USFL will eliminate 1st Down Chain, use technology

[Dopey]

Isnt the actual initial spot going to just be a judgment call anyway still?

Why would it have to be?

 

[CycloneNorth]

Why would it have to be?

You still have to determine where the ball is when the ball carriers elbow, knee, whatever touches.

 

[Dopey]

You still have to determine where the ball is when the ball carriers elbow, knee, whatever touches.

Sensors on the players and the ball would seem to fix that pretty easily.

 

[alarson]

You still have to determine where the ball is when the ball carriers elbow, knee, whatever touches.

In theory you could have someone in a booth quickly identifying a timestamp for the player being down (accept a certain margin of error in the interest of speed) and that would quickly match up to the ball position.

 

[Sigmapolis]

robots taking jobs.

Good.

 

[Rabbuk]

In theory you could have someone in a booth quickly identifying a timestamp for the player being down (accept a certain margin of error in the interest of speed) and that would quickly match up to the ball position.

I dont understand how this solves: Guy runs for x yards, gets tackled, comes out of the pile with the ball, flips it to ref. The ref still has to figure out where it goes on the turf. Unless theyre radioing like 24.5 yard line or something into the refs ear.

 

[HFCS]

Never understood why tennis is seemingly the only sport doing this.

Umpires in baseball should be nearly obsolete.

The ball spotting process in football makes measuring a first down a ridiculous process.

Hope this works.

Texas got untold thousands of yards on spots over years.

The way replay is instituted haphazardly it only helps marquee programs. Some sort of objective spotting technology on every single play would help every program but the most elite.