When a play in any sport works to perfection, it’s a satisfying moment. When the play wins a championship, it can be absolutely beautiful. Consider Brown Right 31 Wedge. In the closing seconds of the 1967 NFL championship game—better known to sports fans as the Ice Bowl—the Green Bay Packers successfully ran that play to defeat the Dallas Cowboys and win the title in sub-zero temperatures. The Packers had just added the 31 Wedge to their playbook earlier that week specifically because they saw a weakness in the Cowboys’ defensive line. Successfully executed, the play became a part of football lore and remains so nearly 50 years later.
Not every pro or major college team will win a game as memorable as the Ice Bowl, but all dream that their efforts and plans will get them there. The sports playbook is a key component of those dreams. It bridges the gap between the coaching staff’s strategies and the talent of the players. The proliferation of tablet technology has opened up exciting new possibilities for the sports playbook. Devices such as iPad and Surface are revolutionizing how teams organize, revise, and analyze their strategies and tactics. Here are four benefits of using a digital sports playbook:
Video Integration
A sports playbook that is just sheets of paper in a binder or a folder full of email printouts is missing out on the explosion of video that dominates just about every other aspect of pro and major college sports. Game film has been important for decades, but with every game televised or streamed and almost every practice filmed, the amount of footage available to teams is impressive. Tablet-based solutions can easily incorporate all this video into the playbook itself. If 31 Wedge was in a sports playbook today, athletes and coaches might see how their team ran it in practice, how well it worked in games, or how other teams executed or defended it. All this could be attached to the play’s file and be easily viewed on an iPad.
Easy, and Automatic, Updates
The sports playbook isn’t an absolute, unchangeable document—it’s fluid, amendable, and dynamic. Tablet-based solutions offer a way to easily add, remove, and revise plays, video, and other team-related content. For example, if a defensive backs coach wants to tweak a nickel package, he can make a change to the play and save it, and his safeties and cornerbacks will be notified of the update and be able to view it on their tablets. The video coordinator may also be notified and be able to add useful game film to the file. If a player leaves the team, his playbook can be wiped, remotely, from his iPad. Pushing and pulling content is a breeze with a digital sports playbook, which gives coaches and players more time to study the plays whether than worry about technical concerns.
Convenience
Studying the playbook and game film is no longer relegated to the team’s practice facility. With tablets, players and coaches can view content wherever and whenever it’s convenient. If an athlete is out with an injury, he can still stay on top of the team’s plays. Coaches can work on the playbook while on vacation or on the recruiting trail. A team can finish a road game and be watching video from that game on the plane ride back home. This level of convenience, unheard of even a decade ago, is becoming essential to teams’ success.
Incredible Depth
The modern sports playbook is complex, to say the least. One typical NFL play might include a dozen variations, each of which every player must know. Digital playbooks not only handle this incredible level of depth, but enhance it. The aforementioned video integration is one way this happens, as is the ability to telestrate content (just like on TV) and attach text, audio, or video messages. A tablet-based solution can organize whatever a sports playbook throws at it and then some.
What championship-winning play, designed or improvised, stands out in your mind as the most memorable in sports history?
