Arizona Cardinals Add ‘Great Invention’ Mobile Virtual Player Dummies To Improve Tackling
Glendale, AZ – October 26, 2015 – University of Phoenix Stadium: Tyrann Mathieu (32) of the Arizona Cardinals during a regular season Monday Night Football game
(Photo by Scott Clarke / ESPN Images)
When the Arizona Cardinals finished7-8-1 a year ago, coaches knew one of the reasons why: missed tackles.
So the team is returning to the fundamentals, using remote controlled tackling dummies in offseason workouts and later in the fall to help players refine what head coach Bruce Arians calls “a lost art.”
The dummies, named MVPs (Mobile Virtual Players), are designed to replicate the weight and height of a college or professional player and, by simulating human motion, help players practice tackling, blocking, pursuing, evading and throwing at a mobile target.
The Cardinals are the latest NFL team to add the MVPs into their training regimen. They’re controlled remotely and powered by a motor, and the Lebanon, N.H.-based company that makes them— called MVP LLC — says they’re the world’s first and only motorized, self-righting, mobile training dummy.
“We’ve used the donuts that came out last year,” Arians explained last month at the NFL Owners Meetings in Phoenix. “They really helped guys putting their head on the side. But it’s not the same as going to the ground, taking something to the ground and getting your body accustomed to going to the ground without using your head.”
Several college and pro teams — including the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens — have already tested the MVPs, and the company says its helped those players learn better techniques that will lead to safer, more effective tackling.
“We have a responsibility to protect our players and preserve the game, and we can do it through technology,” said Buddy Teevens, MVP Board Chairman and Dartmouth head coach.
Teevens and MVP CEO John Currier detailed the technology at the NFL’s 1st and Future Event during Super Bowl weekend, a competition between nine startups focused on using new technology to improve athlete safety. MVP won the “Training the Athlete” category, receiving a $50,000 grant to continue its innovation.
Arians, who says the Cardinals will start using the MVPs this year, calls them “a great new invention.”
“Guys don’t know how to use their arms,” Arians said.
“I think you’ll continue to see those types of innovations in the sport where tackling becomes a better art form.”
Cardinals defensive tackle Corey Peters told cardinals.com: “It makes sense. To me, it’s amazing how far the technology has come with that sort of thing. I think that’s always a great thing, because we’re not going to spend a great deal amount of time tackling each other. Being able to get some full speed reps with some live action, will, I think, be beneficial. Especially for things like special teams.”
