NFL to release “All 22” game footage to fans

You have no idea how happy it makes this football geek to know that I’ll be able to deconstruct football games this season using the “All 22” game footage. When you’re watching on TV and trying to figure out what happened on the backside of a play or in the defensive secondary and you can’t see it because the camera is focused only on the line of scrimmage, it takes a lot of guesswork to surmise who might or might not have been open or missed an assignment. This coach’s film will show us all 22 players on the field at any given time.

The NFL was reportedly nervous about releasing the film because they didn’t want to open up extra criticism to coaches and players who are already under pretty strong microscopes with fantasy football. The NFL doesn’t do everything right, but in this case, they asked the fans who were already paying for the “Game Rewind” service.

In order to gauge the interest in the camera angle among football diehards, the NFL surveyed those already subscribed to the “Game Rewind” service, and Berman said the data showed that “the level of interest in this product among those fans was off the charts, and that goes beyond coaches and sportswriters, where the interest is around 100%.”

What this means is that we’ll finally be able to tell conclusively how many plays receivers were open, but a QB didn’t have the guts to throw it to the spot, preferring to dump off to a relief valve. We’ll know if a safety and a corner aren’t successfully covering their zones or biting on the run fake.

In some circles, I am sure it will lead to a lot more criticism, but I think it will also increase the education about the game. I can’t wait for it, and I can’t wait to be able to pick key plays or sequences and break them down for you next year using MS Paint!¹

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1. Just kidding! I use PowerPoint! Really I use PowerPoint. [↩]