Microchips in Footballs?
I think this was a long time coming and certainly would eliminate much of those missed calls at the oh so important goal line. Good? Bad? Evil?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/06/nfl-mulling-microchips-in-footballs-for-those-life-or-death-goal/
August 6th, 2010 at 11:54 AM ^
I don't understand this line of thinking. Why couldn't you play one half with the technoogy and one with out? So what? This sort of thing happens all the time in sports. The shot clock stops working in a basketball game...one team loses communication with the booth so both teams have to stop using the headsets. In fact, i can remember one particular Brown Jug game in the lost season of 2005 when late in the 4th quarter the game clock stopped working. They didn't stop playing, they simply had the refs keep the time on the field.
August 6th, 2010 at 11:19 AM ^
That is like saying we are going to call holding for the first half but not the second. Can't play with some rules one half and not the other.
August 6th, 2010 at 11:28 AM ^
The rules aren't changing. At least you'd have had perfectly accurate calls in the first half. How is that worse than having perfectly accurate calls in neither half?
August 6th, 2010 at 11:43 AM ^
Not saying the football stops working. Obviously there is more than one football. Talking about the entire system. Hell sometimes they can't even get the clock to work properly.
August 6th, 2010 at 11:46 AM ^
And yet somehow the rest of the game usually gets played.
August 6th, 2010 at 11:52 AM ^
And somebody bitches and complains. What if a microchip had decided there wasn't really 1 second left on the clock against Penn St. ?
August 6th, 2010 at 11:56 AM ^
What if a microchip had decided that spartan bob was an idiot and time had run out?
They wouldn't implement something like this unless they were confident that the system works as desired.
August 6th, 2010 at 11:58 AM ^
...and what if there isn't a chip and some random clock operator in a booth stops the clock 1 second too early and UM loses a heartbreaker on the last play of the game (ahem...Sparty). That cuts both ways.
[EDIT]...beat me to it above
August 6th, 2010 at 11:46 AM ^
how often have you seen a game where the clock couldn't be fixed in a few minutes time?
August 6th, 2010 at 12:43 PM ^
You have to understand, this ball will not substitute the referees. This will be just another tool to help them make a better decision.
August 6th, 2010 at 11:50 AM ^
... but only if it also creates a glowing neon aura around the ball.
August 6th, 2010 at 12:01 PM ^
Dogs, footballs, and guess who's next? Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go put on my tin foil hat, get some canned food and bottled water, and rack my shotgun.
August 6th, 2010 at 12:04 PM ^
Exactly my point. We are still talking about these games and always will until the day we die. If the human error would have been taken out and we would forget about them. We would say "oh well, we lost that one fair and square". That isn't any fun. Why do you think there isn't a playoff system yet in college football? If there was you couldn't debate about it. Why dou they do preseason polls? So people will talk about college football.
August 6th, 2010 at 12:59 PM ^
The reasons why there is no playoff in college football are more complex than that and they have more to do with traditions, money from the existing bowl games, length of schedule, logistics and many others. I doubt that a playoff will make everybody forget about college football. The human error is not what makes football great but the game itself.
August 6th, 2010 at 12:08 PM ^
I don't want to think about the times we got gamed. I would prefer to not get gamed in the first place !
August 6th, 2010 at 12:50 PM ^
Refereeing is a necessary evil in every sport, not the attraction. Whatever technology can do to limit the capability of refs to make mistakes is good.
The "human element" in sports comes from the players, not the refs.
If the NFL were like the MLB, the referees would threaten to strike at the insinuation that they can't do their jobs, no matter how many Hochulis and Joyces may prove otherwise.
Also, if the NFL were like the MLB, fans would be leaving in droves.
to crack the network and give us TDs and FDs on all close calls.
and I hope it's expanded to record first downs elsewhere on the field.
I've always found it strange that on one hand, officials aim for great precision with their measuring chains, and yet on the other they're incredibly arbitrary in the way they spot the ball, often costing teams a half-yard or more.
Eh. I don't like it. I watch football for the way it toys with my limbic system, makes me feel. I don't care about the cold and the calculated. I just want raw, unadulterated, emotional elicitation. I'd much rather dig my fingers into my armrests while anxiously waiting for the refs to pull apart a pile to get to the ball (even if that means accepting they'll be wrong some fraction of the time) than to be, almost anticlimactically, told: "first down" with flashy graphics the very second a play completes.