My
brother Jack came up with the clever saying, “The smarter the
smartphone, the dumber the apps”. I really like the official free
NFL app on my Android phone and use it frequently during the NFL
season, but the “Drive Chart” feature does have a couple of
glaring bugs.
I
have noticed one in particular all season and have a hard time
believing it has not been fixed. If you look closely at the above
partial screen shot from my phone, Arizona had the ball first and 10
at their own 34 when Kerwynn Williams ran for 9 yards. It is now
second and 1 at the Arizona 43 yard line however the down and distance
line displayed under the score still shows “1st & 10
ARI 34” as if a play had not taken place. For most plays during a
game the down and distance display is one play behind the current
state of the game leaving me to do the math to compute the real down
and distance.
The
second bug, which I noticed yesterday for the first time, is that the
play description for kickoff returns shows the incorrect final
position of the ball. For example, Arizona kicked off to New Orleans
with the play description stating that the kick went 54 yards and was
returned 15 yards to the New Orleans 11 yard line. This is incorrect.
The 54 yard kick was fielded at the New Orleans 11 and after the 15
yard return was actually positioned at the New Orleans 29 yard line.
A
third problem is an annoying 'feature'. If you click on a play
description in the drive chart, it is expanded to to show the full
detail of the play but then automatically reverts back to the
abbreviated description after two seconds. In many cases two seconds
is not nearly enough time to read and comprehend everything that is
there. This feature really should be click to expand and click when
done.
