Maybe they’re stubborn. Maybe they’re cheap. Maybe they’re a little, or a lot, of both.
Regardless, the NFL continues to refuse to embrace many of the technological advances that have emerged since the first time they rolled chalk lines onto a field and used two sticks held together with 30 feet of metal links to determine whether the offense did or didn’t earn a fresh set of downs.
On Monday night, the absence of more and better cameras became clear and obvious, given the absence of clear and obvious evidence that Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott had managed to at least kill the front of the goal line with at least the tip of the ball while caught in a scrum of bodies. Cameras keep showing up in new and unexpected places, and they’re cheaper than ever.
More than six years ago, Patriots coach Bill Belichick openly called for a blanket of fixed cameras. Giants co-owner John Mara said it would be too expensive.
Baloney, we said then and say now. It’s not too expensive, especially with $270 million in money-for-nothing from gambling this year, and $1 billion per year in gambling-related revenue by the end of the decade.
Apart from cameras, it’s also time to digitize the ball, allowing the officials (who often have no idea whether it crossed the plane but who have to act like they do) to know whether the ball made it to the goal line.
The NFL continues to be reactive, not proactive. It’s cheaper. It’s safer. It’s also risky. The explosion of legalized gambling raises the stakes for the NFL, creating an expectation that the stewards of the game will do more to ensure that the outcome of each game, each drive, each play is determined only by the skills, abilities, and strategies of the players and coaches.
The longer the NFL resists coming up with more ways to improve the reliability of the rulings, the greater the chance that those solutions will be imposed upon them by, for example, a new federal agency that will develop and implement those new ways -- whether the NFL likes it or not.
