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NFL Ready to Dive into the World of Virtual Reality

August 03, 2015

(SPORTS TECHNOLOGY)

The National Football League and sports in general have never been an industry to shy away from technology. Technology allows athletes to become more efficient and ultimately more entertaining, and aid in the assistance of coaching as well. For example, the NFL has recently switched from paper playbooks to tablets.

 The NFL has taken the technological revolution a step further by incorporating virtual reality into everyday activities. The Dallas Cowboys, the San Francisco 49ers, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the World Champion New England Patriots have all started to use virtual reality headsets in order to allow players the perspective of a player playing the game while they are in the film room. For example, say Tom Brady were to put on a virtual reality headset, what would he see? He would see the perspective of himself, as the quarterback, calling a play and executing. This allows players to break down film in real time as if they are actually playing out the sequence being shown in the virtual reality headset.

“Technology is affecting all of us in many different areas of our life and a lot of different…I’d say there are a lot of different ways of teaching. We’ll utilize whichever ones we feel are best for teams, groups, individuals. I think there are a lot of different ways that people learn, and what we want to do is try to teach our players as efficiently and with the highest level of retention and understanding that we possibly can” said Bill Belichick, Super Bowl winning head coach of the New England Patriots.

Not only will this give players a new alternative to the usual film study routine, but it will allow them to be put into the situation and play they would be watching on a screen. This allows players to react to the play as if they are actually on the field. In a statement from STRIVR founder Derek Belch, he assured that “we’re not trying to replace traditional film watching. We’re trying to provide a complimentary tool that we feel can be effective in training and helping players learn faster”.

The new virtual reality technology will certainly be groundbreaking for the NFL and it has already made an impact in the College Football game with schools such as Arkansas, Auburn, Clemson and Stanford already adopting the STRIVR Virtual Reality technology. Film review and practice for NFL teams just got a lot more interesting. 




Edited by Maurice Nagle