Taking Super Bowl XLI’s opening kickoff at the 8-yard line last February, Chicago’s Devin Hester burst through both the rain and the Indianapolis Colts’ flailing cover team.
The goal line in short sight, the Bears’ electric return man stole a quick glance at Dolphin Stadium’s massive big screen video board to gauge his separation on defenders closing in. His response? He turned on the afterburners, crossing the goal line just as he was tripped up.
In Detroit’s 44-7 victory over Denver earlier this season, Shaun Rogers, a massive Pro Bowl nose tackle for the Lions, was battling with Denver’s offensive line when he plucked Patrick Ramsey’s errant throw out of the air and took off downfield. Rumbling the way only a 340-pound man can, Rogers looked up at Ford Field’s big screen to see the Broncos’ running back Selvin Young getting an angle on him. Rogers’ ensuing perfectly timed stiff-arm on Young’s face mask made way for his dive into the end zone, completing a 66-yard touchdown.
Oakland Raiders running back Justin Fargas had just plowed for a six-yard gain at midfield against the Bears when the ball popped out of the pile and Chicago recovered the fumble. Twice a replay was shown on McAfee Coliseum’s smallish boards and the Oakland crowd grew agitated, looking for rookie Raiders coach Lane Kiffin to throw his red challenge flag. To some 62,000 onlookers, it seemed Fargas was down before the ball squirted loose, but with the on-screen evidence inconclusive the flag remained in Kiffin’s pocket. Otherwise the Raiders would have lost the challenge and a timeout.
The advent of big screen replay boards at NFL stadiums has changed the way the game is played, coached and, to some degree, officiated. It is an interactive tool that has revolutionized the NFL to sate the need for immediacy of the video-age crowd.
Already world-class athletes who cherish the opportunity to watch a replay of themselves turning in a great play, players with extraordinarily uncanny senses of hand-eye coordination are using the big screens as frames of reference to help them navigate the field during live plays. Coaches lean on the big TVs in the sky for between-play adjustments, making those old school, black-and-white Polaroid shots all but obsolete, as well as to decide whether to challenge on-field calls.
On top of that, referees must absolutely abhor the big boards, what with every close and crucial call being put up for public referendum.
“You try to find anything you can to help you out, you know?” a shoulder-shrugging Hester said. “In the Super Bowl, I used it to see how far the defenders were behind me. I think it’s a great idea to put them up in the stadiums so we can keep using them.”
Rogers agreed, saying his home stadium video board clued him in to Young’s approach as well as teammate Corey Smith’s failed attempt to block him.
“I looked at the JumboTron and saw a guy coming up on my left,” Rogers told ESPN2. “I caught a glimpse of the JumboTron and saw (Smith) trying to throw a block to my left. I turned my head around and there (Young) was. I tried to put that big arm out there to keep him at bay.”
All of which begs the question: Why in the name of narcissism was Rogers peeping at the big screen while running and gasping for air on his touchdown jaunt?
“It just happened that way,” Rogers said. “We have a beautiful stadium and a beautiful JumboTron.”
Actually, the widescreen at Ford Field, 27 feet high by 97 feet wide, is a product of Daktronics, a Brookings, S.D., company whose display systems are used by 26 of the NFL’s 32 teams, according to Investor’s Business Daily. And the term “JumboTron” should refer specifically to the board manufactured by Sony, but its use as a colloquialism is akin to “Coke” being used for all colas. The Daktronics board Hester used at Dolphin Stadium measures 50-by-137 and was the league’s first to use a high-definition screen.
But what about a setting such as aging McAfee Coliseum, where the antiquated 42-by-30 screens are not only relatively tiny and square like your old television set but nowhere near the line of sight with the field, making that unmistakably upward tilt of the head to the screen dangerous for a player in the middle of a play?
“Right,” Hester laughed. “They need to get some (bigger screens) here.”
Of course, it’s all about getting an edge. Which is why the all-pervading big screens seem to give teams a unique home-field advantage, especially if the person at the control of the replay board conveniently sits on their hands after a play that would help the visitors.
Replay? What replay?
“I do think it’s kind of shady that whenever you’re at home, and it happens to the other guy, they don’t replay it,” sniffed Raiders special-teams standout Jarrod Cooper, echoing earlier complaints issued by former coach Bill Parcells, who said visitors do not get to see as many big screen replays that negatively affect the home team.
“If you’re going to replay a play, replay all of them, here, everywhere. Keep it fair. Don’t one-side it. I think that’s full of (it) right there.”
The big screen controller is supposed to be above reproach on his or her own. Yet the NFL has stringent guidelines on what can and cannot be replayed at a stadium, lest a replay that would make a home team’s case all the better get the home crowd in that much more of a lather and brighten the spotlight on the referees that much more.
The league frowns upon replays for the sake of riling up a crowd.
“If the game is stopped for a replay challenge or review, no replay may be shown on the in-house video board except the network feed,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said in an e-mail, the thinking being that fans in house see the same evidence as those at home.
“Once a decision is made on a review, no replays may be shown of the play that was under review,” Aiello added. “That is right out of our game operations manual.”
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