The mantra that football is "a game of inches" rang true in Week 5 when the Seattle Seahawks fell just short of an opportunity to tie or take a late lead against the San Francisco 49ers. A close call on the game's decisive play gave new life to the question of why the NFL cannot use technology to spot the ball, because human error might have been the difference between the Seahawks staying alive or falling to their NFC West rival in the 32-29 defeat. Seattle, trailing by three points, faced a fourth-and-10 from midfield with 54 seconds to play in the game.
Sam Darnold completed a pass to Cooper Kupp, who ran towards the 40-yard line and lunged toward the first-down marker as he flew out of bounds. The officials marked Kupp short of the line to gain. The play went to a booth review and stood as called on the field.
Seattle had only one timeout remaining, so the 49ers knelt with the ball to drain the clock for their fifth consecutive victory to open the season. The Seahawks were left frustrated with the result of their do-or-die play, as they would have had time to seek a go-ahead touchdown or game-tying field goal had the officials granted Kupp a first down. What should the ruling on this play be? 📺: FOX/FOX One pic.twitter.com/YzuDyGXn0S If the ruling on the field was a first down, the call likely would have stood due to a lack of concrete evidence that Kupp was short.
It went the other way, which emphasized both how crucial it is to get the call right in real time and how there is still a gray area in spotting the ball. As the league embraces the use of technology to track player data, deliver countless camera angles, complete video reviews and implement virtual measurements, it is reasonable to wonder why it does not have the ability to spot the ball digitally. The answer is that the technology is not yet reliable enough.
The NFL began placing RFID microchips in footballs at the start of the 2017 season. The chips capture data, including speed, distance and rotation, that are collected for Next Gen Stats. They weigh three grams and are embedded in the balls during production.
While they act as accelerometers, these chips are not precise enough for use in the spotting process. The 6-inch margin of error makes any argument to use this technology for spotting a non-starter. "In some cases, those 6 inches might be good enough [to spot the ball]," Zebra Technologies' Jill Stelfox said in 2017 when her company partnered with the NFL to create the chips.
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