The Footage the NFL Won't Show You

Despite Its TV Ubiquity, the League Won't Share "All-22" Footage; Second-Guessing the Coach

By REED ALBERGOTTI
WSJ

Every play during an NFL game is filmed from multiple angles in high definition. There are cameras hovering over the field, cameras lashed to the goalposts and cameras pointed at the coaches, who have to cover their mouths to call plays.

But for all the footage available, and despite the $4 billion or so the NFL makes every year by selling its broadcast rights, there's some footage the league keeps hidden.

Every play during an NFL game is filmed from multiple angles in high definition. But there's some footage the league keeps hidden as Reed Albergotti explains on Lunch Break.

If you ask the league to see the footage that was taken from on high to show the entire field and what all 22 players did on every play, the response will be emphatic. "NO ONE gets that," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy wrote in an email. This footage, added fellow league spokesman Greg Aiello, "is regarded at this point as proprietary NFL coaching information."

For decades, NFL TV broadcasts have relied most heavily on one view: the shot from a sideline camera that follows the progress of the ball. Anyone who wants to analyze the game, however, prefers to see the pulled-back camera angle known as the "All 22."

(More here.)