The NFL has always been an innovative league by having instant replay and for having coaches being able to challenge certain plays by having them reviewed by the officials. They are currently looking into adding microchips to the ball to be more precise with first down calls and touchdowns.
Now compare that to baseball, who after years of blown calls agreed to some sort of instant replay for the post season back in 2008 which called for replay to be used with fan interference and whether a ball was a home run or not. Look no further then this year's biggest blown call in the 28 out perfect game by Armando Galarraga. Had that been the NFL you would have seen Jim Leyland toss out the red hanky to challenge the call which would have promptly taken five seconds in the both to overturn the call and award the perfect game.
The NFL is quietly in the works to implement a micro chip in the ball which would help officials with spotting the ball and determine if the football has crossed the goal line:
The National Football League (NFL) are in discussions about employing chip-in-ball technology to help rule on contentious touchdown and first down calls, German manufacturer Cairos Technologies has told Reuters.
"Yes, we are talking. There is a demand in American Football," Cairos sales director Mario Hanus told Reuters in a recent interview on the sidelines of the Soccerex Asian forum in Singapore.
The NFL would not deny or confirm the talks. However, a spokesman for the league said on Tuesday that they are looking at expanding their use of technology.
"We are always exploring ways in which we can be innovative with technology to improve our game and our fans enjoyment of the game," spokesman Michael Signora said.
This type technology has been bantered around in the soccer world for quite some time and as most recently as the latest World Cup when there was at least one blown call that should have resulted in a goal. The NFL wants their game to be the most accurate and leave the human element at the door by being able to get every call correct. This is not necessarily a bad idea, but it could lead to something much bigger years down the road.
Getting calls right will be the downfall for a future commissioner of the NFL who will be so obsessed with perfection that the league will cease to use human players because they have the capability to be human. By no means does mean the end of the NFL because that future commissioner will replace humans with robots, and this means only one thing; robots playing football.
(action starts 18 seconds in)
On second thought lets keep the human players.