It’s Week 3 of the NFL season and some of us already think the season is over for their rooting interest. It’s a long season for certain and things can/will improve, but that doesn’t mean some of us want to watch Carson Wentz play football. But on a lighter note…

The NFL has officially moved on from the usual “chain gang” method of measuring first downs to a new camera-based technology. This method hopes to not only be more accurate, but take far less time compared to chain gangs of old slowly measuring the football. This is probably a good thing in the long run, but I can’t be the only one who will miss the chains-based drama of a football being just over/short of the first-down marker.

I am writing this as an excuse for you to read this article from Kalyn Kahler, a remarkably talented young sportswriter who was at SI, then Defector, then The Athletic and now over at ESPN covering the NFL. Back in 2013, the first-down chains broke TWICE during Eagles playoff games, something very unprecedented. So Kahler decided she needed to write a story about the chain gang. And it was a deeply fascinating piece on the topic.

Enjoy football. Post your thoughts below. Have fun.