Editorial: When Technology Fumbles - Valley News

It’s a pretty safe bet that New England Patriots’ coach Bill Belichick will not be penalized anytime soon for excessive celebration of the National Football League’s technological prowess. 

At a news conference Tuesday, the famously reticent Belichick spent nearly five and a half minutes denouncing the technology that the NFL provides to its teams for in-game use. This is the verbal equivalent of War and Peace for Belichick, who has been known to dispose of questions about Super Bowl victories in a fraction of that time.

That Belichick was not entirely happy with the technology piece could be inferred earlier this month during a game against Buffalo when the television camera caught the coach slamming down his Microsoft Surface tablet computer after the Bills scored a touchdown.

He made what was implicit in that gesture explicit last week. “As you have probably noticed,” said Belichick, “I’m done with the tablets,” which are intended to provide still images of plays to coaches on the sideline. “I’ll use paper pictures from here on because I have given it my best shot; I’ve tried to work through the process. But it just doesn’t work for me, and that’s because there’s no consistency to it.”

Belichick also noted that the separate system that allows coaches in the press box to communicate with those on the sidelines and the one between the coach and the quarterback are also unreliable. “Those fail on a regular basis,” he said. Perhaps it is time to rename the New England team the Luddites.

The NFL, already under fire this season for its crackdown on players who “excessively” celebrate their on-field heroics, sounded defensive and a little bit hurt by Belichick’s decision. The league issued a statement declaring that, “Since Microsoft has been a partner of the NFL and implemented their technology on our sidelines, the efficiency and speed of communication between coaches has greatly increased. As with any technology, there are multiple factors that can cause issues within our sideline communications system either related to or outside of Microsoft’s technology.”

Within that nutshell of some 50 odd words, it is possible to discern why the Patriots’ almost unprecedented success on the field remains a mystery to so many in the league. Belichick leaves absolutely nothing to chance in his detail-oriented world. That which cannot be depended on to work reliably day in and day out is dispensed with, whether it is a play or a player or an electronic device.

In contrast, the concept that technology needs to work predictably and reliably too often seems foreign to those who develop it and peddle it to customers. They seem to not understand that in some time-sensitive enterprises (such as pro football and newspapers, to cite a couple among many), the computer system simply can’t be “down” for a while without jeopardizing the outcome.

At some level, it is astonishing that an institution like the National Football League, with money to burn, cannot get right something that appears so technologically basic. But it also must be noted that technological failure is endemic throughout society. From massive digital initiatives such as electronic medical records and the online health insurance exchanges to routine digital interactions with businesses to the use of personal electronic devices, what user has not frequently had the impulse to follow Belichick’s lead, slam down the tablet or laptop, and walk away? That’s certainly easier said than done, but maybe it’s a winning formula.

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