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The NFL will not measure first downs electronically this season
EAGAN, Minn. - The NFL will not utilize its electronic system to measure first downs during the 2024 regular season, a person familiar with the league’s planning on the issue said Monday.
The league continued to test the system during the just-completed preseason and had left open the possibility of using it during this regular season. Instead, the system will go into regular season use in 2025 at the earliest.
“The whole effort was to begin taking a look at it, to see what worked, what didn’t work,” Walt Anderson, the NFL’s officiating rules analyst, said Tuesday. “You certainly had some of them that went very smoothly. And then we had others where obviously there were some challenges. All of that is part of the learning curve. We’ll end up continuing to collect data [on] that. It’ll be a topic for the competition committee in the spring.”
Anderson and Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, addressed team owners on rules- and officiating-related issues during Tuesday’s special league meeting at a Minneapolis-area hotel.
“Most likely we’ll continue the testing of that probably in more venues next preseason, just like we did this year, with the intent that at some point, assuming it can be tested and we get good returns on [that] testing, that we can implement that possibly for the ’25 season,” Anderson said at a Tuesday news conference. “That’ll end up being a decision that the competition committee addresses next spring and that [league owners end] up entertaining for next preseason.”
The sticks-and-chain system for measuring first downs is not being retired - at least not yet. The 10-yard chains will remain the primary means for determining first downs this season. They also are expected to remain on the sidelines at least as a backup system even after the electronic system for measuring first downs goes into regular season use.
The 2024 regular season begins Sept. 5 with the Kansas City Chiefs, the two-time defending Super Bowl champions, hosting the Baltimore Ravens in the traditional Thursday night opener.
NFL officials had previously said the electronic system would go into regular season use when they deemed it ready, likely either this year or in 2025. They wanted to make certain they could utilize the system efficiently in all NFL stadiums and in international venues hosting other games.
The human element will remain in the first-down process even when the electronic system receives the go-ahead for regular season use, given that the ball still will be spotted manually by on-field officials at the conclusion of each play. There will be no use of a chip in the football, for example, to determine electronically whether a runner reached the first-down spot.
But once the ball has been spotted with the electronic system in use, a measurement will be conducted virtually in the NFL’s officiating center in New York, utilizing optical tracking cameras. The line-to-gain software can precisely calculate the football’s position on the field and determine whether it reached the point necessary to gain a first down.
The NFL has said it tested optical tracking camera technology for line-to-gain rulings last season at games in Miami Gardens, Fla., and East Rutherford, N.J., and at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas between the Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.
That testing continued during the preseason this year. Some observers complained about the amount of time taken to make first-down decisions with the electronic system.
The owners gathered Tuesday for a one-day meeting at which they voted to allow investments into franchises by private equity firms.
The owners are not expected to vote Tuesday on seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady’s proposed deal for part ownership of the Las Vegas Raiders, according to the person with knowledge of the league’s planning. That deal remains pending before the NFL finance committee and could come up for an approval vote by the owners at their October meeting.
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