Chain gang may soon be a thing of the past

BotchedLobotomy

BotchedLobotomy

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I don't know, the chain combined with the note card seems to work just fine.
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conner01

conner01

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Coogiguy03 said:
Yeah I'll take a hard pass!!!!! When this malfunctions then what??
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You’d also have video to show the same data. The one issue I see is players need to be able to quickly see the line to gain so that would need to be addressed if you automate it
 
MWH1967

MWH1967

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Good lord, I'm glad my time is closing. In 20 years I won't even know what i'm watching .
 
Runwildboys

Runwildboys

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CowboysZone DIEHARD Fan
acr731 said:
Laser tech is not a bad idea, but there's 1 tiny problem to overcome - football fields aren't perfectly flat. They are raised slightly in the center to allow water drainage to the sidelines. For example, at the old Texas stadium, if you leaned down closer to ground level on one sideline you couldn't see the opposite sideline. This might not be the case at AT&T since they don't have to worry about water drainage, but every other outdoor stadium is probably designed that way.

For lasers to work, I assume they would need line-of-sight between the sidelines, which might only be possible in the domes. Maybe raised lasers that compensate for the curvature would work? I don't know.
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Lasers on both sides of the field?
 
MarcusRock

MarcusRock

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Creeper said:
I can see how this is very feasible. The tech exists. The software could be written fairly easily to sync the spot of the ball to the video so the ball can be spotted precisely when the video shows the knee or other body part touches the ground. I think the accuracy might not be as precise as some folk may think, and this could create some controversy on close calls. Now if they could lay a matrix of sensors under the turf they may have something.
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It would need to be deeper than that for forward progress. There are plays like the tush push where a runner is never ruled down or a guy leaps and extends the ball over a pile before pulling it back. So things would also need to be synched to the ref whistle and then you look at the furthest point the ball went forward before the whistle blew. Then there are matters like loss of possession/re-establishment of possession simultaneous with forward progress and so on.
 
MWH1967

MWH1967

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Its not a perfect game. Attempts to make it one, takes the human element away. Soon, no one will care anymore.
 
RustyBourneHorse

RustyBourneHorse

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acr731 said:
Laser tech is not a bad idea, but there's 1 tiny problem to overcome - football fields aren't perfectly flat. They are raised slightly in the center to allow water drainage to the sidelines. For example, at the old Texas stadium, if you leaned down closer to ground level on one sideline you couldn't see the opposite sideline. This might not be the case at AT&T since they don't have to worry about water drainage, but every other outdoor stadium is probably designed that way.

For lasers to work, I assume they would need line-of-sight between the sidelines, which might only be possible in the domes. Maybe raised lasers that compensate for the curvature would work? I don't know.
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Yeah, I would imagine raised lasers. I mean, this is the NFL, so they have enough money to have a place like MIT or Amazon (who had a cool analytics thing on TNF where they would show the route after it had been run or showed the percentages for the likelihood of a play) develop a raised laser that can work similarly to what the chains were supposed to do. They have a laser when you watch on the TV. Maybe they can have a laser that illuminates where the first down is. So, let's say the Cowboys have it 1st and 10 at the 25. Then the laser at the 35 would light up to where it's clear where it needs to be.

An additional idea could be a drone that shows a laser. I watched a few USFL games last year when they were in Canton (still annoyed the ufl isn't coming to Ohio this year), and they had a drone with a camera that would zoom down the sidelines wherever the ball carrier was. They probably attach a laser or zoom the camera in on the spot to allow the refs a clear spot for the ball. In other words, the camera on the drone would spot where the ball is, then the laser on the first down line shows the position of the ball. If it's a first down, it turns green. If it's not, it turns red.
 
RustyBourneHorse

RustyBourneHorse

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MapleLeaf said:
I would cover the entire field and sideline with RTK base stations and multiple beacons form the roofline of the stadium to replicate a stadium version of GPs and GNSS.
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Or have one drone show the spot of the ball and another drone that shows a laser to mark the 1st down. If the ball is at the first down or more, then the laser is green.
 
acr731

acr731

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Runwildboys said:
Lasers on both sides of the field?
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I dunno, I'm just throwing out ideas. The curved surface is a real thing, though. If you put a laser on one sideline at field level you wouldn't be able to see it on the other side, right? So how do you compensate for the curved surface without having lasers on both sidelines? Beats the hell out of me.

It's best I stick with my career choice and let the experts worry about this.
 
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