In case Alexa, Siri, or Rosie Jetson didn’t tell you, the NFL is officially junking the chain gang as its primary first-down measurement system. Those noble descendants of football lore will still traverse the sidelines in 2025, but mostly as a security blanket.
Better not be an electric one.
Moving forward, Hawk-Eye virtual technology will determine whether a ball crossed the line to gain, with the chain gang relegated to secondary use in case of a glitch. The NFL tested the system last season.
Is it ironic that this Luddite is researching Hawk-Eye through an old-meets-new method available via my trusty village library card? Entering the card number on this magical website grants access to electronic editions of dozens of participating papers nationwide.
I’m reading how the Hawk-Eye system syncs with in-stadium cameras that track athletes, officials and, naturally, the ball. If a team achieves a first down (read in your best robotic voice), the system alerts officials, who then make the signal revered ’round the football world.
(I know baseball is tinkering with experimental ball-strike challenge technology, which ultimately could negate umpires’ emphatic, Frank Drebin-esque strike calls one day, but here’s hoping the tradition of extending one’s right arm after a key first down doesn’t disappear.)
Maybe this is a silly bit of catastrophizing. Most of the robots we’ll see on any given Sunday will still be the animated ones coming in and out of Fox commercial breaks, right? And it’s not as if the longstanding onscreen yellow first-down line for viewers at home is fading to black. Or has done anything other than enhance the viewing experience.
In a recent Washington Post report, NFL Senior Vice President of Football Business Strategy Kimberly Fields confirmed Hawk-Eye isn’t activated until a real, live, cheerable, jeerable human official spots the ball after using their senses to determine a player’s forward progress.
Progress (your call on the robotic voice this time). There’s that word again.
For all the concern about technology invading sports and souring the essence of people playing and deciding the games we love, Fields offered this reasoning in a separate report.
“If it’s not improving the game, making it more efficient, we’re not going to do it,” she told The Associated Press. “We will do nothing that hurts the integrity of the game.”
According to the NFL, going virtual with first-down determinations is expected to save small chunks of time, too. The league reported an average of 12 measurements per week during the 2024 season. Whereas chain gangs needed 75 seconds to make a call, their virtual cousins took just 30.
That’s enough to make Washington Commanders coach Dan Quinn want to dance the robot.
“Sometimes, you’re on that drive and you want to keep going, moving the ball,” he said. “So, having ways to do that. … Can you do it in a big pile on a quarterback sneak? Probably not. But there’s other ways you can, to spot it when it’s close. Can you identify it and work quickly? I’m down for that.”
Same here, I guess—especially since the colorful, passionate, pole-toting people on the sidelines aren’t going away.
Remember my reverence for newspapers? I’m suddenly smiling again about a recent TV grid summary for Cool Hand Luke:
“A Southern loner on a chain gang refuses to be broken.”
Should Hawk-Eye have a failure to communicate, NFL chain gangs will surely be ready to represent humanity—just like they have for more than a century.
