Gmen Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 (edited) The NFL is sponsoring a competition called the "Big Data Bowl". The goal is to create an algorithm which can most accurately determine how many yards a running back will gain on a given play, given some prior information. Whoever comes up with the best model gets a prize of $75,000. The competition is being sponsored on a website called Kaggle, which is community for data scientists and artificial intelligence (AI) researchers. The website has hosted many competitions, such as automatically determining home value (Zillow), or predicting a person's movie preference (Netflix). https://www.kaggle.com/c/nfl-big-data-bowl-2020 In order to train the models, the NFL provides extensive historical data. For every given play, at the moment the ball is handed off to the running back, there is information about the position, direction, velocity, acceleration, weight, height, windspeed, offensive formation, defensive formation, etc, etc - for all 22 players on the field. The dataset is ridiculously extensive and gives AI researchers all the information they need to train their models. I believe the goal of this effort is to basically create a new "Next Gen Stat", which measures rushing yards gained vs expected yards gained. For example, if the AI model predicts that Saquon is supposed to only gain 3 yards on a play, and he gains 8, that means Saquon overachieved by +5 yards. I'm excited because I've been beating the drum for technology in the NFL for a long time. While this effort is just going to create a new Next gen stat, this is only scratching the surface of what AI can do for the NFL. AI research is advancing at breakneck speed and it's only a matter of time before NFL teams are hiring teams of nerds to gain a competitive advantage in a billion dollar industry. Here are a few uses of AI that I envision. 1. Reading the field pre-snap and calling an audible. Teams with veteran quarterbacks rely on the experience and expertise to read the field, and call an audible. But not every team has a Manning, or a Brady, or a Rodgers. Some teams have quarterbacks that, although they have a great arm, don't have the mental acuity to call an audible. AI models can do this automatically. They can scan the field, look at the defensive alignments, and determine if an audible is appropriate. 2. Informing the quarterback of his best receiver option. For passing plays, AI can be used to inform the quarterback of who his primary, secondary and third reads should be, based on analytics. If your receiver is going to be running a double move, and the cornerback has a history of biting on double moves, AI will tell you that receiver should be your primary. 3. Calling the play. I've always wondered what makes a good NFL playcaller. It's currently an art more than a science. It can be a science. You can train models to call plays, based on historical data. Coaches have to do extensive film study to figure out tendencies of their opponents, and exploit them. This can be done using AI. 4. Inventing new plays. Generative adversarial networks (GANS) are used to create new data. They are currently used to synthesize fake voices, and create images of people that don't exist. GAN - Some cool applications 5. Call penalties. This technology would require some more advancements in computer vision, but in five years referees can be made obsolete. (I'm sure Lions fans would be on board right about now) Ultimately, football can become a cat and mouse game between AI systems. Just like on Wallstreet and in Silicon Valley, AI talent will become a premium. TLDR : The nerds are coming to take over the game of football Edited October 16, 2019 by Gmen 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGame316 Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 I kinda miss the days of just turning on a game at 1:00 on Sunday and it being over at 4:00. Watching Sportscenter at 11pm to catch up on the sports news and moving through the rest of the week without missing anything 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wackywabbit Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 AI is as much (or actually more) about having good, clean input data as it is about sophisticated models and algorithms. Cameras and tracking technology are already at a level where relatively simple models can decide where to go on a play better than a player or coach. But, there's also the question of if the league will actually want to allow access to that video/data to teams in-game. Teams already have access to tablets on the sideline, but you would think teams should be installing and using something as simple as a go-for-4th app based on the decisions they are making. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Small Town Values Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 NFL should adopt a Social Credit System where the value of a player is determined by their social credit rather than playing ability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
incognito_man Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 3 hours ago, Gmen said: 5. Call penalties. This technology would require some more advancements in computer vision, but in five years referees can be made obsolete. (I'm sure Lions fans would be on board right about now) Penalties could have a baseline "impact" determination on things like: (1) Distance/Time of infraction from the actual "play" (anything deemed not to affect the outcome is ignored) (2) Negative affect on transgressee: was the guy who was held/interfered with impacted by a net 4 Newtons or 7 Newtons? Have a baseline value that's deemed worthy of a flag Also should be using AI + sensors for ball placement and scoring. Frickin chains? and that crap comes down to centimeters sometimes lol. That tolerance is WAAYYYY too much. Great post! