This could be very exciting for amateur analysis of the game. That could potentially have some really cool effects on how we understand the game as data could be recorded and looked at closer, maybe an even greater data based era on the horizon for the NFL.
NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
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Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#12Are we supposed to already know what "All-22 tape" is?
Of course not. That's why the article explains it in the second paragraph.
Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#13Are we supposed to already know what "All-22 tape" is?
Good point. All-22 tape, which is defined in the article, is footage of a football game that shows all 22 players on the field simultaneously. It is almost certainly not the footage you'll see if you watch a game on television, which follows the ball or, more rarely, individual players.
Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#14Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#15This is going to result in a lot of realtime "backseat coaching", especially with the rise of Twitter. Not so great for coaches doing a poor job, but great for the fans and those who want to learn more in-depth football strategy.
Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#16Are we supposed to already know what "All-22 tape" is?
No, but since HN has a policy of using only the author's title, the OP can't change it.
Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#17What I would like is an API to better track players for my Fantasy League. Or a chat feature in the Mobile App to trash talk on Sundays.
NFL provides a JSON feed which you can parse:
Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#18This is very exciting, as there's a lot of strategy to American football that isn't plainly visible when the camera just follows the ball as it does on television. It's not going to showcase technique very well, but it'll go a long way towards explaining e.g. why some wide receivers are always open, why some players always seem to be in the right position to interrupt a pass, etc. I'd actually find it very interestin…
> However, I'm not sure it's of wide interest to HN. As far as I can tell, I'm the only one here who likes NFL football.
You'd probably be surprised. I know I was surprised when I got to college and found more football fans amongst my engineer friends than my humanities friends.
It turns out the game is very complex and deep and discussing strategy can be quite interesting.
I wasn't a football fan when I arrived in college, but I was when I left.
Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#19The argument in this article is just ridiculous. Handwringing about giving fans more information because they might not interpret it correctly? Breaking news: A lot of people are already plenty wrong with the current amount of information. They'll be wrong with less, they'll be wrong with more, they'll be wrong if the info level stays the same. This is therefore a null argument.
Re: NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public
#20"And therein lies the problem with All-22 tape becoming available to the general public, particularly when it comes to passing plays. Someone will be open and many fans will assume that the quarterback did not make the right read or was locked onto another receiver. Yet in reality there is a progression on every pass play -- based on the coverage -- that a quarterback must rely on to determine who gets the ball. What might appear to be open on the All-22 might not be on the progression."
Hey guy posting on NFL.com, thanks for assuming the entire fanbase consists of complete idiots!
Ask any legitimate football fan if they understand the concept of QB progressions and they'll ask you if you understand how to recursively parse a binary tree in-order (assuming of course you're a programmer).
ESPN/NFL films has been feeding this to us for years using their access to All-22 so I find it hard to believe that when us plebs get access to it we'll suddenly forget that a QB can miss a receiver because he was under pressure from the pass rush or fooled by some defensive scheme.
Literally this past week when Peyton Manning and the Broncos played the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night, ESPN/Sportscenter kept repeatedly showing us how Peyton Manning was fooled at the beginning by the Falcon's coverage schemes with... All-22 footage. I'm sure there will be fools who will react the way this author describes, but a lot of fans are way more hardcore and want access to All-22 to improve their understanding of the game.