Coaches Game Film

The holy grail of football film study has always been the coaches game film. Sometimes called "All-22" as it shows all twenty-two players on the field. Something that you never see on TV. Maybe at the snap in goal line situations might you see all the players in one frame. "All-22" is unique and has always been in the sole possession of coaches and select analysts like Ron Jaworski, Greg Cosell and Mike Mayock. The fans and most of the media have only heard mention of this treasure of football insight. Quite frankly few fans and none of the media could handle this information. They still can't. Despite fan and media ignorance the NFL is making "All-22" available to all. Their Game Rewind package will include access to this gold mine starting this season. It's an awesome thing to have. It'll take a lot of viewing and rewinding to truly understand what all twenty-two players are doing on a single play. Multiply that by 120 to 150 plays in a game. That's a lot of viewing. Even that incredible amount of seemingly seamless information is littered with holes. No one but the coaches and the players know the play call and the corresponding player assignments. Just because you can see clearly what happened during a play you don't necessarily know the responsibilities of each of the players. The player that made an incredible play may have actually been the player that screwed up what was supposed to be done. If there's a mistake, the responsible player may not be the one feeling all the stares and the fingers. "All-22" is an incredible tool and I'll be looking into using it. I'm just under no illusion that every mystery of every play will suddenly be revealed to me. It'll take years to truly understand what I see on this game film. The media would be best served to view it the same way. I doubt that they will. The media is dangerous now because so many know so little about the game. They'll be even more dangerous when access to "All-22" makes them think that they know it all. I urge people to view this film but only with the understanding that revealing this little secret gives rise to so many more.