I know, when you think about football, technology is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind. Highlight-reel plays, demolishing hits, and hatred for faulty calls from the refs do, but tech, not so much.
But what if I were to tell you that the budding relationship between the worlds of pro football and technology has become key in making the sport not only safer for its athletes but also better for viewers in general?
Given that football is such a physical, high-speed, and intense sporting discipline, being able to keep tabs on everything that happens on the field has become a crucial part of the game.
Be it for health and safety reasons or stat recollection and better ruling decisions, technology has come to give the NFL a helping hand in making the sport of football a better experience for everyone involved.
For now, let’s break down two of the most important forms in which forms the NFL has benefitted from welcoming technological advances into the way the game is played.
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Safety and Health of Players
Football is not a sport for everybody, that’s a given. To become a professional in the NFL, a lot of preparations both physical and mental come into play into shaping an athlete worthy of making it onto the turf. But making it is just the beginning of the road. Afterward comes the hardest part of it all, being able to churn out a career as a pro, all while being able
to stay healthy and, in the best, playing shape possible.
For years on in, NFL players have had to deal with injury scares left and right, putting their integrity at risk to perform at the highest level of competitivity. Before, football players were at much higher risk of sustaining career-ending and even life-threatening injuries because of hits to the head and other parts of the body. Nowadays though, thanks to various technological practices and advancements, the league has come a long way in the mission to help prevent said issues.
One of these advancements is the development of a testing system that allows the league to measure and understand the true efficiency of helmets. Companies that work in the creation of specialty helmets tailor-made for each player depending on the position they play in and the level of physical demand that they go through on the field have become pivotal partners with the league to assure players’ safety.
Said helmets can collect impact data of every hit the player endures in each play, thus allowing one to better understand the true level of damage the body goes through and can tolerate. The data collected by the helmets is then compared to information previously recorded and kept in personalized files, which allows the manufacturers to produce specialty headgear made to better fulfill each player’s needs.
Better Ruling Practices
January 11, 2015, Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wisconsin. Dez Bryant went up for a pass thrown by Tony Romo in Dallas’ playoff game against the Packers, caught the ball and that was that, or so we thought. Seven seconds between the snap and the catch, followed by almost five minutes of deliberation between the refs was the time it took for the NFL to commit one of the biggest play call mistakes in recent times, calling a legitimate catch that could’ve perfectly well changed the game completely an incomplete pass.
Bryant caught that ball, it was a fair catch. You know it, I know it, millions of people who watched the game know it, and many millions more that have gone to watch replays of that play on the internet know it. And yet, it took the NFL three years, yes, three years, to go back on their word and finally accept that as the famous hashtag reads #DezCaughtIt.
Ever since that debacle and for years on in now, the NFL has made it a point to welcome technological advances left and right to ensure better ruling practices in each game.
By the addition of tracking chips in the balls, as well as state-of-the-art camera equipment on the pylons, sidelines, and throughout the rest of the field, the NFL now has as many eyes on the field as possible, making play calling a fairer job for referees.
By having top-tier technological assistance through live replay systems, as well as tools to measure route and play distances, in and out-of-bounds movements, and other scenarios within the game, the league has made the refs’ life easier.
Sure, there still are times in which refs can slip up on a call, but unlike before when everything was left to naked vision and criteria, nowadays, thanks to technology, data collected at the moment has become a saving tool for the sport and its fairness.
