from Hacker News

Bill Belichick Throws in the Tablet

by kitwalker12 on 10/19/16, 3:22 PM with 115 comments

by dhemmerling on 10/19/16, 4:11 PM
Surface is getting all the heat in the article, but in the linked interview [1] he blames pretty much every part of the infrastructure other than the interface:
> The other communication systems involve the press box to the coaches on the field, and then the coach on the field, the signal caller, or the coach-to-quarterback, coach-to-signal caller system. Those fail on a regular basis.
> And again, there's a lot of equipment involved, too. There are headsets in the helmets, there's the belt pack, that communication, there's a hookup or connection to internet service or that process and so forth with the coaches and the press box. So, there are a number of pieces of equipment, there is a number of connections that are on different frequencies.
> And then during the game sometimes something happens and it has to be fixed, and first of all, you have to figure out what the problem is. Is it a battery? Is it the helmet? Is it the coaches' pack? Is it the battery on the coaches' pack? I mean you know, again, it could be one of 15 different things.
[1] http://www.patriots.com/news/2016/10/18/bill-belichick-confe...
by tw04 on 10/19/16, 4:10 PM
I'm guessing it has far more to do with network connectivity than the tablet itself. The problems he describes to me sound like exactly what I would expect in a stadium filled with 100,000 cellphones emitting wifi and cellular interference.
I'm guessing the NFL didn't get clearance from the FCC to use a dedicated wavelength within the stadium to isolate their systems from noise.
by pyrophane on 10/19/16, 3:55 PM
Now, I have to preface this by saying that I don't know much about football and even less about coaching it, but I wonder how much of this speaks to a lack of a real need for a technology solution for coaches. If it were providing a lot of value to them, I imagine they'd have a harder giving it up.
This NFL suggests that there is such a need: "Since Microsoft has been a partner of the N.F.L. and implemented their technology on our sidelines, the efficiency and speed of communication between coaches has greatly increased."
But of course, that is the NFL speaking about a partner's product, so I can't imagine them saying anything else.
by arcanus on 10/19/16, 3:44 PM
> Microsoft entered into a long-term sponsorship partnership with the league in 2013. At the time, the N.F.L. had a list of demands for the equipment, including ruggedness, ease of use, size, effectiveness in extreme temperature and glare resistance.
> In 2014, Belichick noted that the system had crashed, but seemed mostly cool with it. “I’d say that’s all kind of part of the game,” he said.
> “I just can’t take it anymore,” he said at a news conference Tuesday.
This is an under-reported challenge of the increasing automation narrative: we need more robust systems.
by liquidise on 10/19/16, 3:42 PM
This speaks to a higher level perception about software. Bugs and crashes, however inconsistent, irreparably damage the sentiment about using a technology. Younger folks grew up in an age with these inconsistencies and are less perturbed by them. To older folks though, manual systems rarely "fail" during use. The bar of acceptance is a great deal higher when your reliability and availability are compared to pencil and paper.
Long story short: quality is always important. as the median age of user rises, quality requirements increase dramatically.
by Twirrim on 10/19/16, 3:49 PM
Mostly what stands out to me from this is that they only get the tablets just a few hours before the game.
That's ridiculous, unless the NFL is also providing all the technical support (which Bill's actual rant doesn't imply they do.) Having just a short time to use, test and get them ready for the game is incredibly lousy, and certainly won't give the team's IT people any chance to seriously troubleshoot and improve the situation.
It doesn't matter who makes the tech, or how solid it is. You can't just throw tech at a problem and expect it to solve it.
by dredmorbius on 10/19/16, 5:15 PM
It's not just capabilities, but reliability that matters.
If I've got a system that takes a bit of consistent prodding to happen, or can do A & B reliably but not C, and it is consistent about that, it's almost always far more acceptable than a system which works most of the time without prodding but then falls down copletely, or a system that does A, B, & C, but fails to work right 10% of the time.
That little bit of uncertainty pokes an sticks at you. It's always at the back of your consciousness. A football coach's job is to coach the game. It's not to to try to figure out what's wrong with his comms equipment or even if it's working correctly or incorrectly.
Closely related: the paradox of automation.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/11/crash-how...
by bennettfeely on 10/19/16, 3:47 PM
Also must be quite depressing for Microsoft when the announcers refer to the Surface tablets as iPads during the game.
by vermontdevil on 10/19/16, 4:03 PM
He also noted that the comms system fails regularly.
Seems NFL sets them up a few hours before kickoff.
Perhaps it is time for NFL to improve their tech support in all areas. There might be a relationship between the tablet issues and the problems with the comms system.
by ChuckMcM on 10/19/16, 4:21 PM
I wonder if there is an actual product here or if there is just a product placement. And by that I mean has anyone sat down with coaches and said "Given what you do in a game on the sidelines, the choices you are making, the questions you are asking, and options you are trying to weigh; Is there a way to improve the tools you've already been using with some automation?"
Anyone know?
by greedo on 10/19/16, 4:35 PM
Network issues are most likely the problem, especially if the devices are issued by the NFL prior to gametime.
A coach needs a few things to really make this valuable. First they need a play chart for selecting the appropriate play call for the corresponding down and distance. This can be a canned application that doesn't require network connectivity after it's been loaded, but networking would allow an assistant to update the player personnel availability in real time so that you don't call a play with improper personnel.
The other thing the tablets replaced was the physical photos the teams used to use to review plays. The NFL previously made the teams use B&W photos sent down to the sidelines. They don't want the teams to use live replays for some reason, though the monstrous displays in most stadiums make this dumb.
