The NFL and Microsoft sealed a five year, $400 million deal last year which will allow Microsoft to get some of the best visibility that money can buy: NFL games.
As a part of that deal, the NFL is providing teams with locked down versions of Microsoft’s Surface tablets which connect the coaches on the field with those in the booths.
For those who are concerned about a digital “Spygate”, don’t worry too much. The tablets are a stripped down version of the Surface which means that there’s no internet, video recording, apps or programs available for download on them. They are not available to coaches until kickoff and are immediately collected and stored by the NFL after the game.
What coaches will be able to do on the tablets is instantaneously deliver photographs of on-field action which can then be annotated, drawn on and saved for later.
It will save precious seconds from the old way of doing things: taking black and white photographs and manually printing them out for binding.
The plan is for coaches to eventually call plays from the sideline using their Microsoft-approved tablets. For now, coaches can still use the old black-and-white system of compiling photographs if they want.
If Microsoft and the NFL want coaches to entrust their playbook to the Surface tablets, they may want to ensure that they work in any conditions as Buffalo Bills’ coach Doug Marrone found that his tablet didn’t work (at first) during the Giants and Bills’ pre-season Hall of Fame game.
“I was told mine was going to work, and mine didn’t work,” Buffalo Bills coach Doug Marrone said after his team fell 17-13 to the New York Giants, the Associated Press reported. Once the tech got fixed by the second half, Marrone “liked it a lot.”
The tablets will be waterproof so there shouldn’t be any hometown disadvantage for the likes of the Seahawks or Packers.
Also, I can’t wait for one of these things malfunctions during a 49ers game just to see Jim Harbaugh’s reaction to it.
