RFID specialist Zebra Technologies is in its seventh season as the Official On-Field Player-Tracking Provider of the National Football League (NFL). This past season, Zebra placed two RFID tags in the shoulder pads of each player, tagging almost 3,000 players in total, according to John Pollard, VP of Business Development for Zebra Sports. To enable the data collection, Zebra attaches RFID tags to player equipment and footballs, transmitting real-time location data to receivers positioned around the stadium that gather metrics such as player speed, distance traveled, orientation and acceleration.  More than 20,000 footballs used in games and by teams at their practice facilities were equipped with an RFID tag, Pollard said, to “track things like rotational information and velocity of the ball.”   The RFID tags are about the diameter of a nickel – and about as thick as two five-cent pieces on top of each other, Pollard previously told Printed