NFL Hawk-Eye technology: All you need to know about Sony's new tracking system
Even as other sports like tennis have moved with the teams to embrace hawk-eye technology, or soccer uses goalline technology, the NFL has remained resolutely old school in measuring downs. The whole premise of the game is based on four downs and 10 yards and from time to time, the margins are too close to see manually if the offense deserves a new set of downs.
So far, the way this has been adjudicated has been with referees spotting the ball and bringing out the chains. Two officials hold the markers down 10 yards away from each other, with the reference point being where the old set of downs began. If the ball lies at any point in between the chain length, then a turnover-on-downs occurs. Such is the ubiquity of this practice that football fans call getting a new set of downs moving the chains.
But this method could be going the way of the dodo if the NFL has its way. In preparation for the 2025 regular season, the league is trialing Sony's hawk-eye technology in the 2024 preseason. And we got a first look at how it is supposed to work in the game between the Falcons and the Dolphins in Miami.
The ball comes with a chip in it, which allows computers to virtually determine the spot of the ball. After the referee spots it at a location, chains are not required anymore as the hawk-eye technology calculates if it is 10 yards ahead from the previous spot and, therefore, if a new set of downs should be awarded. That is what happened with Miami on offense against Atlanta in their 2024 preseason game.
But as Raheem Morris, the head coach of the Falcons, showed, it can be challenged as well. Not the hawk-eye technology, but the spotting of the ball. He even won the decision, which meant that the Dolphins forfeited the football, which would have given them four new downs to attempt to score.
The history and technology of Sony's Hawk-Eye technology and how it works
Sony implemented Hawk-Eye initially for cricket in the early 2000s, where it was necessary to track the trajectory of the ball from different angles.
The sport has a method of getting batters out called leg-before-wicket, which means that the bowler would have stumped him had he not put his leg in front. To track if the ball would actually hit the wicket behind the batter if he had not blocked it, they needed a technology that could calculate it virtually in real time.
It has since found applications in tennis, where a player can challenge calls about whether the ball landed inside the court or out. Badminton, which is also played on a court, also uses it and it is something one following the Paris Olympics would have seen. Soccer has also used goalline technology to monitor if the ball crossed the line to award a goal, ever since England was wronged against Germany during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa in a knockout game.
Many other sports use it too and it has become widely accepted. Perhaps, that is why the NFL felt comfortable using it now. The technology was developed in the UK by Paul Hawkins and uses multiple cameras across the stadium to best calculate the trajectory of a ball. That allows it to determine the exact distances and where the football is relative to it.
This partnership with Sony for the Hawk-Eye technology also means that the headsets being used across the league also belong to the company. While it won't see use during the 2024 regular season, it could be adopted in the 2025 season. And if it is done, the old-school way of moving the chains will be consigned to history.