Offense


Defense


ST

AI Comes to the NFL​

I might have seen the future of football on TV Thursday night, with an assist from Artificial Intelligence, Andrew Luck’s former center at Stanford, and a team of Amazon techies based in Tel Aviv.

That is not a misprint.

One of the reasons the NFL was so eager to get a new and aggressive streaming partner in 2022 was on display in the Jacksonville-New Orleans game on Amazon Prime Video Thursday. Let me tell you what I saw on one of Amazon’s three streaming options for its games, Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats. On the Prime Vision feed, Amazon shows the all-22 camera angle, able to see the whole field; the tradeoff, of course, is that you don’t see the quarterback, large, in the center of the TV. You see everything, with no one bigger than anyone else—while hearing Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit call the game the same as on the regular streaming ‘cast.

With 5:26 left in the first quarter, the Saints had a third-and-seven at the Jaguars’ 32-yard line. Jacksonville cornerback Tre Herndon jogged to a spot two yards across from the left slot, in coverage on receiver Michael Thomas. On the all-22 view, Herndon leaned forward as quarterback Derek Carr began his cadence. Just then, a red circle was superimposed around Herndon—and on the other side of the formation, red also encircled linebacker Devin Lloyd—with black circles superimposed around the four Saints wide receivers plus running back Alvin Kamara.

The red circle was Amazon’s way of foreshadowing what AI told them from whipping through hundreds of factors—including anticipatory tics that could be gleaned from the two movement trackers in Herndon’s left and right shoulder pad—in split seconds: Prime Vision was predicting Herndon and Lloyd would blitz. Quite a leap of faith in the Herndon forecast. In the first six games of the season, Herndon, per Next Gen Stats, had blitzed only 12 times.

Carr took his time on the cadence. The red circle was around Herndon for two, three, four, five, six seconds, and the six-year vet corner showed nothing. Carr certainly could get no clue from the possible blitzer on his left. Finally, 8.31 seconds after the encircling of Herndon appeared on the all-22, Carr snapped the ball. Herndon streaked at Carr. Lloyd came, too, but was caught in traffic. No one touched the blitzing Herndon. Just as Carr was releasing the ball, Herndon, unseen, slammed into Carr and the football bounded harmlessly away. Incomplete.

Here’s the really amazing part of this: A soybean farmer in Iowa, were he a football nerd once his day job was done, could have been watching this Prime Vision view of the game just like me. And the soybean farmer would know more about the likelihood of Tre Herndon blitzing than Saints coach Dennis Allen or his offensive play-designer, Pete Carmichael, standing 20 yards away from him. Because the live feed you and I can see is banned on the sidelines and coaches’ box upstairs (more about the pitfalls of that later), people from the Everglades to the Cascades can see a blitz coming better than the teams on the field can.

It’s sort of revolutionary. Viewers should love this. The NFL must love the fun of it today. But Artificial Intelligence strikes fear into those who think it might go too far. The competitive guardrails on this, for the NFL, had better be sturdy.

---

Amazon had the idea when it got the NFL contract in 2021 of an alternate telecast heavy on analytics. Some of the elements, like tagging skill players pre-snap, started last year. But the biggest element, predicting blitzing, debuted 11 days ago in the Denver-Kansas City game. I heard about it in a smart story in The Athletic by Ted Nguyen. The brainchild behind the idea, Sam Schwartzstein, told me he began working on it in “late April or May” with Amazon AI experts, a machine-learning team based in Tel Aviv.

Keep in mind Amazon’s not CBS or ESPN, with virtually all the idea people solely based in the U.S. Amazon’s based in Seattle, but has campuses in more than 50 countries, including Israel. Schwartzstein has been a leader at Amazon in getting some people unfamiliar with American football, very familiar in a short time. Just who is Schwartzstein? He started 13 games at center for Stanford in Andrew Luck’s last season, 2011, and they became fast friends and smart forecasters of defensive tendencies. There is so much that’s ironic about Schwartzstein’s role in introducing new technology to the Thursday night games, but how about this nugget: He has assembled a crew of smart former players as advisers to Amazon’s Prime Vision with Next Gen Stats—including Luck. Schwartzstein meets with him on Monday nights to talk Amazon football business.

“We are in a unique spot as a sports broadcaster that is a tech company first,” Schwartzstein told me Friday night. We spoke for 30 minutes; the conversation will air in The Peter King Podcast dropping late Tuesday.

