Steelers MVP robotic player

Many major sports teams and their athletes have began to explore new technological avenues for them to enhance and improve their skills. Whether it’s virtual reality or something has small as advanced statistics, technology is helping to improve the quality of the sports we watch.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are about to take that to a whole new level.

According to the Steelers’ website, Pittsburgh is beginning to work with Mobile Virtual Players. They are…

“A robotic dummy that is operated by remote control, is the newest technology introduced into football, something developed and first implemented at Dartmouth College, and is now being experimented with by the Steelers during offseason workouts at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.”

That’s right, the robots were invented by Dartmouth students. According to the product’s website, Dartmouth football head coach Buddy Teevens wanted to avoid injuries in practice. As a result, he banned tackling and later came up with the idea for the Mobile Virtual Player.

“It’s an awesome piece of football technology,” Steelers’ Head Coach Mike Tomlin. “I am always interested in ways to utilize technology in terms of teaching football. We are excited to get a close look at it.“The applications we are quickly finding are endless. It never gets tired. It runs at an appropriate football speed. All of the position groups are getting an opportunity to use it. It’s funny, you just put it on the field and watch the guys and they show you the applications. It’s been fun watching that.”

After Teevens banned tackling and began teaching it through a series of drills on dummies, he worked with engineers at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering on the MVPs.

The MVPs can be used for tackling, passing, running, and other drills as well. It has the ability to cut, weave, stop, and start according to its website.
Pittsburgh is the first NFL team to work with the robots, which are still in testing. The company’s goal is to have them available for real use in 2017.

“We were tasked with how can we practice tackling without utilizing another player,” Elliot Kastner said, a former defensive tackle for Dartmouth who is the co-founder/director of research and development for Mobile Virtual Player.  “What it comes down to is repetitive impact on players is what we are trying to eliminate. We realized the safest thing to do is pull one of those players out of the drill. It was introduced to reduce player on player contact.”

Tomlin heard about the robots around a year ago, and looking into it with Danny Rooney, a member of the Steelers’ staff who played football at Dartmouth.

“The players are generally open, particularly this time of year, to new things,” said Tomlin. “We always try to challenge them with some new tool that will help them grow and develop, and they are always looking for new tools to help them grow and develop. I think they are excited.

For now, the Steelers will be tackling robots. In the future, it will be real NFL players. It’ll be interesting to see if the new technology helps or hurts Pittsburgh in the 2016 season.

[Pittsburgh Steelers]

About David Lauterbach

David is a writer for The Comeback. He enjoyed two Men's Basketball Final Four trips for Syracuse before graduating in 2016. If The Office or Game of Thrones is on TV, David will be watching.