The day after the Last example of NFL imperfections When it comes to determining if football arrived at the place where the offensive needed it to go, it is not time to apologize to explain why the league has not yet arrived. It is time for a clear resolution to get there.
The good news is that the league has tested a solution. The bad news (for the Bills last night, and for all those who want the game not to be left to the errors of human sight) is that the league has not yet found a solution that can replace the no-tech by high technology.
Last March, the chief administrative officer of NFL football, Dawn Aponte, told Joe Lemire to Journal of Sports Affairs that the league is Test optical monitoring technology This “can supplement or replace the channels of first and the official decisions currently judged by the human eye”.
It is a system based on the camera which can be applied to a variety of subjects, in particular “to determine whether the passes and the laterals are forward or back, where the boots rush on the limits and if a quarter -Rearrier is in or out of the pocket “potential calls for intentional landing.
“The line to be won is probably the one we are closest to the implementation, and the way we test it is that we have all the real data which will then support what we get optical monitoring data that is brought , ”Said Aponte.
It is different, but also similar, the limits that the NFL was Addition to different stages.
Aponte explained that a specific challenge for the NFL relates to the shape of the ball.
“We have our IT vision experts who work with the technological side,” said Aponte. “And I think that in our sport, it was probably more difficult than and the others, whether tennis or football where the ball is round, and occlusion) was a bit of a challenge for us. But we have definitively progressed in this area to see him support the decisions we make. »»
It’s good. But it’s still not good enough. This must be an absolute priority. Until a technology -oriented system is deployed, any game – each game – can be decided according to the current eye -eye eye -eye -in -vocal system which is far from perfect.
I will not pretend to know the subtleties of technical capacities and obstacles to get there. But I know: the NFL has the resources to understand it. The question is whether it has the incitement. Until everyone demands change, incentive will not be strong enough to do so yesterday.
Literally.