“So,” Schwartzstein said, “we looked at all these different ideas of what we could do. The first one came to mind is how do we identify the players who are going to blitz … take you into the mindset of what I used to do when I played center in college … There weren’t a lot of things that we could do to help people to watch defense in a unique way. But then talking with our science team, they said, I think we can do this with machine learning and AI. We went through the process to be able to identify using machine learning where we don’t have a readout of the rules or the specific reasons why someone’s being highlighted as a potential blitzer. But we know that’s it’s being ingested from thousands of plays that are then creating that identification tag of ‘this player is likely going to blitz.’ You can never be 100 percent right; we’re just giving you an idea of looking at the defense the same way the quarterback is.”

Two Amazon coordinating producers for the Thursday games, Alex Strand and Betsy Riley, went to Tel Aviv last spring to meet with the AI team, and to begin explaining football to the non-fans there. They ended up building the software and the model that ID’s which players on every play were likely to blitz, using pieces of physical, statistic and analytical information. Schwartzstein lives in the Bay Area. Tel Aviv is 10 hours ahead. So if he’d wake up at 7 a.m. in California, on some days he’d be tutoring the Tel Aviv team in the late afternoon and evening on Football 101.

“We probably had 15 different ideas,” Schwartzstein said. “I can’t give you the exact number that have gone to production, but a lot have gone to the wayside that we’ve tried to accomplish and pushed off for later times. We have the ability to continue ideating with them and talking with them about different ways we can help expose new things to our fan bases. What I really like is we’re not afraid of the big hairy audacious goals. We are looking to try and do things that people said that you can’t do.”

The goal this year was predictive blitzing. Amazon trusted the red-circling so much that Schwartzstein and the game producers of Prime Vision just let it go when the game starts. “I can’t turn it on and off,” he said.

The factors. That’s what I wonder about. Think of the scores of known football factors as a quarterback comes to the line, and then add the minutiae of what Next Gen Stats knows, and then add what can be read from the movement trackers in every shoulder pad. The amount of information that can be processed and interpreted by AI in seconds is, of course, mind-boggling. “It knows the alignment of every player on the field, offense and defense,” Schwartzstein said. “And then there’s expectations of all the plays where players have blitzed from. It’s taking that bevy of information to make a prediction. I can tell you … that it’s seen so many different plays and so many different scenarios that it’s intelligently highlighting unique players.”

Like Herndon, with 5:26 left in the first quarter Thursday night. AI figured he was blitzing. The Saints either didn’t or blew an assignment, and let him rush, and it cost them a third-down conversion in opposing territory in a game they lost by a touchdown. Sort of a big deal.

---

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” said Schwartzstein, and he’s right. What I saw Thursday night will make me come back for more, to see the game in a different way than I ever have. The potential for more cool innovations for home viewers is there. It’s fun. It’s smart. It’s great.

But the potential for mayhem is too, because AI may know more than an offensive coordinator about what a defender like Tre Herndon is likely to do on a given play.

We can all think of the dangers for this totally new tool. When I asked Amazon about the delay from live game to being able to see the Prime Vision feed, a spokesperson emailed: “The vast majority of Prime Video’s TNF streams travel from the stadium to the screen in 10 seconds or less. This delay matches and is often less than what viewers receive from live games on broadcast and cable. Prime Vision’s technology adds a minimal amount on top of that, usually three seconds or less.”

The exact time of delay depends whether you’re watching the stream on home internet, Xbox, Apple TV, your phone, or other devices. Understand two things here. Encircling a defender in red isn’t a guarantee that he will blitz; it’s simple saying the AI program suggests he’s likely to blitz. But in this case, Herndon was circled for 8.31 seconds, which is an eternity before the ball is snapped. (To be fair, most red circles are evident for less time.) My concern is, Amazon’s delay has to be enough time so that some person in some stadium won’t be able somehow to alert a team with information that could be an advantage competitively. It appears to be long enough, but that must be policed.

“No one’s using it for nefarious reasons,” Schwartzstein said.

The NFL’s got to be sure it has multiple layers in place to ensure no one does.

Monday Night Football - October 23, 2023

San Francisco 49ers vs. Minnesota Vikings: 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC

ROD Sportsbook:

I am asking an honest question. I am asking those of you who have been closer to coaching in the High School or College level than I have. What are the advantages to running empty sets…is is mainly to give your offense one more weapon than the defense can defend? Yea f that is the case, then you better know where your going with the ball, because you have no blocking next to you, and the defense doesn’t have to worry about the run. It feels high risk for a turnover and QB sacks…I have come to dislike the empty set because the defense only has to worry about one thing. I would like an educated conversation.

