Скачать или смотреть NFL could replace chain gangs with tracking technology for line-to-gain rulings

NFL could replace chain gangs with tracking technology for line-to-gain rulings

In every NFL stadium, there are six ultra-high-definition cameras that, coupled with computer-vision software, can measure the distance between a football and a first-down line.
And in every NFL football, there is a coin-sized chip that, coupled with radio-frequency identification (RFID), transmits data on the movement and location of the ball.
And yet, when Josh Allen plunged into a pile of Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, seeking a crucial fourth-and-1 conversion in the AFC championship game, neither technology was used to determine whether Allen had picked up a first down.
Instead, two referees sprinted in from the sidelines — one beyond the 40-yard line, one short of it. They decided, after manual measurements and inconclusive replays, that Allen hadn’t reached the line to gain. Kansas City took over, went on to score, and won. So the controversial ruling, which has been dissected ever since, reignited a prickly debate: Why, in 2025, with tech infiltrating every sport, does the NFL still rely on humans with obscured views to make heat-of-the-moment calls about whether balls crossed certain lines?
Does Josh Allen do enough to get the 1st down here?

Prior to the 2024 season, the NFL’s Competition Committee and “Future of Football Committee” approved trials of Hawk-Eye, an optical tracking system similar to the one that instantaneously detects whether tennis balls were in or out, and whether soccer balls crossed goal lines.
Hawk-Eye, though, couldn’t help on the Josh Allen play, in part because it relies on cameras, which need unobstructed views of the ball.
It was tested this past preseason, and “in the background” throughout the 2024 regular season, not as an automatic spotter, but rather as a replacement for the chain gang. For now, it still requires human officials to spot the ball; only then does it virtually measure distance to the first-down line.
Anything more impactful or immediate is “complicated,” as Swensson and others said, because football differs from other sports in two important ways.
First, obstructed views limit the potential of optical tracking. Balls disappear in a player’s arms or a pile of bodies. If Hawk-Eye systems can’t see it, they can’t (yet) place it on a digital, inch-perfect map of the field.