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Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

nytimes.com

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Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#101

Post by conductr »

greedo wrote: post #42
liquidise wrote: post #2

This speaks to a higher level perception about software. Bugs and crashes, however inconsistent, irreparably damage the sentiment about using a technology. Younger folks grew up in an age with these inconsistencies and are less perturbed by them. To older folks though, manual systems rarely "fail" during use. The bar of acceptance is a great deal higher when your reliability and availability are compared to pencil an…

Younger folks... My TWC cable net connection has been dropping on a daily basis for the last two months. Resetting the modem solves it until the next outage. (TWC has since replaced a shit ton of stuff to fix this). So everyday, my two special snowflakes would get pissed when the Wifi would go nowhere. They would text me expecting me to fix it even when I'm in the office. They would text me when I was watching footba…

Teach them to reset the damn thing themselves

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#102

Post by criddell »

tw04 wrote: post #30

I'm guessing it has far more to do with network connectivity than the tablet itself. The problems he describes to me sound like exactly what I would expect in a stadium filled with 100,000 cellphones emitting wifi and cellular interference. I'm guessing the NFL didn't get clearance from the FCC to use a dedicated wavelength within the stadium to isolate their systems from noise.

You might be right. I haven't heard of similar problems with iPads in baseball, but I think they aren't allowed to use the wifi.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#103

Post by dhemmerling »

malenm wrote: post #81
dhemmerling wrote: post #32

Surface is getting all the heat in the article, but in the linked interview [1] he blames pretty much every part of the infrastructure other than the interface: > The other communication systems involve the press box to the coaches on the field, and then the coach on the field, the signal caller, or the coach-to-quarterback, coach-to-signal caller system. Those fail on a regular basis. > And again, there's a lot of e…

The NY Times didn't include this gif I saw on Deadspin[1]: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--unnNrpz... I think it paints a clearer picture as to why the Surface was singled out among the equipment. [1] http://deadspin.com/bill-belichick-is-sick-of-those-stupid-m...

Consider a video of an office worker smashing their keyboard in frustration and an interview about the server being constantly down. If the article and comments section focused on the clear inferiority of Logitech peripherals you would probably wonder if brand prejudice was playing a role.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#104

Post by jewbacca »

hackuser wrote: post #75
jlv2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect what makes someone a good coach is that they already know to a high degree what personnel are best for a particular situation on the field, and don't need some algorithm to pick for them.

That's a really good point. Experts have much different needs than other users, because much of the knowledge is available via a much faster system better integrated with their thinking (their memory). I wonder what experts would actually want out of a sideline tablet system.

I think the "what play should we run"/"what personnel should we use" stuff is probably totally internalized, between the head coach, the offensive/defensive coordinators, and all the positional coaches.

The primary use of the tablets is to consume and analyze new information generated during the game.

But, practically, due to NFL rules, the only thing that the tablets are allowed to do is display still photos of past plays. [0] They've replaced B+W printouts of photos in this role.

Coaches can get the photos faster on the tablets than with the printouts, which can be a huge advantage. But if the system is unreliable, then they might get them slower, or not at all, and waste valuable cognitive capacity on the fucking goddamn malfunctioning tech that is keeping critical information from them in massively time-sensitive situations.

That I think is what's happening with Belichick here. He's notorious for preferring reliability over almost all other considerations. Though I imagine that if full replay video were allowed, it might have gone further before hitting his "fuck this" point.

Also note that there are also team staff (often the offensive/defensive coordinators -- the 2nd level of command, immediately after the head coach) in booths up above the field, with (I think) no technological restrictions, in radio communication with the sideline staff.

---

[0] http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2016/5/24/11715128/nfl-competiti...

For an illustration of what all this "analyzing past plays" stuff actually means in the context of football:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ASyQwLNAQ&t=5m30s

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#105

Post by whistlecrackers »

zck wrote: post #89
malenm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NY Times didn't include this gif I saw on Deadspin[1]: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--unnNrpz... I think it paints a clearer picture as to why the Surface was singled out among the equipment. [1] http://deadspin.com/bill-belichick-is-sick-of-those-stupid-m...

If Belichick threw his paper notebook^1, would you assume it's because of the notebook? Or because his team just threw an interception, missed a field goal, or lost the game? I don't think we have any context as to what happened in that gif. [1] For example: http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Fuck....

