the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The NFL has always been a high-speed, high-impact spectacle, but in 2024, the league is making some of its biggest changes yet. Thanks to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and artificial intelligence, data is now shaping the way football is played, regulated, and even watched.
AWS, the NFL’s official data partner since 2017, tracks every player’s movement using sensors embedded in their shoulder pads and footballs. With millions of data points collected per game, AI now plays a critical role in analyzing player movement, reducing injury risks, and even rewriting the rules of football.
NFL’s 2024 Rule Changes: How AI Is Reshaping the Game
Two of the most significant rule changes for the 2024 NFL season came directly from AWS’s data findings:
✅ The Dynamic Kickoff Formation – Designed to reduce high-speed collisions, this new kickoff rule limits sprinting distance and prevents the violent crashes that made kickoffs the most dangerous play in football.
✅ The Hip-Drop Tackle Ban – Data showed that this tackle increased lower-body injuries by 20 times compared to standard plays. The rule change, unanimously approved by NFL owners, officially outlaws the technique.
Both rules will be strictly enforced for the first time during Super Bowl LIX, marking a new era of AI-driven football regulations.
AI: The Invisible Referee Controlling the Game
Football has long been a modern-day gladiator sport, where players collide at full speed in the pursuit of victory. But today, there’s an invisible referee on the field—one that no player can see, hear, or argue with.
AWS’s Next Gen Stats and Digital Athlete Program process over 500 million data points per season, helping the NFL predict injuries, analyze plays, and make real-time decisions about player safety.
Julie Souza, AWS’s Global Head of Sports, explained the power of AI in football:
🗣️ “The hip-drop tackle was causing injuries at 20x the rate of a normal play. The fact that we could identify that and prove it helped change the rules.”
AWS sensors track everything from player positioning to skeletal posture, using precise latitude and longitude coordinates to determine:
- How a player fell when tackled
- Whether they were in bounds
- Which injuries they’re most likely to suffer in specific situations
Souza emphasizes that AI isn’t about changing the game—it’s about protecting the players. “Why wouldn’t we use this data to make football safer? Fans, team owners, and players all want the same thing: to keep players on the field.”
The Decline of Kickoff Returns – and the Comeback in 2024
For years, kickoff returns have been fading from the NFL. In 2010, new rules encouraged touchbacks, allowing returners to kneel instead of sprinting toward the end zone. By 2023, 75% of all kickoffs resulted in touchbacks, reducing the excitement of one of football’s most electrifying plays.
But AWS data has brought the kickoff return back—with safety in mind.
📊 The 2024 Dynamic Kickoff Formation has increased returns by 57%, and kickoff touchdowns are at their highest since 2021.
Historically, some of the NFL’s greatest moments have come from legendary returners like:
🏈 Gale Sayers – Career kickoff return average: 30.56 yards per return
🏈 Travis Williams – 1967 single-season record: 41.1 yards per return
🏈 Dante Hall (“The Human Joystick”) – Known for weaving through defenders at lightning speed
Can the next generation of returners thrive in this new AI-controlled era? The NFL believes so—and the data backs it up.
Is Amazon Changing Football for Safety – or Profit?
While the NFL claims AWS is making the game safer, not all fans are convinced.
At a Manhattan sports bar, one particularly vocal fan, Joe, doubted Amazon’s motives.
🗣️ “The league spends too much money on these guys to let them get broken. The teams are just protecting their assets.”
Joe also suggested that AWS’s tracking could help Amazon predict which players are on a hot streak—leading to more jersey sales. And he’s not entirely wrong:
📈 Amazon’s Prime Video viewership jumped 11% thanks to its exclusive Thursday Night Football deal (a $100 billion contract running through 2033).
📢 NFL merchandise sales are booming, and Fanatics (the league’s official merch partner) strategically promotes winning teams—often using real-time AI-driven marketing.
So, is this about protecting players—or protecting profits?
The Hidden Danger AI Still Can’t Fix
Despite a 17% drop in concussions for the 2024 season, some experts argue that football’s biggest danger remains unsolved.
Dr. Thompson Maesaka, a neurologic rehabilitation specialist, warns that brain injuries aren’t just about massive hits—they’re about the repeated, smaller impacts.
🗣️ “It’s not the huge, life-altering concussions that make the stadium go, ‘Ohhh!’ It’s the 60 or 70 really small hits, over and over again, every game, every season, every career.”
This repeated trauma leads to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease. Offensive and defensive linemen—who take constant low-impact hits—are most at risk.
Maesaka believes no amount of AI can fully prevent these long-term injuries:
🗣️ “Football is a game where giant men crash into each other at full speed. I don’t think there’s anything that can truly stop what happens to these guys over time.”
The Future of Football: Data vs. Drama
AWS is revolutionizing the NFL, but it raises a critical question:
🤔 If AI can predict every play before it happens, will fans still love the game?
Football’s beauty has always been in its unpredictability—the Hail Mary passes, the shocking turnovers, the last-second touchdowns.
But now, with real-time AI predictions, fans can see:
🔹 How likely a pass is to be completed
🔹 Which defender will pressure the quarterback
🔹 The odds of a fourth-down conversion
Is this the evolution of football—or the end of its wild, unpredictable nature?
One thing is clear: whether you love it or hate it, the future of football is being shaped by AI. And just like Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator once asked:
🗣️ “Are you not entertained?”
Who cares…