Posted on 11/06/2011 9:47:12 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
Every play during an NFL game is filmed from multiple angles in high definition. There are cameras hovering over the field, cameras lashed to the goalposts and cameras pointed at the coaches, who have to cover their mouths to call plays.
But for all the footage available, and despite the $4 billion or so the NFL makes every year by selling its broadcast rights, there's some footage the league keeps hidden.
If you ask the league to see the footage that was taken from on high to show the entire field and what all 22 players did on every play, the response will be emphatic. "NO ONE gets that," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy wrote in an email. This footage, added fellow league spokesman Greg Aiello, "is regarded at this point as proprietary NFL coaching information."
For decades, NFL TV broadcasts have relied most heavily on one view: the shot from a sideline camera that follows the progress of the ball. Anyone who wants to analyze the game, however, prefers to see the pulled-back camera angle known as the "All 22."
While this shot makes the players look like stick figures, it allows students of the game to see things that are invisible to TV watchers: like what routes the receivers ran, how the defense aligned itself and who made blocks past the line of scrimmage.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
About four decades ago, I directed a weekly show with late, great, Chargers coach Sid Gillman. He used to bring his game films. Highly enlightening. He also used to invite a player along as a “guest”, then show a compilation of everything the guy had screwed up during the game. Our tyro sports guy, Jim Hill, was one of his favorite targets.
Nothing sinister here, really, and the answer is given in the article. NFL sells that footage to individual teams for coaching purposes.
In high school (yeah, I was a geek) I filmed all the games for the football team from the top deck covering half the field at a time. I, of course, wanted to zoom in to where the action was but the coaches wanted to be able to analyze coverages, offensive and defensive alignments. Made sense.
the NFL doesn’t allow local TV stations to film highlights
...Turn the screen 90 degrees, there you have it. No big deal...
I’d love to have access to the “All 22” view of a televised game.
My problem with current NFL (or NCAA) television coverage is that it focuses on entertainment and promotions, not the actual play on the field. The directors are so intent on showing close-ups, replays, on-screen ads, and network promos, that little time is left for each live play. It’s rare that we get to see both teams break their huddles. Now we sometimes even miss the snap, because the director didn’t break away from the whatever he showing before the play began.
I’d prefer to see each team get into formation before the snap.
Has the NFL gone digital yet, or are they still using that grainy looking film of games that happened this season. NFL, get with the digital age! Lose the film reels!
Now that NFL films is (presumably) shooting video, it’d be of trivial difficulty to offer a streaming pay per view “all 22” feed of the game of the week.
They’re a bit off on how the TV coverage is done. Even with all the gee whiz cable cameras, most of the basic shots are from the same midfield and 20’s press box positions we’ve used for 50 years. The lenses are a lot better now, though.
Cool story, thanks. Would love to hear some of your stories.
The point of the article is understandable to me. To spin off it, have you ever notice how you still don’t see some interesting things with the sideline cams?
Say for example, there was just a great “hit”...don’t you want to see both guys get up and wobble back to the huddle?
Instead we get nostril hairs.
It’s not the camera guys...they’re just following the directors orders.
Therefore, I submit that the directors, for the main, have never really played the game.
It’s queer.
Talk to Bellicheck, he’s good at getting all the other teams’ coaching footage.
I liked it when Bill Cowher pointed out to the refs that the opposing team had too many players on the field. The head ref blew him off, so Cowher walked out onto the field with a printout of the all-22 shot showing it, wadded it up, and stuffed it down the front of his v-neck referee jersey.
As the camera angles have changed to show less and less of the field over the last 25 years, football has become less and less watchable for me. It’s an 11-on-11 game, but if you’re watching a modern NFL broadcast, you might guess there are no more than 4-5 players on the field for either team. It has dumbed-down the average football fan’s knowledge of the game.
It’s because the NFL says so, that’s all one needs to know. One does not question the most self important, self reverential organization in the world. There’s probably a rule against that too.
My least favorite shot is of the ball spiraling on a punt and we get a close-up of it rather than the pattern of the blockers and coverage teams on the field.
Yes, that is annoying. It’s not as bad as Major League Baseball on TV though: With MLB you get a view from center field of the pitcher, batter, catcher, and ump on every pitch. Occasionally, if there’s a man on second, you can see the back of his batting helmet. So, where are any of the other fielders distributed? What about runners on first or third?
Long ago TV broadcasts of MLB were from the press box in the upper deck up behind home plate, and you could see the entire field, albeit with tiny players on the screen. But you could at least see where they were playing, feints by runners on base, etc.
Ditto to the other person who said that this is all about entertainment. In broadcasts from long ago you never saw close-ups of the managers or the players in the dugout. You never saw — or needed to see — close-ups of the pitcher’s face.
Any one who got the whole coverage, and understood what he was seeing, would have a huge gambling advantage.
If true, shouldn’t that be something the Feds should look into?
As I understand it the only ones with access to it can’t gamble on the games.
What I’m saying is the NFL has a tricky relationship with gambling. They want nothing to do with it or people would start thinking the games are rigged. On the other hand if gambling were outlawed interest in the game would be decimated.
If they provided everyone with complete coverage, some professional gamblers would have an unbeatable advantage over the casual better. The causal betters would be less incline to participate and interest in the NFL’s product would wane.
Just my off the cuff theory.
One of the jobs I did for a while was called “field stage manager”. Essentially, you stand on the 40 yard line and call the TV timeouts. The referees generally want you to wear something bright so they’ll be able to see you. Hands on hips meant “give me a time out”, arms folded meant “we’re in a commercial break”, and hands at sides meant “we’re back. Accidentally standing with your arms folded while watching the game got you yelled at.
Part of what you hoped for was to be as subtle as possible given the circumstances, so the crowd wouldn’t catch on and start throwing stuff at you. The good refs would help out, the jerks would make it obvious to the entire stadium that you were the reason the game had stopped.
One of the refs I really liked worked Chargers away games. He’d tell you ahead of the game to watch his right hand for a point to the ground. You’d give the signal, he’d point down and go on about business as if he’d never seen you, and you had exactly 60 seconds before he started the game. A few seconds later, he’d come up with some artful stall, clock checking, ball swapping, chat with the line crew, et cetera. Loved that dude.
On a 49ers game at Candlestick one Sunday, the 9ers ran a sweep right... over me. I saw it coming, started back peddling, and discovered some idiot behind me was standing on my headset cable, which was attached to my belt. I developed a respect for the kinetics of the game that day.
A sideline camera would have had footage of me wobbling... for about half an hour.
Fun times, though.
The field SMs are still there, usually wearing some Gawd awful colored sleeves or vest. They’re generally on one 40 or the other on the same side as the main cameras. You see ‘em in bench shots once in a while.
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