
NFL opens Pandora's Box by offering All-22 tape to public - evo_9
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82a0b2d8/article/nfl-opens-pandoras-box-by-offering-all22-tape-to-public
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jerf
The 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.

~~~
anigbrowl
_The argument in this article is just ridiculous_

It's on the NFL site. It's advertorial, marketing disguised as journalism.
It's not making an argument, it's just stirring one up to get attention.

~~~
AgentConundrum
> _It's advertorial, marketing disguised as journalism._

It's barely even disguised. If it were published by a news organization[1], or
really just "someone else", then you would be right.

This is an article on NFL.com about an NFL product. It's straight up
advertising. Publishing an "article" to say "this seems 'risky'; why would we
even offer this product to you, our fevered fans" is about the thinnest
disguise an ad could have.

[1] <http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html>

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bartonfink
This 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 interesting to see something like a Coursera course
using film from this to explain different plays, packages, etc.

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.

~~~
mindcrime
_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._

Nah, there's at least two of us.

#GODOLPHINS

~~~
phildeschaine
I grew up a Lions fan, but man, that HBO show Hard Knocks got me hooked on
your team. Now I find myself wanting to watch Dolphins' games and hoping Joe
Philbin gets it together.

~~~
jredwards
This is surprising to me. Hard Knocks has been a good series, but this year's
offering was so much worse than any other year that I wonder if it won't get
canceled outright (it doesn't help that teams aren't exactly lining up to
participate).

I found Joe Philbin to be insufferably boring. Maybe it's just the contrast
with Rex Ryan last year.

At any rate. I'm glad there are so many football fans in the HN ranks.

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law
It's incredible that they're offering this tape--especially from a computer
vision perspective. With enough data, one could conceivably write a program
that predicts a team's next play based on the players' pre-snap formation and
the previous plays.

~~~
jimmytucson
Actually, this kind of thing has been around for a long time.

Football Outsiders does game charting and "advanced NFL statistics". People
have published papers on using artificial neural networks to predict play
calling, success rates, even injuries and stuff like that.

But this does give us the ability to enrich the data quite a bit. When you
watch the live film you really can't see who blew a coverage where or why the
safety didn't get to the running back in time to make a tackle. I think if you
just watch the TV angles then you might not be convinced that pump fakes
actually do anything to confuse the defense.

There's a lot to be gained here by statisticians and casual fans alike but
it's hard to see that when only 1/3 of the action is visible at any given
time.

~~~
icelancer
Football Outsiders abuses the use of statistics and engages in data snooping
(the "study" on running backs comes to mind) to make their points. They're
far, far behind organizations and people who have lent credence to sports
analytics, like Baseball Prospectus, Tom Tango, Pete Palmer, Bill James, etc.

~~~
jimmytucson
I agree with you (although your comment sounds almost ranting) but you kinda
have to mention them in any conversation about using data to understand
football... even if it's not used properly.

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Lukeas14
I never understood the fear of fans wrongly criticizing teams/players/coaches
based on the All-22 tape. All other sports make their own equivalent of it
available allowing fans to see every mistake made by every player. As far as I
know it hasn't resulted in any worse sportsmanship. Football in particular has
always had Monday morning quarterbacks and always will. The media has always
had access to the All-22 tape and do break down the best and worst plays every
week. I'm glad they're finally opening this up but does anyone know what they
were so scared of before?

This does open up a huge opportunity for third party analysis, most obviously
for sports betting and fantasy football tips. With a much smaller sample size
of games and plays football will never become as predictable as baseball but
it will be exciting to see what the general public will do with this.

Also for any high school defensive backs who previously had no way to study
how the pros play their position, this is huge!

~~~
dhugiaskmak

        All other sports make their own equivalent of it available allowing fans to see every mistake made by every player. 
    

What other sports do that?

~~~
Lukeas14
MLB.tv and TNT Overtime(NBA) both allow you to watch games online with your
own choice of camera angles. The MLS seems to be lacking this option.

~~~
GFischer
I didn't know that, I'm not into american football or baseball, but I like the
NBA a lot.

TNT Overtime is probably not available in my country (Uruguay), and most live
streams are still mostly unwatchable here, but I'd really like to have the
option some day :) .

I really like living in the age when cable tv is being replaced by Netflix and
equivalent internet broadcasts :) . Sadly my hope that I could enjoy the same
stuff being broadcast in the US, Europe and Japan still hasn't come to pass
(they've managed to region-encode the Internet :P and proxies are not a long-
term answer)

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jsm386
And the first consequence of opening that Pandora's Box would be even more
ammunition (not that any more is needed) for fans/writers/anyone with a
passing interest in NFL to point out how awful the replacement refs are

refs: [http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8394351/the-nfl-
official-m...](http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8394351/the-nfl-official-
mess) [http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8393575/replacement-
offici...](http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8393575/replacement-officials-
poor-performance-steals-show-denver-broncos-atlanta-falcons)
[http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8402489/nfl-replacement-
of...](http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8402489/nfl-replacement-officials-
affecting-vegas-bets)

~~~
m_myers
This announcement dates from June, so I believe the footage is already
available. So far I haven't heard anyone cite the All-22 footage for anything
other than Grantland.com articles.

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swang
"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.

~~~
xpose2000
"Hey guy posting on NFL.com, thanks for assuming the entire fanbase consists
of complete idiots!"

That's Michael Lombardi. Perhaps you are not giving him enough credit as a
former NFL executive? He is more than just "some guy".

"ESPN/NFL films has been feeding this to us for years using their access to
All-22"

That is a partially correct statement. They would highlight specific plays and
break them down for us (Ron Jaworski is great at this). However, for the first
time the fans can get these raw tapes of footage and break it down themselves.
With no help from the pros.

Easier said than done.

