The All-22 Coaches Film had been available with NFL Game Pass and then NFL+ Premium for years, but it frustratingly went backwards. Features, such as the ability to sort plays, were taken away. Overall, it became more difficult to watch the All-22—and, for most people, it wasn’t worth paying for a subpar product.
NFL Pro was just announced, and it might change things. Access to Next Gen Stats, which gives “95 unique player and team performance stats,” is a headliner, but I am much more focused on the new NFL Film Room.
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— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) August 16, 2024
NFL Film Room gives a vastly superior experience for those watching the All-22 film. If you are unaware, the All-22 Coaches Film is what players, coaches, and executives watch to scout opponents, scout players, and self-scout. It gives a wider view of the field compared to the broadcast angle, allowing you to see all 22 players in the game.
To test it out, I wanted to see plays from Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs from last year’s season opener against the Chiefs.
I simply searched for Gibbs’ name with Week 1 as the week (you can also do all weeks instead of choosing an individual week) and his plays popped up. Then I toggled “Rushing” to see his seven rushing attempts that night.
As you can see on the right side, it shows the players on the field for a particular play, which is a great addition. Also, you can toggle for sideline view or the endzone angle—though it would be better to allow the option to show both back-to-back instead of manually having to click each one every play.
You can also do more complex things with NFL Pro in the Film Room. For example, they give this case in Film Room 101:
Another example query: How to watch every sack caused by the Philly Defense in a redzone situation
Set Week = All in the Primary Filter Group
Search for “Philadelphia Eagles”
Click “Defense”
Open “Play Situation” and select “Redzone Play” under the “Play Type” dropdown
Open “Play Result” and toggle on “Sack”
It even allows users to toggle the type of route a receiver runs (for example, if you want to see all the vertical routes from George Pickens), play situation and yards to go, explosive plays of 10+ yards, the score differential, the quarter, and whether the play includes pre-snap motion.
So, it’s a lot more in-depth than the previous version of All-22 access was, which was basically not good enough to justify the price for most people.
That said, there are still certainly some issues with the All-22 on NFL Pro, including:
- While it lets you sort by Rushing or Receiving for a player (or just every play a player is in), there should be the option to see all “Touches” (i.e. combined rushing and receiving) for a player. This should be a very easy addition.
- Unless I’m missing something, fast forwarding and rewinding remains too tedious. You should be able to use arrow keys to move forward and backward within a play.
- NFL Pro is currently available on desktop and mobile, but ideally this will be something that can come to other devices like Xbox and smart TVs—with the ability to fast forward or rewind smoothly using those controllers.
- I don’t see any access to preseason All-22 footage, which I would like to see for bottom-of-the-roster players.
- Right now, only the 2022 and 2023 seasons are available as past years, so hopefully they add more years.
Also, we’ll see what happens, but we would think the All-22 will be uploaded in a timelier fashion with NFL Pro. It took too long last season for games to be made available on NFL+. If that isn’t corrected, it’s an issue, as there is only so much time to watch and absorb film before the next week of games begin. All Sunday games should be available Tuesday morning at the latest.
All-22 aside, the interface for NFL Pro is very good. Even the weekly schedule—which includes game lines, date, time, and network—is simple and easy to digest.
It looks limited to just five things (perhaps there as examples of what you can toggle), but there’s a Fantasy League Winners section that allows you to jump to things like “CeeDee Lamb In-Routes” to watch the in-breaking routes from Lamb last season. As stated earlier (vertical routes by George Pickens as the example), you can manually toggle and sort through the type of receiving play. Hopefully they eventually add run types, too.
The All-22 product over the past few years was not worth the frustration in my opinion, but with the launch of NFL Pro I went ahead and signed up for a year of NFL+ Premium ($99.99/year, with $14.99 per month as a monthly option).
There’s room for improvement, but NFL Pro is a major step in the right direction.