NFL Finalizing Plans To Insert Chip In Game Balls

By ESPN

The NFL is finalizing plans to insert custom-made data chips into the game balls used in the 2016 preseason and Thursday night regular-season games, a league source said Sunday night.

The data would be used for research that could spark significant changes in officiating, kicking and other areas as soon as the 2017 season.

The Toronto Sun reported earlier Sunday that the league would use chips in K-balls to help determine the potential impact of narrowing the goalposts sometime in the future.

The data will tell the league how close each kick comes to the uprights and thus help project how many additional kicks would be missed if the uprights were closer together.

The NFL added a level of difficulty to extra points last season, pushing them back to a 33-yard kick, and saw a modest reduction in conversion rates.

Field goals, however, continued to hover at historic levels. In 2015, NFL place-kickers made 84.5 percent of field goal attempts -- the second-best rate in league history.

But the chip program appears to have a larger intent than simply research for kickers.

All 32 NFL teams were recently informed of plans to use a chip-equipped ball for all plays based in part on feedback from a number of veteran quarterbacks. They were asked to ensure that the chip-equipped football felt similar to the traditional football and that it did not act differently in the air.

For years, the NFL has been investigating the possibility of using chips in footballs to help improve the inexact science of ball placement.

Former Eagles Player, Coach Dies

Marion Campbell, a former All-Pro on the Philadelphia Eagles' 1960 championship team who later went on to become their head coach, died Wednesday at the age of 87, the team announced Sunday night.

"Marion Campbell will be missed by the Eagles community but also remembered for his spirited impact on our game," Eagles owner Jeff Lurie said in a statement. "Like Chuck Bednarik, he was a great two-way player during a special era in NFL history. He played with the type of toughness that our town so deeply admires."

A fourth-round draft pick of the San Francisco 49ers in 1952 out of Georgia, Campbell served in the United States Army before embarking on an NFL career that would span eight seasons, two with the 49ers and six with the Eagles.

Nicknamed the "Swamp Fox," Campbell eventually returned to Philadelphia after his playing days were over to serve as defensive coordinator on Dick Vermeil's staff, a role he held for six seasons and included a Super Bowl appearance in 1980.

Campbell was later named as Vermeil's successor following the coach's unexpected retirement in 1982. The Eagles went 17-29-1 in Campbell's three seasons at the helm, and he was fired with one game remaining in the 1985 season.

Brady Will Not Appeal Suspension to Supreme Court

Tom Brady announced Friday that he will not appeal his four-game Deflategate suspension to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying in a message on his Facebook page that he will "no longer proceed with the legal process."

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected Brady's latest appeal of the suspension Wednesday, meaning that his last hope to avoid serving the suspension would be to appeal to the Supreme Court.

"While I was disappointed with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision not to rehear Tom Brady's case, I am most frustrated that Tom was denied his right to a fair and impartial process," New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said in a statement Friday. "The league's investigation into a football pressure matter was flawed and biased from the start, and has been discredited nearly unanimously by accredited academics and scientists.

"The penalty imposed by the NFL was unprecedented, unjust and unreasonable, especially given that no empirical or direct evidence of any kind showed Tom did anything to violate League rules prior to, during or after the 2015 AFC Championship Game. What Tom has had to endure throughout this 18-month ordeal has been, in my opinion, as far removed from due process as you could ever expect in this country."

Although Brady indicated that he has dropped out of the appeal process, the NFL Players Association said in a statement that it still might petition the ruling to the Supreme Court.

"After careful consideration and discussion with Tom Brady, the NFLPA will not be seeking a stay of the four game suspension with the 2nd Circuit," the union's statement said. "This decision was made in the interest of certainty and planning for Tom prior to the New England Patriots season. We will continue to review all of our options and we reserve our rights to petition for cert to the Supreme Court."