The most ridiculous measuring device in the world
OK, it may not be the most ridiculous in the world, but it is by far the most ridiculous and inaccurate in the professional sports. A guy carries the ball, another guy tackles him and drags him to the ground, another six fall on top of them and then what? Two guys come from the opposite sides of the field and "mark the spot". The accuracy varies from nanometers to a whole foot (and perhaps more). If you're lucky, you get the first down. If you're not, the bring in "the device". The device is two sticks chained together. The first stick is placed somewhere in the vicinity of the previous "spot", the second stick is placed somewhere in the vicinity of the current "spot". If the point of the ball is a micron away from the second stick (which in itself is a sizeable object), you get "... and inches". Inches? Say what?
Perhaps it should be renamed to "... and some distance that we can't really measure but we're to embarrassed to acknowledge the fact of it, so it's the best that we can give you unless you throw your red flag and then we'll have to take one of your precious little timeouts, so back to the topic at hand, let's call it inches and be done with it".
posted by One Hundred Yards @ 7:26 PM
2 Comments:
It's actually very accurate. All spots are reviewed, so if it's not accurate, it gets changed. It's rare that a spot is more than six inches off.
As for the chains, when the figure out where a team got a first down, they figure out what part of the chain is at an even five yard line.
That is, say Team X gets a first down at the 30.5 yard line. The chain crew marks the part of the chain that is at the 35 yard line when the end is at the 30.5 yard line, so when the bring the chains out to measure, they put that part of the chain at the 35 yard line, drag the first end to the 30.5 yard line, and the other end to the 40.5 yard line
Well, not all spots are reviewed, and since each side gets only two challenges per game (granted you still have timeouts left), this gets challenged very rarely. And even six inches is a sizeable distance compared to the usual "... and inches" situation when it comes down to single inches.
And i was speaking about the chains themselves, i was talking about the stick diameter. I'd say in itself it's another inch, and since they are placed on the opposite sides of the field, take another 2-3 inches of difference.
Add the placement of the ball on the line of scrimmage (another 2-3 inches), and you get a very inaccurate method of measurement. I'd prefer to go with the following: you need to get the ball between the X and X+1 yard lines. Wherever you get, you place the ball at the .5 (between the lines). Then, you simply remove the need for the chains and are left only with the ball position itself - less place for accumulated errors.
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