NFL plans to use state-of-the-art technology for measurements in 2025

 

The NFL will use technology for virtual line-to-gain measurements next season, but officials will continue to spot the ball.

“The goal is for it to come online in 2025,” Kimberly Fields, the NFL’s senior vice president of football operations, said Wednesday.

As a backup, the chain gang will continue.

In the 2024 preseason and during the 2024 regular season, the league conducted background tests of Sony's Hawk-Eye tracking services. If a first down is reached, officials are immediately notified by the best tracking system.

Officials must still sight the ball because the technology does not monitor it, but replay assistance will verify that the placement was accurate. Since the technology requires additional cameras in every stadium, there will be more — and better — replay angles of forward progress.

 Along with 12 boundary-line cameras and 14 Hawk-Eye's SkeleTRACK cameras, which track over two dozen skeleton locations on a player's body, six cameras will be utilized for the virtual line-to-gain technology. A total of 32 cameras will be installed in each of the 30 NFL stadiums as well as the stadiums in other countries where the league plays.

The league will continue to practice and test during UFL games at Ford Field in Detroit this spring.

“We used this in the background last season,” Fields said. “The goal for 2025 is to continue to train our techs, who are the ones who will be utilizing the technology, finalizing all of our officiating processes and procedures around virtual measurements and testing the graphics for the broadcast and in-stadium, so fans in the stadium and fans watching on television can see what we’re doing. The chain crew will still be there as backup.”

In the virtual line-to-gain technology testing, the league observed a decrease in measurement time from the typical 75 seconds required for a chain measurement to 30 seconds.

Josh Allen's fourth-down quarterback sneak in the fourth quarter of the Bills' 32-29 loss to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game was ruled short of the line to gain; the technology may or may not have reversed the play. Officials will still be able to see the ball under the new method, but if Allen did reach the line to gain, the extra high-tech cameras may have shown it.