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Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

nytimes.com

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Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#91

Post by madenine »

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…

Most people who use/consume mass-market, popular technology have grown accustomed to user-friendly environments and devices that just work right out of the box - so they have an expectation that things will just work.

In my experience, that isn't limited by age - and if anything I see the opposite, with the young being so used to great UX that their concept of technology stops at the GUI.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#92

Post by PKop »

hackuser wrote: post #73
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.

> Belichick is considered the best coach in football of the last twenty odd years ... Many think he's the best ever and his greatest strength is considered to be preparation, especially knowing his opponent in great detail and preparing his team for their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies. He is also very flexible in how he does things, adopting very different strategies from week to week. IMHO he would seem to b…

It is against the rules to watch video replays on the sidelines of the current game.

These tablet solutions are simply showing photos, which is replacing the paper version of printing out photos.

I can understand why a complicated tech solution that doesn't work reliably 100% of the time is essentially useless compared to a 100% reliable printed picture, solving the same use case.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#93

Post by trynewideas »

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....

He threw the tablet because it wasn't working for him, per Belichick:

> As you probably noticed, I’m done with the tablets. I’ve given them as much time as I can give them. They’re just too undependable for me. I’m going to stick with pictures as several of our other coaches do as well because there just isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the tablets, so I just can’t take it anymore.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#94

Post by edroche »

huac wrote: post #80
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.

Tell that to the Patriots' opponents: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/09/11/at-least-fiv...

This has been a ongoing problem in the entire NFL, not just in New England.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/09/12/coaches-say-...

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#95

Post by trynewideas »

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.

Per Belichick, the experiment was to deliver portable video to the sideline. Per the NFL, the tablets allowed coaches to quickly queue, annotate, and loop game video play-by-play, as commentators and producers can do in the broadcast booth.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#96

Post by danielweber »

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…

"Dad, Hurricane Matthew took out the cable. Fix it!"

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#97

Post by trynewideas »

PKop wrote: post #92
hackuser wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Belichick is considered the best coach in football of the last twenty odd years ... Many think he's the best ever and his greatest strength is considered to be preparation, especially knowing his opponent in great detail and preparing his team for their strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies. He is also very flexible in how he does things, adopting very different strategies from week to week. IMHO he would seem to b…

It is against the rules to watch video replays on the sidelines of the current game. These tablet solutions are simply showing photos, which is replacing the paper version of printing out photos. I can understand why a complicated tech solution that doesn't work reliably 100% of the time is essentially useless compared to a 100% reliable printed picture, solving the same use case.

Per Belichick, the NFL was experimenting with video on the sidelines.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#98

Post by zck »

trynewideas wrote: post #93
zck wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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....

He threw the tablet because it wasn't working for him, per Belichick: > As you probably noticed, I’m done with the tablets. I’ve given them as much time as I can give them. They’re just too undependable for me. I’m going to stick with pictures as several of our other coaches do as well because there just isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the tablets, so I just can’t take it anymore.

I see no called-out connection between anything in the article and the gif at the top of it. It's a good gif to go along with the article, but I don't think we can say "he threw the tablet in this image because he was angry with it".

Edit: this comment is at -2 at the moment. If I'm wrong, please make the connection. I earlier pointed out that coaches are often emotional^1, and we have no idea if him throwing the tablet is related to him being angry at it, or even if it's a recent image.

[1] http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Fuck....

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#99

Post by pwthornton »

ovulator wrote: post #35
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…

I'm sure there is huge value to coaches. Pull up our list of plays for 4th and one in the redzone. That list then shows immediately what personnel are best for it and who of those personnel may be out of the game right now. QB just threw an interception, lets look over the play that just happened to see what he overlooked and how we can adjust. The problem with technology in this case, is that there is no room for er…

Coaches are extremely limited in what they are allowed to do with electronic communication on the sideline. They use the tablets exclusively for viewing aerial images from the last drive.

"The tablets only allow access to a Sideline Viewing System app that provides the photos of recent plays."

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/heres-nfl-players-coaches-use-m...

The NFL used to print out these photos and coaches would go over them on the sidelines. The Surface is supposed to be much faster for this and allow for some other functionality. Usually the offensive coach and his starters are looking at the images while the defense is on the field and vice versa.

The NFL does not allow coaches to use laptops to perform this kind of data analysis live during games.

Re: Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

#100

Post by dhimes »

kleinsch wrote: post #51
ovulator wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there is huge value to coaches. Pull up our list of plays for 4th and one in the redzone. That list then shows immediately what personnel are best for it and who of those personnel may be out of the game right now. QB just threw an interception, lets look over the play that just happened to see what he overlooked and how we can adjust. The problem with technology in this case, is that there is no room for er…

The scenarios you list are valuable, but they have old school paper based ways to do both of those. That's what Belichick is rolling back to.

And old-school computers in the booth. Just not tablets on the sidelines.
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