AI in the NFL
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From Peter King:
I might have seen the future of football on TV Thursday night, with an assist from Artificial Intelligence, Andrew Luck’s former center at Stanford, and a team of Amazon techies based in Tel Aviv.
That is not a misprint.
One of the reasons the NFL was so eager to get a new and aggressive streaming partner in 2022 was on display in the Jacksonville-New Orleans game on Amazon Prime Video Thursday. Let me tell you what I saw on one of Amazon’s three streaming options for its games, Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats. On the Prime Vision feed, Amazon shows the all-22 camera angle, able to see the whole field; the tradeoff, of course, is that you don’t see the quarterback, large, in the center of the TV. You see everything, with no one bigger than anyone else—while hearing Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit call the game the same as on the regular streaming ‘cast.
With 5:26 left in the first quarter, the Saints had a third-and-seven at the Jaguars’ 32-yard line. Jacksonville cornerback Tre Herndon jogged to a spot two yards across from the left slot, in coverage on receiver Michael Thomas. On the all-22 view, Herndon leaned forward as quarterback Derek Carr began his cadence. Just then, a red circle was superimposed around Herndon—and on the other side of the formation, red also encircled linebacker Devin Lloyd—with black circles superimposed around the four Saints wide receivers plus running back Alvin Kamara.
The red circle was Amazon’s way of foreshadowing what AI told them from whipping through hundreds of factors—including anticipatory tics that could be gleaned from the two movement trackers in Herndon’s left and right shoulder pad—in split seconds: Prime Vision was predicting Herndon and Lloyd would blitz. Quite a leap of faith in the Herndon forecast. In the first six games of the season, Herndon, per Next Gen Stats, had blitzed only 12 times.
Carr took his time on the cadence. The red circle was around Herndon for two, three, four, five, six seconds, and the six-year vet corner showed nothing. Carr certainly could get no clue from the possible blitzer on his left. Finally, 8.31 seconds after the encircling of Herndon appeared on the all-22, Carr snapped the ball. Herndon streaked at Carr. Lloyd came, too, but was caught in traffic. No one touched the blitzing Herndon. Just as Carr was releasing the ball, Herndon, unseen, slammed into Carr and the football bounded harmlessly away. Incomplete..
Lots more here - https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/fmia/news/fmia-week-7-hurts-and-philly-push-forward-jackson-and-ravens-look-lethal
You have to scroll past all of his usual comments, but it’s an interesting article.
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Speaking of the All-22... It's a great way to look at a game. Football has multiple games and individual match-ups on every play. Little things matter a lot...Battles in the trenches, pre-snap audibles, pre-snap motion to decipher coverages, defensive alignment to disguise blitzes and coverages, even how the QB sets his feet.
