Over the past two seasons the National Football League used a player tracking system during regular season games. However, up until this point the data and statistics have only been used by media outlets and fans. But now the NFL is ready to release this data to all 32 NFL teams.
Staring in 2014 season the NFL and Zebra Technologies, “The Official On-Field Player-Tracking Provider”, began tracking player movement during NFL games. At that point only 18 stadiums were outfitted with this tracking technology, but for the 2015 season all 31 (New York Giants and Jets play in same stadium) stadiums were outfitted to collect this data.
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Zebra places two RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags within both the left and right shoulder pads of every NFL player. Then 20 radio receivers, placed throughout the lower and upper levels of the stadiums, pick up the frequencies from the players to collect and track the data. This technology allows the NFL to track players’ speed, distance traveled, acceleration, and deceleration all in real time, as the tags are tracked 15 times per second. This data also shows exactly where players are on the field, which direction they are facing, and how their acceleration or speed in certain key areas of the field impacts their overall performance.
The NFL has lagged behind a vast majority of other professional sports leagues in the U.S. and around the world in terms of player tracking. We have covered here on numerous occasions how leagues and teams use similar data to help quantify player performance on the field. The NBA started working with Stats SportVU in 2006, and since 2009 they have tracked players during every NBA game. However, they just recently announced they would be partnering with media outlets to provide them with this player tracking data.
In the NFL they ran the course in reverse, the Television broadcasts have been able to show their audience exactly how far a running back ran on a touchdown as well as the fastest and slowest speeds he traveled during it. Fans have been given this access to help them quantify players speed on the field, and now after two years of data collection and analysis the NFL is ready to share this data with teams.
The NFL wanted to make sure that the data collected by Zebra would have some useful benefits for teams and players, and they now believe they have reached that point. This data can be great for teams, as it makes off the field numbers such as 40-yard dash times, somewhat obsolete. It can help provide vital information about match-ups of offensive and defensive players, and how they can be manipulated based on the speed of players, to help create greater competitive advantages. This is excellent news for teams and fans, however some NFL players are worried that this could have adverse affects on their careers.
Players are nervous that by having this hard data on speed and mobility, and how it impacts their production, could cost them money or worse, their jobs.
Zebra Technologies maintains that the data they are tracking will be easily understood, with simple graphics for both fans and teams in real-time. NFL teams will have all this information at their fingertips to help them understand how to help players train based on inefficiencies. However, with a large percentage of NFL contracts often being non-guaranteed there soon could be a tightrope walk between advanced statics to help teams quantify a player’s value, and what’s best for that player.