How Technology Changed Football

The use of technology in the National Football League has come a long way since that October day in 1920 when the Dayton Triangles beat the Columbus Panhandles 14-0 in the first NFL game in history.

Instant replay. Sky cams. Radios transmitters in the quarterback’s helmet. Statistical analysis by the screenful. All are now taken for granted as an indispensable part of today’s sports scene. But it wasn’t always so.

Today’s technology not only helps the fan see more and know more about the game, it also helps coaches and players. Here are a couple ways technology has impacted professional football today:

1. Instant replay, of course.
The first use of instant replay in a football game came on Dec. 7, 1963, near the end of the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia when Army quarterback Rollie Stichweh scored on a 1-yard run. Famed CBS director Tony Verna had come up with the idea for “video replay” (as he called it) to fill dead air time between plays. After three quarters of frustrating glitches trying to get the technology to work, Verna finally told announcer Lindsey Nelson, “Here it comes!” as Stichweh faked a handoff and darted into the end zone. “This is not live,” Nelson told his viewers as they watched the Army quarterback’s run again. “Ladies and gentlemen, Army did not score again.” A new era was born.

2. Sports Intelligence
Thanks to the computer, football is joining baseball as a generator of reams of highly specialized and sophisticated statistics about teams, players and trends. Now numerous Web sites feature specialized statistical breakdowns of players in almost any game situation as well as seasonal and career numbers.

Stats are not just for fans either, but are becoming a tool for coaches and general managers as well.

As the emphasis on sports intelligence begins to expand it is very likely that we will see Sabermetrics type formulas for football personnel stats and evaluations of rosters.  At Pulse Jam, we've been developing a platform that we will introduce to a few limited partners next month as we further enhance this very important discipline

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