According to Pro Football Talk, via Reuters, the NFL is exploring the possibility of installing an electronic chip inside footballs that would help officials determine whether or not the ball breaks the plane of the goal line on questionable plays in the red zone. The idea is one that has been discussed several times throughout the years and a group at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh has reportedly been actively researching the feature.
The group researching the feature is called Cairos Technologies — a German manufacturer that has designed similar technology which has been used in soccer. Their sales director, Mario Hanus, may want to brush up on his knowledge of the rules of American football before attempting to design such a feature:
In American football you have the same situation [as soccer],” Hanus said, comparing the possible use of such a device in soccer to football. “You need to cross a line and the ball needs to be over the line 100 percent and [the player] are always above the ball [covering it].”
Of course, we know that only a part of the ball has to break the plane for the play to be ruled a touchdown, but the technology would likely work the same nonetheless. Probably wouldn’t hurt for someone to tip him off before the process continues, however.
At first I thought this seemed like a decent idea, but the more I think about it the more it seems unnecessary. Think about the average goal line dispute in an NFL game. Rarely is there an argument over whether or not the ball broke the plane. I’d say nine times out of 10 the disagreement arises over the players knee being down or not before the ball breaks the plane. It’s not that difficult to tell on replay whether or not the ball touched a piece of the goal line. This device would help in those rare instances, but it really wouldn’t be of any assistance when trying to determine if a players knee was down before he the ball crossed.
Sources:
NFL exploring putting computer chips in footballs [ProFootballTalk]
NFL in discussions about using chip-in-ball technology [Reuters]
