The NFL is to engage its Competition Committee on technology to take virtual line-to-gain measurements next season, but officials will continue to spot the football.
There is no current technology being considered that would help determine forward progress, which became a point of contention after Josh Allen was stopped short on a sneak on fourth-and-one early in the fourth quarter of the Buffalo Bill’s 32-29 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the American Football Conference championship game on Jan. 26.
The league tested Sony’s Hawk-Eye tracking services for virtual line-to-gain measurements in the pre-season and in the background during the regular season. The optimal tracking system notifies officiating instantly if a first down was gained after the ball is spotted by hand. The key word is “after.”
Photo: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images
The technology replaces the chain measurement. The NFL has long used two bright orange sticks and a chain — the chain gang — to measure for first downs. That method would remain in a backup capacity.
“What this technology cannot do is take the place of the human element in determining where forward progress ends,” NFL executive Kimberly Fields told reporters on Friday last week. “There will always be a human official spotting the ball. Once the ball is spotted, then the line-to-gain technology actually does the measurement itself. So I think it’s probably been a point of confusion around what the technology can and can’t do. There will always be a human element because of the forward progress conversation.”
Fields said that an average of 12 measurements took place each week during the regular season. The new technology would have dropped the time spent to measure from 75 seconds to 35 seconds.
NFL balls have been equipped with Zebra microchips since 2017, powering the NFL’s Next Gen Stats data product. The chips are also affixed to players’ pads. They provide data and metrics that help clubs, media and fans with player evaluation and analysis of team performance, but they cannot determine where a player was tackled, whether a player is down by contact or which team gained possession of a loose ball to the precision necessary for officiating use.
Separately, the NFL announced that it is to play a game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground next year, a venue that holds about 100,000 spectators.
The Los Angeles Rams are to be the home team for the game, part of a multi-year commitment to play in the Australian city.
“This is a big statement,” league executive Peter O’Reilly said. “Probably a few years ago, you may not have thought this was a reality. I’d say the commissioner, the 32 owners, there’s a commitment to become a true global sport property. That means expanding our footprint, that means going to different parts of the world and exposing more fans around the world, in this case fans in Australia and Melbourne, to our great sport.”
The Super Bowl is scheduled for Sunday.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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