What data chips in footballs can — and can’t — do

10:14 AM ET

The NFL plans to place data chips in all game footballs during the 2016 preseason, and likely for Thursday night regular-season games as well. To answer your first question: No, it does not appear the chips will be used to measure PSI inflation levels. (Although they could.)

So exactly what data will the chips provide? Neither the NFL nor the company involved with its NextGen stats program is ready to address it publicly. But after speaking to people with close ties to the industry, I can offer up a number of likely benefits. Some could help the NFL administrate games more efficiently, many will be targeted as television content and a few hoped-for byproducts appear unreachable at the moment.

Here they are, in a snappy Q&A format:

Wait, why can’t this measure PSI?

As I noted Monday night on checking PSI, the NFL’s chips using won’t be equipped with that capability. The chip itself is a three-gram piece of technology inserted inside the football, underneath the laces, designed to avoid any change in the ball’s weight or difference in its action while in the air.

It’s important to note that the chip could be modified at any point to measure PSI, if the NFL decides it wants to. (There are no indications it does.) The necessary addition is the same technology that warns automobile drivers about low air pressure in their tires.

But it should measure everything the ball does, right?

Correct. The NFL will receive real-time readings of the ball’s precise location, speed and trajectory. When triangulated with the RFID chips inserted in the shoulder pads of players, it can provide relative distance as well. You might be interested, for example, in exactly …

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