The NFL is a gazillion dollar enterprise, but for the 2024 season it will once again use an incredibly primitive system worth a handful of dollars to determine what is and is not a first down.
After running preseason trials on their new automated first down technology that mimics the Hawk-Eye system in tennis, the NFL is shelving the project for the 2024 regular season. The technology controlled at NFL headquarters in New York debuted this month, but was met with complaints live on the air that it took way too long and slowed the game down. In that aspect, it was reminiscent of soccer’s controversial use of VAR, which has frustrated fans for years.
Given the clear bumps in the road it was experiencing, the NFL decided its first down technology wasn’t quite yet ready for primetime.
Via the Washington Post:
The NFL will not utilize its electronic system to measure first downs during the 2024 regular season, a person familiar with the league’s planning on the issue said Monday.
The league continued to test the system during the just-completed preseason and had left open the possibility of using it during this regular season. Instead, the system will go into regular season use in 2025 at the earliest, according to the person with knowledge of the situation.
The sticks-and-chain system for measuring first downs is not being retired — at least not yet. The 10-yard chains will remain the primary means for determining first downs this season. They also are expected to remain on the sidelines at least as a backup system even after the electronic system for measuring first downs goes into regular season use.
Of course, the chain gang isn’t a perfect system for measuring first downs. On the flip side, there are exasperated complaints that the NFL, with as much revenue as it produces, can’t find a modern-day way to measure when a team gains ten yards from the line of scrimmage.
But for now, the chain gang is the best we got. And instead of waiting for some kind of digital image to appear on the screen, we will still have the drama of guys running a chain and two large sticks onto the field to measure whether or not a team achieved a first down. In a way, it’s a beautiful process in its own right. Maybe some things are just meant to be.
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