Remember a few years ago when the NFL announced that the referees would start reviewing plays on a high definition monitor?
At the time the reaction of the typical fan, who had been watching NFL games in HD at home for years was, “What, they don’t already do that?”
Now we have another instance of the world’s most successful sports league adapting a technology that most of us took to years ago. The system that coaches use to talk to the quarterback and a designated defensive player is going digital.
Yes, it’s been a fuzzy analog signal prone to static and interference from various sources all this time even though a set of digital walkie-talkies with a crystal-clear, securely encrypted signal can be purchased at Target for less than $50. Add in a few hundred bucks to get the electronics into a football helmet and you have an expenditure that the multi-billion dollar NFL was unwilling to make.
Up until now, that is. Hopefully this will prevent such glitches as a taxi dispatch calls blending into a crucial play call from Kyle Shanahan to RG3 or communications from a passing airliner coming into London Fletcher’s headset instead of a defensive call.
Comments