1. That one was brutal.

2. I'll start by saying this clearly and succinctly... no way in Hell we should have lost that game.

3. A lot of blame to go around, so I'll start with the receivers not named Puka Nacua. Cooper Kupp had the worst game I can recall him having. Two drops helped kill the opening drive, then, apart from one long reception and a 2 point conversion, he was invisible. Tutu Atwell made one great play (on a pass not even intended for him) but was similarly invisible otherwise. Finally, there is Tyler Higbee, who dropped a key pass (hearing footsteps) and otherwise had only one catch.

4. Matthew Stafford wasn't as bad as numbers suggest (see 3 drops above), but that interception was inexcusable for a QB of his experience. That's the kind of play you'd expect from a young QB (not taking away from a great play by T.J. Watt, but Stafford should know better than to be baited into that throw).

5. The defense's overall numbers (300 yards allowed) may seem okay, but situationally, they did a pretty poor job. Again, the pressure was just not consistent enough to get to the QB with any frequency or to force turnovers.

6. The parade of horrible performances next brings us to Brett Maher. He clearly has a problem with missing kicks in bunches. The missed XP didn't hurt us due to the two point conversion, but two missed FGs changed the game not only due to points not being scored, but also due to the field position it left the Steelers with (leading to 10 of their points). He may soon be out of a job.

7. Sean McVay also had a bad day. The Steelers seemed to have the right defense for his play calls far too often, and his cavalier wasting of time outs finally caught up with him as it prevented a challenge that would have given the Rams one last chance to tie the game. He'll take responsibility but, who cares? Don't apologize... just manage the clock better!

8. It's easy to blame the refs for a really bad call (or two, if you count the phantom PI called against Ankhello Witherspoon a couple of plays before the bad spot), but the Rams never should have been in that position.

9. The Rams inability to string two consecutive wins together is getting really frustrating.

10. The running game, as I predicted, was able to thrive without Kyren Williams. Nice effort by Darrell Henderson and Royce Freeman. Still, while the production was good, the impact wasn't there, as the Rams were unable to sustain drives due to penalties and sacks.

11. Despite the bad team effort, I'll give out player of the week recognitions. On offense, Puka Nacua is the obvious choice. He is truly a find.

12. On defense, the much maligned Michael Hoecht gets the nod after leading the Rams in tackles and registering two sacks.

13. The Football Gods continue to frown on the Rams. Fumble by Harris - recovered by Steelers. Ball tipped by at least two Ram defenders - falls harmlessly to the ground. Bobble by punt returner - secures the ball. We still have not started a single drive in an opponent's territory this year. The failure to force turnovers is part of that equation but, damn... could we get a bounce for once!

14. Derion Kendrick capped off a week of legal troubles with some really bad coverage. He may be sharing an Uber from Rams Park with Maher before long.

15. While I'm criticizing the team, I'll throw a bit my way as well. I tend to compartmentalize the stress of real life and funnel that energy into being a sports fan. For some reason, today, rather being a healthy outlet, I found myself expressing my frustration in such a severe manner that it disturbed my wife and even freaked out my dogs a bit. That's not right. I need to be better than that as a fan and as a human being. Mea culpa.

16. Earlier this year I declared myself "Mr. Brightside," so here's what I've got... There is a lot of good here overall. You can see the potential of many of our young players... Nacua, Byron Young, Kobie Turner, Steve Avila and others. I truly believe that these players, coupled with our key vets and some additions, will make real noise next year. If they want to do so this year, though, they simply can't let games like today's (and the Bengals game, for the matter) slip away.

17. Of course, it would be just like this team to go out and beat Dallas next week.

18. Speaking of next week... PROGRAMMING NOTE: I will be off the grid next Sunday and Monday, so I'd like to find someone to fill in as a guest writer of my 20RT series. Any takers? (PM me!)

19. I don't know what to say about visiting teams taking over the stands. Frustrating, but I don't see any solution right now.

20. I'm not giving up on this season, by the way. Just frustrated by a really bad week.

Goff shits the bed on the first play of second half McVay roasts his balls. Stafford? It's me

Time to start practicing Ethan Evans as a PK. He kicked FGs in college. He just needs practice and coaching. He was 43 of 44 on extra points.