> Or because his team just threw an interception

Brady's suspension is over.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#106

Post by jay_kyburz »

dhemmerling wrote: post #32

Surface is getting all the heat in the article, but in the linked interview [1] he blames pretty much every part of the infrastructure other than the interface: > The other communication systems involve the press box to the coaches on the field, and then the coach on the field, the signal caller, or the coach-to-quarterback, coach-to-signal caller system. Those fail on a regular basis. > And again, there's a lot of e…

I gave my iPad to my kids and "upgraded" to a Surface Pro 3 a while ago and I regret it every morning when I sit down with my breakfast to read hacker news.

It's not a good tablet, and it's not a good laptop. It attempts to sit in the middle which is not what I want.

I was expecting the tablet interface to be a lot more finished, but there are a lot of rough edges and missing features.

I'll be going back to iPad on the next cycle.

As a long time OSX user as well, I was surprised to see how unpolished Windows 10 Desktop is as well.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#107

Post by eddieroger »

Twirrim wrote: post #10

Mostly what stands out to me from this is that they only get the tablets just a few hours before the game. That's ridiculous, unless the NFL is also providing all the technical support (which Bill's actual rant doesn't imply they do.) Having just a short time to use, test and get them ready for the game is incredibly lousy, and certainly won't give the team's IT people any chance to seriously troubleshoot and improve…

They've had the tablets for a few seasons now. Unless the app itself is changing between games, which I doubt is happening with any significance, they don't need them that early after they've been trained. Besides, there's probably some good sportsmanship angle to everyone getting access at the same time - a team that plays SNF shouldn't have the extra six hours or whatever that the 1pm game doesn't get to prepare.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#108

Post by bsder »

VLM wrote: post #82
yk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Belichick is considered the best coach in football of the last twenty odd years, so he has probably his process with pen and paper nailed down. And the thing is, new technology requires a learning curve both individually and also on a larger scale culturally, so I would guess that tablets after a year or so of use would provide a lot of value, however they do not do so now.

I have a lot of experience automating systems and I would guess the opposite. There's a lot of money lying on the table such that processes and systems are already going to be running on the border of human comprehension... can I see the signal in this noise? Meanwhile projects that do something new tend to be successful and profitable, but mere reimplementation digitally tends to result in BS being added to the proc…

> If you could increase the odds of winning a game by 5% using a million bucks of IBM 7094 mainframes and a million LoC in COBOL then gramps would have done it and made a profit to boot and maybe you can make a couple dimes by modernizing the hardware, but I assure you the algorithms and constraints are baked into the business logic cake and the win/loss percentage won't change.

"Moneyball" demonstrates that your assumption is incorrect.

In addition, you have to collect data, first, before you can analyze it. The limitation blocking "Moneyball" from happening was the fact that the statistics didn't exist for a long time.

Several of my friends were among the people who originally helped Bill James by scoring all the games they went to and then sending the papers in the mail.

Sometimes, something really does require "one clever person" in order to put it all together.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#109

Post by erobbins »

mikey_p wrote: post #61
tw04 wrote: post #30

I'm guessing it has far more to do with network connectivity than the tablet itself. The problems he describes to me sound like exactly what I would expect in a stadium filled with 100,000 cellphones emitting wifi and cellular interference. I'm guessing the NFL didn't get clearance from the FCC to use a dedicated wavelength within the stadium to isolate their systems from noise.

There is actually an immense amount of coordination that goes into an NFL game, even more so for the Super Bowl: * http://blog.rfvenue.com/karl-voss/ "... at the Super Bowl we manage ... basically anything D/C to light that is allowed inside the NFL venues.

Yep. I had a friend who worked the Super Bowl, his only job was to detect and locate (and handle) rogue sources of RF energy.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#110

Post by gertef »

spaceisballer wrote: post #21
pyrophane wrote: post #18

Now, I have to preface this by saying that I don't know much about football and even less about coaching it, but I wonder how much of this speaks to a lack of a real need for a technology solution for coaches. If it were providing a lot of value to them, I imagine they'd have a harder giving it up. This NFL suggests that there is such a need: "Since Microsoft has been a partner of the N.F.L. and implemented their tec…

They probably implemented it with no real need. I'm sure some coaches appreciate it. But really I'm sure MS wants them used on the sidelines so they are on TV so they can advertise the tablets.

Remember when they were new and the TV announcers were paid to say "check out those Microsoft Surface tablets" and the coaches were just using them as iPad holders?
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