DOVE VALLEY — The Denver Broncos are tossing out the tradition of printing 500-page playbooks every week for each of the 120 players, coaches, scouts and other personnel.
This season, the team will hand out iPads that feature the week’s game plan, scouting reports, video clips and other relevant data.
The digital transition will not only save trees but may also give the Broncos a competitive edge. Just two other teams in the National Football League — the Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Buccaneers — have discarded the printed playbook in favor of a tablet and an app.
Now when Broncos head coach John Fox adds a play, the update will be pushed automatically to the playbook app on each player’s iPad.
“The advantage is that when they leave the building, they can take everything home with them very easily and watch tape at night and review the game plan installation,” said Broncos general manager Brian Xanders. “This is their full-time job — to prepare and do whatever they can to help us win each week. “
Consumers have purchased millions of iPads since Apple introduced the tablet computer two years ago. But the NFL is starting only now to adopt the technology.
“The NFL is very protective of the game on the field and not allowing technology to alter the play on the field,” said Tony Lazzaro, director of football information systems for the Broncos.
Because of this, the league doesn’t allow electronic devices such as tablets on the sidelines during games.
But for the first time, players and coaches this season will have access to those devices in the locker room up until kickoff, Lazzaro said. Previously, the gadgets had to be removed 90 minutes prior to the start of the game.
The league may eventually allow them on the sidelines for specific purposes, such as for coaches and players to view still photos of in-game formations and plays. Currently, players are handed paper printouts of those images.
“There was a thought that we’d use tablets and iPads to flip through those pictures, but they have not approved that yet,” Xanders said “I can see it potentially moving that way.”
The Broncos figure the savings from not having to print tens of thousands of playbook pages each season will help offset the cost of purchasing 120 iPads with Verizon Wireless 4G access — many of them the top model featuring 64 gigabytes of data, which retail for $829 each.
For the digital playbook, the team partnered with Parker-based technology startup PlayerLync.
The PlayerLync app allows players and coaches to write notes and highlight plays using the tablet’s touchscreen. The playbooks are then saved on remote computer servers, allowing players to access notes from previous games. With paper playbooks, those notes are trashed each week.
A key component to the software is that it runs in the background even when a player is not reviewing the playbook, enabling the app to determine when a coach has an update to push to players, such as a new short-yardage and goal-line package.
“It used to require players to come in, meet as a group, hand off pieces of paper, ‘Here’s your new play,’ ” said Bob Paulsen, PlayerLync chief executive. “Now it’s all going to be automatically downloaded.”
When a player isn’t connected to Wi-Fi, the app will update using the iPad’s high-speed connection on Verizon’s LTE network.
Paulsen said the company is in discusssions with a handful of other NFL teams on similar initiatives.
Teams guard the playbook like a national treasure. With the iPad playbook, the Broncos have two ways to secure their game plan.
The Verizon network connection will allow the team to remotely wipe the iPad if it is lost or stolen.
“If you leave a hard-copy playbook somewhere by accident, it’s out there,” said Bob Kelley, a Verizon spokesman. “If you lose your tablet, remotely we can wipe it, so any information on that tablet can be scrubbed.”
If the network connection is disabled, the PlayerLync app has a “time bomb” feature that deletes the playbook based on a set time determined by the Broncos.
The team is also working to immediately push game video to the iPads as soon as its available, usually little more than an hour after each game.
In addition to the playbook and video clips, the Broncos are also incorporating business and player operations into the iPad.
“At this robust level, as far as we know, we’re the first team to integrate everything digital on a tablet,” said Derek Thomas, a team marketing official.
So if the team makes another playoff run this season, it may have more to do with the technology than the new starting quarterback.
“Hopefully, by improving the ability to communicate throughout the organization, they’re going to win more games, so we’re going to take credit for a lot of those,” Paulsen joked.
Andy Vuong : 303-954-1209 or facebook.com/byandyvuong
