 1, Interesting

    its getting ridiculous - it seems every time I turn it on it wants to do updates that take forever.

    --
    Greed is the root of all evil.
  3. Old ways work by p51d007 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Modern aircraft carriers, the handling room, where they have an outline of the aircraft carrier, and use colored nuts and bolts to represent where the aircraft and other details on the flight deck, works better and quicker than the electronic version they tried years ago. They said the computerized version was too slow, which impacts performance on the deck, so they scrapped it and went back to the old way. Sometimes, old stuff works better than the new stuff.