~~~
swang
My point isn't that he isn't an expert on the NFL. But I would say he does not
know much if he thinks giving people more information will make people jump to
conclusions they've already made beforehand. Giving people this information is
not any more detrimental than broadcasting the game on a TV. You will always
have people shouting, "what an idiot" when a QB misses a receiver, adding this
will at least give them additional information.

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richardjordan
I've thought for a while now that the NFL network - their TV presence, the
website - is the future of how sports will be. It's an incredibly good product
if you're a football fan (as I am - go Niners).

The TV channel is well done for the fan, a mix of informality with information
- bunch of faces that make us nostalgic due to their past achievements
combined with solid anchors who have personality but don't try to outshine the
hall-of-famers who know their stuff.

The website is very well done, interactive, some fun game dynamics. Their apps
are good enough - much room for growth but they're getting better.

The all-22 game tape is a nice step forward here.

I think people who want to study the future of pro-sports media in the
evolving media marketplace could do a lot worse than watching what the NFL is
doing.

~~~
dhugiaskmak
NFL Redzone is the greatest innovation in sports in the last 20 years, if not
ever. I didn't watch a single game on FOX or CBS last season and I won't this
year either. I honestly can't believe that the NFL doesn't charge a big
subscription fee for it.

[1] <http://redzonetv.nfl.com/>

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edw519
There's already a budding aftermarket...

A gif that demos why Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Heath Miller is such a
great run blocker:

[http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1198471/steelers3.g...](http://cdn1.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1198471/steelers3.gif)

~~~
adestefan
That is not All-22 footage; it's just standard HDTV footage.

All-22 footage is from "overhead" (at least as high as safely possible in a
stadium) and shows about 2/3 of the field at all times. The All-22 footage
does not have the onscreen extras such as down and distance nor the generated
1st down yellow line.

~~~
brianpan
Also, you can see all 22 players. :)

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jazzdog
Condescending, elitist BS. OMG, the public will form uninformed opinions,
because they don't know what I know, this could be horrible. I do not
understand the viewpoint. The public already has uninformed opinions about NFL
players, coaches, etc. Big deal. Allow them to be more educated on the game,
especially since the NFL would not exist without the public's interest.

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404error
What 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.

~~~
induscreep
There is a chat feature in apps (iOS)…it's called matchup smack of league
smack or something like that.

~~~
404error
Android user here.

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dailyrorschach
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.

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dkkarthik
First, I'm so glad that there are so many NFL fans on HN. Now to the article;
its going to be like getting your news from blogs. When you make something
accessible to the masses, the quality gets diluted .. but I'm certain it makes
things much more widely available. I'm willing to bet there are die-hard fans
out there who are knowledgeable enough to put out quality analysis ala the
analysis on NFL.com. If you listen to all the talking heads, you might not
have a great experience. But over time, refine the opinions you consume, and I
suspect we'll all come away for the better. I'm all for empowering the masses
!

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w1ntermute
This 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.

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dumb_dumb
I think this is going to be fun because you will be able to concentrate on one
player. Imagine if they had done this while, e.g., Lawrence Taylor, was still
playing?

This is a real treat because we will get the see the attributed greatness*
that previously only coaches, players and NFL Films could verify.

* The type of players for which coaches make adjustments, a week before the game, to account for.

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siculars
I'll be the first to admit I'm no aficionado but I can't see how more
information is a bad thing. The OP feels as if the unwashed masses, once
having access to this font of knowledge, will no doubt arrive at the wrong
conclusions. To which I say: ya, well, so what?

If anything this will be a boon for the NFL by only encouraging more
engagement with their fan base.

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yaz
The article basically says "A football match is now like a complicated, high-
level chess match. It takes deep understanding to know what's going on, so
only those parts of the match that most viewers can understand ought to be
screened". This is not sound. By extension one could argue that complicated
games should not be screened at all.

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campuscodi
I have it. Never watched it more than 5 minutes. Unless you're a coach that
film is boring. NFL is just entertainment to me, so the real game broadcast
matters more than the actual tactics and little pieces of blocking details.

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curtin
An interesting thread was on HN last November about this same topic (which at
the time I had no idea about): <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3275698>

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jpxxx
What's weird about professional sports is that the major franchises seem to
think they're doing what they do for their own sake instead of entertaining
their customers.

~~~
philwelch
That's no weirder than lawyers thinking they're doing what they do to win a
case rather than to achieve justice. The NFL entertains customers by being a
serious, competitive league, just as criminal justice is supposed to work via
an adversarial system. (Before anyone else points it out, let's just say the
NFL works FAR better than the criminal justice system....)

~~~
blerrrgh
Don't forget: There's an incentive to win your case SLOOOOOWWWWLY, when you're
paid by the hour.

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protomyth
tldr: "Oh my, the unwashed masses who pay our salaries get to see the full
field and are too stupid to make intelligent commentary on it."

I am having a hard time trying to remember a sport that is more about the show
than the actual sport as the NFL. MLB and NASCAR seem to get the whole
package, but not the NFL.

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BklynJay
Sweet. This is really gonna help my Madden game.

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rhizome
Are we supposed to already know what "All-22 tape" is?

~~~
bartonfink
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.

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lucian303
Maybe they should open up their games to be viewable online streaming LIVE and
then their service might be worth paying for. It's 2012. Get with it NFL.
There has been a world cup and a euro 2012 streamed live online successfully.
FREE!

Rewind is nice if you missed something, but not so great because if you are
watching a later game on rewind it'll spoil all earlier games.

