With the rollout this season of RFID (radio-frequency identification) player-tracking technology in every NFL stadium—bottle-cap-sized chips are embedded in every set of shoulder pads—the league can keep tabs on all of its players the same way that businesses do their inventories. The system, provided by Zebra Technologies and still largely kept under wraps by the NFL, is geared partly toward improving the TV experience, but when that data is opened up to fans and teams, things could get really interesting. We could soon see the routes every player runs, answering the question, Which Patriots receiver best matches up with Tom Brady? Strength and conditioning coaches could slice and dice data to extract whatever performance metrics they most care about—How far does Adrian Petersonactually run in each game?—and use that information to fine-tune training methods.
Zebra’s system, though, is really only data lite. This setup tracks a player’s pads, not the human wearing them. To truly understand what each athlete goes through requires far more detailed telemetry. As a hint of where that is headed, consider: Zebra’s tags can also be used as communication hubs to relay info from any Bluetooth devices that a player might be wearing.
The next big question: How far are players and coaches willing to go to gain an edge? Forget fitness wearables like Apple Watches and Fitbits—pushing limits on the field will require pushing far more personal limits. As director of Elite Performance for STATS LLC, Paul Robbins explores the world of wearables, patches and sensors on behalf of pro teams, and to show the future of the field, he carries around a half-inch by one-eighth-of-an-inch medical implant used for tracking heart rhythms. “When guys complain about a patch,” Robbins says, “I pull out the implant and say, ‘We could just imbed this into your chest.’ ”