The NFL: The Impact Of Technology In The NFL

Professional Sports have been around for over a hundred years in America. Millions of people each year watch the National Football League. Technology has increased greatly over the last 20 years and has had a major impact in the NFL. The NFL uses technology for player’s health, scouting, and on the field with headset communication and instant replay.

In the National Football League, technology has been super important for the players’ health. Over the last few years more and more bodies of former professional football players have been observed for brain injuries from football. Many of these players had multiple concussions that have affected them well after their playing careers were over. The Washington Post states that 40% of retired

Each NFL team has a very large team that focuses on scouting college players to try to draft in the annual NFL Draft. There are around 15,029 players in Division 1 football each year. In the NFL draft 254 players are drafted, which means each team gets around 8 picks per year (Scholarship Stats). Many teams spend so much time scouting because those draft picks are very important for the future success of each team. Technology has completely changed the game for scouting. Today there are tons of videos and metrics on each individual player. Scouts can use technology to go through these stats quickly and they have systems that can create a rating for players. Microsoft signed a 5 year, 400-million-dollar deal to make the Microsoft tablet the official tablet of the NFL. Teams have used these for scouting and now teams have them on the sidelines. Coaches often use them to draw up game plans, and show players game footage right on the sidelines. This has helped players make changes mid game by watching game film and drawing out plays on the

Over the last 10 years, players have gotten technology that they have become able to listen to plays called from their coordinators up in a skybox in the stadium. This has completely changed the old fashion ways of the quarterback, running to the sidelines or having wristbands full of plays. On defense, another captain also usually has the same hearing technology to hear play calls from the defensive coordinator. With this new technology teams, have gotten smarter and improved communication. One of the biggest influences technology has had on football is the use of Instant replay and challenges. When watching a football game on TV there are often many replays of important plays that fans can see and sometimes show the referee’s costly mistakes. The NFL started instant replays in 1985 but it was not very efficient. It would usually take referees very long periods of time and sometimes they would still get the call wrong with bad technology on the sidelines to review. Technology has improved so much that there are always multiple views that can zoom in and can give a much better clear idea of what the correct call is. The NFL has a crew of officials that stay in New York in the command center and can directly show referees multiple angles of the play and talk to referees about what they have concluded from reviewing it from the command center in New York. This has improved the process