Ryan Succop is available and he's money out to 50 yds

Played his ass off.. stong yac and very good footwork. Ram great receiver in the making.

This was a loss to an AFC team... so no tie breakers effected.

We beat dallas next week.. id say it was a win over the last two weeks.

I thought we would win this game and lose at Dallas....

that being said I have not much confidence we can beat Dallas.

but ya

Have at it.

I remember NCAA football previous to all the conference realignment and playoffs. I like the playoff system but it will be better when it's expanded. But back when the Big 8 actually had only 8 teams, the Pac10 and Big10 10 teams each, I had a favorite team in each conference and among independents.

Being from NJ, Penn St. was (and still is) my #1 favorite? Why not Rutgers you might wonder?Because they weren't fun to watch. I worked with a Rutgers alumni and he used to give me his tickets. The first game I attended there was vs W. Virginia and it was stunning to see how much larger and faster they were. My favorite NJ team was the Princeton Tigers. Glorious old Palmer Stadium, with all it's history, covered with Ivy (literally), was awesome. My father worked in Princeton often and used to take me because he knew a guy who would give him tickets.

Then in 1971 my older brother took me. We had end zone seats and while walking around the stadium previous to kickoff, we came across Howard David, a local radio sportscaster who later was the radio voice for the Miami Dolphins. In August he had broadcasted my Babe Ruth league World Series games in Alburquerque for WHWH in Hamilton, NJ. He was doing Tiger football at the time and after discussing those WS games, he asked us where we were sitting. "The end zone" my brother said. "No you're on the 50 yard line" Howard said, and handed us some tickets. I felt like a 14 year old celebrity!

Anyway, Penn St. was my favorite followed closely by Michigan in the Big 10 (mainly because I hated Woody Hayes and Ohio St......before they were THE Ohio St) and USC in the Pac10. The rest in no particular order were, Texas in the Big 8, FSU in the ACC, Florida in the SEC and SMU in the old Southwest Conference. The latter 2 mainly because of Youngblood and Dickerson.

Realignment makes it tough as Penn St and Michigan are in the same conference. But after that ugly loss yesterday to Ohio St., I am rooting for Michigan to beat both of them and win the National Title.

Since then I've rooted for Clemson when Danny Ford guided them to a Championship, Georgia when Alabama was dominating, Alabama since Georgia has dominated. Arizona St. when Jake the Snake was there and because I almost attended. Stanford when Luck was there, etc.. The multiple conferences allowed for multiple allagiances. Now what are we going to have? The SEC and Big 10 (with 20 teams each)? Boy, I miss the old days. I don't miss the uncertain champions and questions like what if the Rose Bowl Champ played the Sugar Bowl Champ or when Nixon stepped in and declared another team national champion!

What is on YOUR Game Day Menu?

I found some in-husk tamales that look really good… with chili defrosting to put on top of these. Can’t wait!

Sunday October 22, 2023

Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Los Angeles Rams: 4:05 p.m. ET, Fox​

Game Day Thread

The GDT is a live thread tradition here at ROD.

While we all get fired up watching the game, please remember our core principles;we always show respect for our team and each other.

Despite the emotional highs and lows watching a game, we will moderate this thread with that in mind, however please refrain from name calling. This applies to players, the Rams organization, and others.

This is the core rule of the GDT. Moderators are tasked to issue thread bans, at a minimum, to maintain this standard.

This is our team. Win or lose. Good days and bad. We are here for FUN, not to be dragged down.

A more loosely moderated atmosphere can be found in the chat room.

Go Rams!

———

ROD Chat Room;

Game Day Room

.

Sunday Night Football - Week 7 - Sunday, October 22, 2023

Miami Dolphins vs. Philadelphia Eagles: 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock

ROD Sportsbook:

Week 7 - Sunday, October 22, 2023

THE LATE GAMES
Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Los Angeles Rams: 4:05 p.m. ET, Fox
Arizona Cardinals vs. Seattle Seahawks: 4:05 p.m. ET, Fox
Green Bay Packers vs. Denver Broncos: 4:25 p.m. ET, CBS
Los Angeles Chargers vs. Kansas City Chiefs: 4:25 p.m. ET, CBS