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob_shadows Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 I love technology, and advances in technology can certainly help the game in some ways... But some of your ideas are taking things WAY too far... Computers telling a QB when to audible or who to throw the ball to? Sports isn't just about being the most athletically gifted player... Never has been, it's about a combination of athleticism and knowledge and understanding of the game and that is how it SHOULD be. If a QB isn't smart enough to read a defense pre-snap or make his reads on who to throw the ball to then he shouldn't be an NFL QB, end of story...I don't care how physically gifted he is. You take the mental aspect out of the game you ruin the game as far as I'm concerned, I don't want to watch a game where it's simply whoever has the most athletic players always wins... That's the beauty of the game, athleticism can be overcome by intelligence. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43M Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 1 hour ago, Small Town Values said: NFL should adopt a Social Credit System where the value of a player is determined by their social credit rather than playing ability. That you, President Xi? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BayRaider Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 Every sport will be AI Cyborgs within a thousand years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick_gb Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 48 minutes ago, rob_shadows said: I love technology, and advances in technology can certainly help the game in some ways... But some of your ideas are taking things WAY too far... Computers telling a QB when to audible or who to throw the ball to? Sports isn't just about being the most athletically gifted player... Never has been, it's about a combination of athleticism and knowledge and understanding of the game and that is how it SHOULD be. If a QB isn't smart enough to read a defense pre-snap or make his reads on who to throw the ball to then he shouldn't be an NFL QB, end of story...I don't care how physically gifted he is. You take the mental aspect out of the game you ruin the game as far as I'm concerned, I don't want to watch a game where it's simply whoever has the most athletic players always wins... That's the beauty of the game, athleticism can be overcome by intelligence. Very much in agreeance with this. You're essentially talking about taking some of the intangibles out of your scouting process and strictly recruiting based on relative athletic scores. This is a HORRIBLE idea. You're literally making the system so automated that it's not even worth watching anymore. I'm all for technology but not technology that individually influences a player's success in the NFL. I couldn't and would never get on board with this. I think it's just a terrible idea and takes half the guessing game and hard work necessary to succeed in the NFL out of the game and it shouldn't be like that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Small Town Values Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 36 minutes ago, FourThreeMafia said: That you, President Xi? 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gmen Posted October 16, 2019 Author Share Posted October 16, 2019 (edited) 10 hours ago, wackywabbit said: But, there's also the question of if the league will actually want to allow access to that video/data to teams in-game. That is a question the NFL will have to answer. Real time access to the All 22 camera would be very important to make this happen. Considering the pushback by many against self driving cars, I imagine many fans would push back against AI in NFL games. Regardless of whether it can be used in-game, AI can still be used during the week for game prep by scouting opponents tendencies, and designing play sheets to exploit those tendencies (even if AI can’t select the plays in-game). There’s no way the NFL can prohibit that. Edited October 16, 2019 by Gmen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gmen Posted October 16, 2019 Author Share Posted October 16, 2019 7 hours ago, Nick_gb said: Very much in agreeance with this. You're essentially talking about taking some of the intangibles out of your scouting process and strictly recruiting based on relative athletic scores. This is a HORRIBLE idea. You're literally making the system so automated that it's not even worth watching anymore. I'm all for technology but not technology that individually influences a player's success in the NFL. I couldn't and would never get on board with this. I think it's just a terrible idea and takes half the guessing game and hard work necessary to succeed in the NFL out of the game and it shouldn't be like that. This isn’t a far cry from what some teams already do. The quarterback has the ability to communicate with coaches through an ear piece up to 15 seconds (iirc) left on the play clock. My suggestion is that the coach can be replaced by AI. Purely optional, but I think the option should exist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jlowe22 Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 22 minutes ago, Gmen said: This isn’t a far cry from what some teams already do. The quarterback has the ability to communicate with coaches through an ear piece up to 15 seconds (iirc) left on the play clock. My suggestion is that the coach can be replaced by AI. Purely optional, but I think the option should exist. No thanks. I love computers, and I love technology, but I want to keep sports in the minds of humans as long as possible. Computers have already mastered simple games, and the best humans will never again beat the best computers at chess. I don’t want to watch a football game that comes down to which team’s tech guy watched the least amount of porn on the ai computer. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter2_1 Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 There's already a Cyborg in the NFL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ET80 Posted October 16, 2019 Share Posted October 16, 2019 10 hours ago, Small Town Values said: NFL should adopt a Social Credit System where the value of a player is determined by their social credit rather than playing ability. There was an episode of Black Mirror where they explored this on a higher scale. Bryce Dallas Howard was in that episode... She's fun to look at. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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