So if you take out the network connection, these lose a lot of their value. I can't imagine a more hostile environment for Wifi than a stadium packed with a bazillion cellphones, plus goofy atmospherics due to design.
by xemdetia on 10/19/16, 3:47 PM
What a terrible URL: http://.../football/bill-belichick-patriots-might-be-a-mac-g...
I think there is a lot to be said about the fact that any event that has as much tech as an NFL broadcast and that it is never setup permanently will always run into some issue. The base complaint seems to be just that the league gives him the stuff too late to work out any unforeseen issues, and so it just is a sprint to troubleshoot week after week where he could just show up with briefcase full of printed plays and this just not be a problem. It's not like he has a shortage of bodies for manual labour on the sidelines.
by elchief on 10/19/16, 6:47 PM
I have a feeling that the NFL doesn't really need tablets on the sideline, but Paul Allen (MS Founder, Owner of the Seahawks) had something to do with it.
by wyager on 10/19/16, 5:35 PM
I'm not sure if wifi is actually the problem here as many are claiming, this is a good read about sports frequency coordination: http://www.radioworld.com/article/photo-holding-page/279450
Frequency management in a stadium is very hard. It's mostly done by volunteer ham radio people.
by edw519 on 10/19/16, 4:06 PM
This is what inevitably happens when you have a solution looking for a problem.
I have 2 "systems" at work...
One includes email and a white board with index cards taped to the wall next to it.
The other includes Jira, Confluence, Infor, Sharepoint, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe Illustrator, GIMP, Skype, Webex, Success Factors, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
If I don't need all this horrible shit to build software, why would anyone need any of it to play football?
by woodandsteel on 10/22/16, 4:15 AM
Hahahahaha, Microsoft really screwed itself on this.
Ipads are more reliable and have a better gui, so why is the NFL using surface tablets? It's because Apple didn't need to push the ipad, but surface was really new and Microsoft really needed to promote it anyway possible, so it made a huge marketing push on the NFL, no doubt making it financially very attractive and promising all sorts of help.
What Microsoft seems to have not thought out is it would work out well for the coaches only if the entire network system worked flawlessly, or surface would get rejected by association, and so they should have given extensive help to make sure that happened. But they apparently didn't do that, the network screwed up endlessly, and sure enough, surface is being painted as no good.
by wtvanhest on 10/19/16, 4:10 PM
I own two computers and have a work laptop (all PCs):
Computer 1: Dell - Works as expected
Computer 2: Lenovo Thinkpad (work) - Old, works amazing
Computer 3: Surface pro - Randomly unresponsive, often times the keyboard has to be disconnected and reconnected. Often times it just freaks out and starts clicking where I am not clicking.
I followed all troubleshooting steps. It is terrible.
by stevehawk on 10/19/16, 5:18 PM
Technology seems to be a huge issue at the Patriots home stadium. Pretty much every visiting team coach that's been there complains about headset failures / communication issues between coaches/on-field captains. Mike Tomlin said "It's always the case" when speaking about them failing. Like countless other people are saying in other comments - this is likely just a huge radio frequency collision issue for all of the wireless operations of any stadium.
by babesh on 10/19/16, 4:38 PM
Did you know that 30 years ago, Polaroids were the new hotness? The difference between those and today's tablets is that the Polaroids were utterly reliable. Both provide additional value from what was there before.
The interesting question is why the new tablet/network is unreliable. My contention is that many physical processes are not vulnerable to single points of failure but that software is.
by mmgutz on 10/20/16, 12:53 AM
Has anybody ever used a tablet or laptop outside? They're unreadable. This isn't a problem with surface, it's a problem with most electronic devices in the sunlight. There probably are other glitches but low tech film isn't going away anytime soon.
by zeveb on 10/19/16, 3:58 PM
I've seen this time and time again in multiple different industries.
Electronics technology & software are truly great and wonderful, but they are still too immature (the latter more so) to be truly reliable. I'm confident that someday they will actually be superior to physical technology like pads of paper, but they're just not there yet. Honestly, I don't really expect them to get where they need to be within my lifetime.
For that matter, high-tech stuff isn't as reliable as low-tech stuff. I know that when I pick up my landline wired headset that I will have crystal-clear calling, every single time; I don't know that with my cordless phone; I don't know that with my cellphone. I know that when I pick up a pen & paper, that I will be able to quickly write and draw whatever I want; I don't know that with my laptop, nor with my tablet, nor with my phone.
by DeBraid on 10/19/16, 4:11 PM
> Zack Cox of New England Sports Network timed Belichick’s denunciation of NFL technology at 5 minutes 25 seconds
by samfisher83 on 10/19/16, 8:54 PM
How much values does Microsoft derive from paying 80 million/year to use these tablets.
by davesque on 10/19/16, 3:42 PM
Not sure this really says anything bad about Microsoft. Is it really hard to imagine an NFL coach losing his temper with something let alone a computer?
by 6stringmerc on 10/19/16, 4:39 PM
On the one hand, it's a reasoned, eloquent, logical gripe about technology not functioning as intended for its target audience, an NFL head coach.
On the other hand, this is Bill Belichick doing the talking, so I take the bulk of his complaints about the communications equipment with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you're not familiar with Mr. Belichick, he's earned the reputation of being worthy of suspicion when it comes to either exploiting a loophole in the rules or potentially breaking them outright and trying to explain them away[1]. A quick search[2] dredges up numerous cases of NFL teams visiting Gillette Stadium and experiencing significant communications system difficulties.
So, the cynic in me would like to pose a tentative solution to Bill: If his team would shut off whatever jammers and bullshit disruption devices they're using on the visiting opponents, maybe his equipment wouldn't fuck up as much either.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_New_England_Patriots_vide...
[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=radio+trouble+gillette+stadi...