THE EARLY GAMES
Detroit Lions vs. Baltimore Ravens: 1:00 p.m. ET, Fox
Cleveland Browns vs. Indianapolis Colts: 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS
Las Vegas Raiders vs. Chicago Bears: 1:00 p.m. ET, Fox
Buffalo Bills vs. New England Patriots: 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS
Washington Commodes vs. New York Giants: 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS
Atlanta Falcons vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 1:00 p.m. ET, Fox

SNF
Miami Dolphins vs. Philadelphia Eagles: 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock

Monday, October 23, 2023

San Francisco 49ers vs. Minnesota Vikings: 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC

————

ALREADY PLAYED

Thursday, October 19, 2023
Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New Orleans Saints: 8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video

Week 7 - Sunday, October 22, 2023

THE EARLY GAMES
Detroit Lions vs. Baltimore Ravens: 1:00 p.m. ET, Fox
Cleveland Browns vs. Indianapolis Colts: 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS
Las Vegas Raiders vs. Chicago Bears: 1:00 p.m. ET, Fox
Buffalo Bills vs. New England Patriots: 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS
Washington Commodes vs. New York Giants: 1:00 p.m. ET, CBS
Atlanta Falcons vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 1:00 p.m. ET, Fox

THE LATE GAMES
Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Los Angeles Rams: 4:05 p.m. ET, Fox
Arizona Cardinals vs. Seattle Seahawks: 4:05 p.m. ET, Fox
Green Bay Packers vs. Denver Broncos: 4:25 p.m. ET, CBS
Los Angeles Chargers vs. Kansas City Chiefs: 4:25 p.m. ET, CBS

SNF
Miami Dolphins vs. Philadelphia Eagles: 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock

Monday, October 23, 2023

San Francisco 49ers vs. Minnesota Vikings: 8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ABC

————

ALREADY PLAYED

Thursday, October 19, 2023
Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New Orleans Saints: 8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video

Would've been his second game winning Punt Return of the year. They claim he "incorrectly" called for a "fair catch" when it's quite clear he was pointing at the ball and telling his guys to clear out.

You see punt returns waving guys off all the time and then returning a punt off the bounce.

They were reviewing whether he stepped out and then a call from New York came in claiming this bullshit.

I bet the Hawkeye offense is the worst of all time, but you can't take this away from Coop.

He's one of the best DBs in the Nation and electrifying players in the Nation. I want the Rams to do EVERYTHING they can to get him.

He'd be such a game changer on Defense and in our return game.

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Pig farmer wins QB duel against "generational talent."



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Didn't see anything about this on here.

@LARAMSinFeb.

Great idea man, here it is.

Stats below are for Rams through 6 games, and Steelers through 5

Steelers defense:
Ranked 22nd in Run defense ; allowing 144 YPG
Ranked 12th in Pass defense ; allowing 246 YPG
Ranked 10th in scoring defense ; allowing 22 PPG
They have allowed 8 Passing TD's
" " " 4 Run TD's
Blitz: the Steelers blitz 36% of the time.... there are only 5 other teams that blitz more

NOTE: their defense is allowing more yards per run between the 20's, but is more stout in the Red Zone and allowing more TD's versus the pass

Steelers Offense is ranked 30th ..... not much to report here

Rams defense:
Ranked 24th in Run defense ; allowing 122 YPG
Ranked 14th in Pass defense ; allowing 208 YPG
Ranked 9th in Scoring Defense ; allowing 19.5 PPG
4 passing TD's
6 Run TD's
Rams blitz 20% of the time ( same percentage as the 49ers )

Rams offense is ranked 10th overall

NOTE: some of the stats are skewed due to the Steelers playing 1 less game ;
example: Rams have only allowed 10 TD's through 6 games, yet the Steelers have allowed 12 in just 5 games.

IMO, if the Rams Offense can stay out of long down & distance, they should keep the Steelers pass rush at bay. Also, their "D" has allowed 30 points to the 49er's and the Texans. They have not faced a passing attack like the Rams yet. So, I see their Pass D taking a hit this week.

I dont know what's going on....thought someone was taking this thread over for me


Lets get back on track and up the stakes a bit... 10k for closest and 20k for exact score prediction

We have Re-signed CB Shawn Jolly to the practice Squad, with the Kendrick news. Anyone have anything on this guy? I know he was on the practice squad/ training camp this year.

5'9" 175 from Appalachian State

Just heard this on ESPN, Will someone post who this is and some background? Cory Durden.