The United States Football League is about to begin its 2022 season, and the league is going to experiment with some new ideas. During a preseason game, the league debuted how it will decide first downs using new technology.
The USFL will have chips implanted in their footballs that can determine if the ball has reached the first-down marker.
The technology is cool, but it isn’t as new as it seems. According to Pro Football Talk, the NFL already has chips in its footballs that are used for Next Gen Stats and tracking data. However, the league doesn’t think the chip would be accurate enough to determine first downs in a game.